Sean: "Insurance comapanies usually only increase your rates after a ticket if you call and ask how much your rate is going to go up. They don't check up on your dmv records because that costs them money. They depend on people to call in and tell them."

In the U.S. I think this varies quite a bit from state to state. Where I'm at in Washington, insurance companies rely on self-confession on renewal forms up to a point, and they don't get any reports from out of state so far as I am aware. However, I have friends in Massachusetts who have been hammered by automatic reporting of points from DMV to insurance companies, and New Jersey also sounds this way based on some conversations I had while working on a project there. I think some of the east coast states even share point/violation data with other states in the region. From Muzza's post, it sounds like CA is *supposed* to work this way. I suppose it could also vary by the aggressiveness of the particular insurance company.

Jim