New to California, Already a Good Driver?

Moving brings a new license, new plates and a new insurer, and it is easy to assume your driving history stays behind. For the Good Driver Discount, it doesn't, in either direction: your clean years count, and so do your tickets.

Who qualifies

The criteria are in Insurance Code section 1861.025: licensed for the previous three years; no more than one violation point in that time, counting a principally-at-fault property-damage accident as a point; no principally-at-fault injury accident in that time; and no DUI conviction in the previous ten years. The Good Driver regulation, 10 CCR 2632.13.1, fills in the parts that matter to a newcomer:

• The three-year licensing requirement is met by a license held in any jurisdiction. Years licensed in Arizona, Texas or New York count.
• An out-of-state violation may receive one point for each point it would carry in California, and it isn't counted twice if it also appears on your California record.

Expect the history to be checked. California's rating regulation builds the driving record from the DMV record and comparable out-of-state conviction records, and an insurer must verify it for every listed driver when you apply. A ticket from your old state that you leave off the application is likely to surface anyway, and a quote that changes after you have switched is the outcome to avoid.

A hypothetical shows how it works. Someone licensed in Oregon for nine years, with one speeding conviction eighteen months ago and nothing else, moves to Sacramento. They meet the licensing test through their Oregon years, and the one Oregon point is within the one-point allowance, so they can be quoted a Good Driver Discount policy from their first California application.

If your licensing history is from another country, section 1861.025(d) presumes you qualify once you have been licensed in the U.S. or Canada for at least 18 months and meet the criteria for that period.

How to ask for it

1. Give the date you were first licensed anywhere, not the issue date of your new California license.
2. List every state you have been licensed in over the past three years, and every violation and accident in that time, wherever it happened.
3. Ask plainly: "Is this quote for a Good Driver Discount policy?"
4. If a company won't write you, ask for its reasons in writing; our page on being turned down as a good driver explains the rule.

What to check on your declarations page

• Confirmation that the policy is a Good Driver Discount policy.
• The date first licensed for each driver; see checking that date.
• The California garaging address, and a mileage estimate that reflects your new commute rather than your old one.

When it won't apply yet

• When you have two points across all the states you have driven in during the past three years.
• When you were principally at fault in an injury accident in the past three years.
• When you have been licensed for less than three years in total.

Two other California rules help newcomers. The absence of prior insurance cannot, by itself, be used against you in rating, so arriving without a California policy history isn't a penalty in itself. Loyalty credit is narrower: a persistency credit can't be based on coverage from a non-affiliated insurer, so years with your old company generally don't carry over as loyalty unless the new company is an affiliate.

Bring your history with you and request a quote as a California good driver.