Virginia Car Insurance Laws and Requirements

Let’s take a deep dive into the laws surrounding car insurance in Virginia.

Auto Insurance Requirements in Virginia

While Virginia was one of two states that didn’t require car insurance, as of July 2024, it began requiring minimum coverage for all drivers. If you plan to get on the road, you’ll need to purchase the liability coverage required by Virginia state law.¹

Penalties for Driving Without Insurance

If you’re caught driving without insurance in Virginia, you’ll face the following penalties:

• License and registration suspension until you pay a $600 statutory fee
• SR-22 for three years
• $145 reinstatement fee
• Suspension of license, registration, and license plates

Carry proof of insurance every time you drive, whether that’s an SR-22 form proving you have the minimum required insurance or an insurance ID. Even if you have a policy but you lack proof, the state will view you as an uninsured driver.

Virginia requires liability coverage only, but if you want coverage for you and your passengers, you’ll have to buy additional coverages such as:

• Comprehensive: Sometimes, an event can damage your car that’s not a collision, like auto theft, vandalism, or inclement weather, like hurricanes, hail, and tornadoes. For those cases, you’ll need comprehensive car insurance coverage to repair or replace your car.
• Collision: Collision coverage, on the other hand, applies to your damages from collisions, whether or not you were at fault. If you financed or leased your vehicle, your lender will likely require you to carry comprehensive and collision coverage.
• Medical payments coverage: MedPay covers your and your passengers’ injuries in accidents you caused, although you can use it to supplement another party’s bodily injury coverage in accidents you didn’t cause.
• Uninsured motorist coverage: Uninsured motorist pays for damages and injuries if someone hits your car who lacks insurance or if you’re involved in a hit-and-run. You can stack coverage, meaning if you have multiple cars on your policy with uninsured motorist coverage, you can multiply your limit by your number of cars to get a higher limit per car.
• Underinsured motorist coverage: You can also get a bundle of uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, which also includes those who lack sufficient liability insurance to cover your losses. Depending on their coverage limits, the financial responsibility the law requires may not be sufficient.

According to our research, the average cost of car insurance in Virginia is $1,808 a year for full coverage and $699 for minimum coverage.

If you just purchased a new car in Virginia, you’ll have to get it reinspected within a year of your purchase date or first inspection and once per year after. While the state does not maintain a list of all 4,200 inspection stations, they include:

• Dealerships
• Automotive repair facilities; eligible garages will have a blue-and-white signs that says “Official Inspection Station”

Find a safety inspection site here: https://vsp.virginia.gov/find-a-safety-office/.

You’ll pay the following fees for your inspection, according to the Virginia State Police.²

But what about vehicles you purchased and registered out of state? If you live in any of the following counties or cities, you may have to get an emissions inspection every two years:

• Alexandria
• Arlington
• Fairfax
• Falls Church
• Loudoun
• Manassas
• Manassas Park
• Prince William
• Strafford

Emissions inspections are required for the following types of vehicles:

However, the following types of vehicles are exempt from mandatory emissions testing:

• Fire and rescue equipment
• Motorcycles
• Qualified hybrid vehicles achieving 50 or more city miles per gallon (mpg), or 48 or more mpg for model years 2008 and 2009
• Registered antique vehicles
• Registered military surplus motor vehicles
• Tactical military vehicles
• Vehicles powered by clean fuels exclusively, which include compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, hydrogen, hythane, and electricity

Emissions testing requires a $28 fee. Find a testing location near you.

Virginia has strict laws surrounding distracted driving. All drivers are banned from driving while using handheld electronic devices, which means that texting and driving is illegal. This law is under primary enforcement, meaning that police can pull you over for this violation on its own. Penalties for texting and driving include three points per violation and a fine based on the offense number:

• First: $125
• Second and subsequent: $250³

Virginia law now requires all drivers to have auto insurance, with limits increasing in 2025. You’ll want more than minimum liability coverage in Virginia, especially if you live in a more populated area like Virginia Beach, Norfolk, or Chesapeake, where 9, 18, and 7 percent of the state’s fatal car crashes occurred in 2022, respectively. Collectively, that is one-third of all the fatal crashes in Virginia.⁴ Higher limits and more coverage will protect you financially in the event of a serious accident.