I believe this will cause a serious decline in the number of insured’s in Arizona. My agency has 17 locations and we write over 2400 policies a month. A large percentage of our client’s come to Oasis because they were told they need an sr-22 or a non owner policy with an sr-22. By eliminating this requirement , the number of uninsured drivers will jump dramatically. The state of Arizona already has issues when it comes to no insurance violations. The Arizona Agents Alliance recently had a lobbyist assist them in trying to tighten up the holes in the no insurance laws but it apparently had no effect.
As of right now if a person gets a no insurance violation ticket they go to court and can show they just purchased insurance and have the fine dropped or lowered. They can even in many cases, “promise” to go buy insurance in the next 30 days and again the judge will dismiss or lower the fine. The law is written that on a second no insurance violation the fine is to be mandatory but the judge has no way of knowing it is their second or third violation.
These same violators continue to get no insurance tickets and the sr-22 was a great deterrent to stopping them. The state was notified much quicker and responded faster when they were notified that someone had their sr-22 canceled.
In my opinion Russell Pearce. who used to work for the Department of Motor Vehicles , is a major opponent of all things that the independent insurance agent believes in. He has worked tirelessly to root out all Hispanics in our community . He has worked to stop the Arizona Agents Alliance bill last year to help strengthen insurance regulations as well. If enforcement of the insurance laws was strengthened instead of relaxed the state would see a HUGE revenue increase from the fines. They would also see a huge increase in the number of insured motorists in Arizona.
Arizona is already facing huge budget deficits. This would actually lower state income with less insurance policies. It will also eventually cause an increase in uninsured motorists and then an increase in under and uninsured motorists insurance costs.