SR-22 insurance in Kansas

Kansas asks for one year of insurance kept on file by your insurer after a single conviction on a statutory list that includes DUI. The rule sits inside the state's insurance act, which also requires personal injury protection, so the policy carries more than liability cover.

Where the Kansas requirement lives

Most states on this site keep their proof-of-insurance filing in the vehicle code. In Kansas the filing sits in article 31 of chapter 40 — the insurance chapter — in the act that sets what every motor vehicle liability policy must contain. Article 7 of the vehicle chapter is listed as repealed, section by section, in the published code.

That placement is why the Kansas filing looks different from, say, a California or Texas one. The statute does not describe a separate certificate with its own form. It tells the director to require a person “to acquire insurance and for such person's insurance company to maintain on file with the division evidence of such insurance.” The document the industry calls an SR-22 is that evidence. K.S.A. 40-3118(d)(1).

The limits

The policy has to meet the act's required contents: $25,000 per person / $50,000 per accident / $25,000 property damage — 25/50/25, under K.S.A. 40-3107(e). In plain terms, $25,000 for injury to one person, $50,000 for everyone injured in one accident and $25,000 for other people's property.

Personal injury protection comes with it

The same section requires every policy to include personal injury protection benefits for the named insured, relatives in the household, people driving the insured vehicle, passengers and pedestrians it strikes. A Kansas policy that carries a filing therefore includes those benefits; it is not a bare liability policy. That is one reason a quote from another state is not a like-for-like comparison.

What triggers it: one conviction on a borrowed list

The one-year filing applies “when a person has been convicted in this or another state of any of the violations enumerated in K.S.A. 8-285.” Section 8-285 is the definition of a habitual violator, and it is a list of offenses — among them vehicular homicide, driving under the influence under K.S.A. 8-1567, and driving while the privilege to drive is canceled, suspended or revoked.

The habitual-violator label itself takes several convictions within five years. The filing does not. Subsection (d)(1) borrows only the list; one conviction on it, in Kansas or any other state, is enough.

The uninsured case

Subsection (d)(2) adds a second group: any driver whose privileges were suspended under the same section — the section that suspends registrations and driving privileges for failing to keep financial security. Those drivers have to keep the same evidence on file.

Who files

The wording puts the duty on the insurance company: it maintains the evidence on file with the division. The driver's part is to buy a policy from an insurer willing to do that and to keep it in force.

One year, and what the section does not say

The period is stated as “a period of one year.” The subsection does not say when the year starts — from conviction, from reinstatement, or from the date the evidence is first filed. That is set by the division in practice, not by the words read here, so the start date on your own notice is the one to rely on.

What the section does say is what happens if the policy ends early. The insurer “shall immediately mail notice to the director whenever any policy required by this subsection to be on file with the division is terminated by the insured or the insurer for any reason,” and receipt of that notice is prima facie evidence that no financial security exists.

Changes that do not trigger a notice

Subsection (d)(4) lists the everyday changes that must not generate a cancellation notice: adding or deleting a vehicle, adding or deleting a driver, renewing, or being issued a new policy by the same company. Moving to a different company is not on that list, so a switch has to be timed so that the new insurer's filing is in place before the old policy ends.

Reinstatement fees

Where registration or driving privileges were suspended or revoked for failing to keep continuous financial security, the suspension stays until proof of insurance is filed and a reinstatement fee is paid. The fee is $100, or $300 if the registration is revoked within one year following a prior revocation, under K.S.A. 40-3118(f).

What this page does not cover

Kansas DUI penalties, ignition interlock restrictions and the length of any suspension are set in provisions this site has not read, so none of them is described here. They run on their own clocks, and the filing year sits alongside them rather than replacing them.

A note on sources

Every Kansas section on this page was read on the Revisor of Statutes' own site, and the links go there directly.

Getting a comparable quote in Kansas

Ask for the whole policy, not the filing alone

25/50/25 in liability, plus the personal injury protection the act requires. A quote that shows only the liability line is not the whole price.

Ask whether the insurer files with the division

The statute places the filing on the insurance company. An insurer that will not maintain the evidence on file cannot carry the requirement, whatever it charges.

Switching mid-year

A renewal or new policy with the same company does not trigger a cancellation notice. A move to a different company does, so the new filing should be in place first.

Kansas is one of three states on this site with a one-year period — compared in the filing-period guide.

Common questions about the Kansas SR-22