Let’s face it — life is full of the mistakes that we’ve made, but we can choose to rise above them…or sink further into despair. That’s not too negative to say, but if you’re trying to figure out how to get car insurance after you’ve had a few legal troubles, it’s pretty safe to say that you can feel pretty frustrated. It really doesn’t have to be that way — you can get the auto insurance that you deserve.

You have to understand the principle of risk management. Over time, your mistakes will fade as insurance companies realize that you can choose to be a better drive. You don’t have to deal with not having vehicle insurance, or paying a super high rate.

The key step that you will need to take is to stop and think about making a personal appeal to the insurance company. Again, you will need to prove to the insurance company that you are definitely turning over a new leaf. If you just get an insurance quote, they might not see your records properly and try to nail you with a high rate. Do you have to deal with that? Absolutely not — it’s time to fight back with a formal approach.

The first thing that you will need to do is compose a form letter and send it to the insurance company. Skip over sending a phone call request, as this will not get read. Instead, you will need to let them know that you would really like to be a customer and that you’re weighing your options. That let’s them know that you aren’t too proud to take your business elsewhere. From there, you will want to factually explain why you are a better drive, and why you deserve a manual rate review from the beginning.

Don’t send this letter like a normal letter. You will need to send the letter certified mail, return receipt requested. This way you create a paper trail and make sure that your letter actually gets read.

Of course, you might need to stop and deal with the fact that not everyone will respond favorably to you at this point. You don’t want to give up just because one insurance company told you that they will not be giving you a favorable rate because they feel that you are too high risk. What one company feels is high risk may not be what another company does. This is the spirit that you will need to have when you’re searching for great insurance.

Of course, there’s another approach you can try, especially if you need to insure a vehicle quickly — agree to a higher rate in the beginning, while you bake in a six month review period. This gives you another six months to build up more good history and even fix your credit — another factor that can work against you when you’re trying to find good insurance.

Overall, the key here is that you will need to make sure that you’re as persistent as possible. Legal troubles in the past are not a barrier to getting good insurance now!