SR-22, FR-44, and the other names for the same filing

A court or a state agency has told you to file something. Depending on which state, the document is called an SR-22, an FR-44, a certificate of insurance, or a certificate of motor vehicle liability insurance — and two of those are the same instrument while the others are not. The amounts behind them run from $10,000 to $300,000. This page sorts out which word you are holding.

Every word for it, and what turns on the difference

Read the middle column first. Almost every term a driver is handed comes from an insurer, a court clerk or a form, and almost none of them is the term the statute uses — which matters, because the statute is where the amounts and the deadline live.

The single most useful line in that table is the first one. The SR-22 is an association form, published by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, and Virginia's statute names it as such. That is the explanation for the thing everyone finds confusing: the form number is identical across state lines and the money behind it is not remotely identical.

Why the same filing has four names

The form is national by adoption, not by law. The amounts are not.

No federal statute is involved, but the paperwork behaves as though one were, because the states adopted a common form through an administrators' association rather than each inventing one. So the document that lands on a desk in Phoenix and the one that lands in Tallahassee look alike and certify wildly different sums.

Some states legislate the amounts and ignore the form

Florida is the clean example. Its financial responsibility chapter sets the ordinary proof figure, sets a much higher figure for a driver convicted of driving under the influence, and never names a form in either place. Searching the Florida statutes for the string most people type returns nothing — the chapter index and the three operative sections were read for this page and neither “SR-22” nor “FR-44” appears in any of them.

That is not an oversight. It is a division of labour: the legislature sets the exposure, the department chooses the stationery. It also means any page that cites a Florida statute for a Florida form name is citing something that is not there.

Some states name the form in the statute, and then move the money

Virginia does the opposite. One section names both the SR-22 and the FR-44, and a second section attaches the doubled limits to a specific list of convictions. The amounts themselves are never written out — the statute says “double” and points at the ordinary minimum.

Which means Virginia's FR-44 figure is arithmetic rather than text. Today the ordinary minimum is $50,000 per person / $100,000 per accident / $25,000 property damage, so the FR-44 is $100,000 per person / $200,000 per accident / $50,000 property damage. On the day Virginia next moves the ordinary minimum, the FR-44 moves by itself, and every page that typed the old number out by hand becomes wrong without anyone editing it.

And some states describe the whole machine without the word

Arizona's chapter explains who files, what the certificate must contain, what happens if it lapses and what the alternatives are, and never uses the number a searcher would type. Texas calls it a certificate of motor vehicle liability insurance. Neither is being obscure; both predate the form number becoming the popular name.

What the difference is worth, in dollars and in years

This is the part the naming confusion actually costs money on. The same word, in two states, is two different products; and in one state, two words are two different products.

The Florida gap is 10 times, not a surcharge

An ordinary Florida filing certifies $10,000 for injury to one person. A Florida filing after a driving-under-the-influence conviction certifies $100,000. Same state, same filing mechanism, 10 times the cover — and the second one has to be carried for 3 years. Anyone collecting quotes without knowing which of the two applies to them is collecting numbers that cannot be compared.

Virginia's gap is exactly double, by construction

Virginia reaches a similar place by a different route, and the doubling applies to all three limits rather than to the headline one. The trigger list is specific: it is the subdivision covering driving under the influence, maiming while under the influence, and driving on a license forfeited for one of those.

Insurance is one of four ways to satisfy it

Every chapter read for this site lists the same set of methods, and a driver is usually told about exactly one of them.

Why the other three are not advice

They are real and they are in the statute, and for almost everyone they are unreachable. Florida prices the deposit route for a driver in FR-44 territory at $350,000 in cash or securities. That number is worth knowing anyway, because it is the legislature's own estimate of the exposure it is asking you to cover — it puts the premium you are about to be quoted in proportion.

Reading your own notice

Find the section number, not the form number

The form number tells you which stationery. The section number tells you the amounts, the period and the trigger, and it is the same in every copy of the code. If your notice cites a section, that is the string to search; if it only names a form, the department that sent it is the authority on which section it came from.

Check whether your state is an amounts state or a form state

If your notice says FR-44 and you are in Virginia, the statute names your form and doubles your limits. If it says FR-44 and you are in Florida, the statute sets your limits and is silent about the form. Both are correct notices; they are just built differently, and a page written about one will mislead you about the other.

Then go to the page for your state

The amounts, the period and the clock's starting point are all state business. The state pages carry each one with its section, and the filing-period guide takes apart the four different ways these statutes measure time — one of which is a rolling look-back rather than a countdown.

Common questions