Our son has just passed his driving test and I’m looking at insurance prices at the moment. Prices with the ‘black box’ telematics option isn’t too bad.

Is there any disadvantage to getting insurance with one of these included? Seems a no brainer to go with that option as it’s saving around £400.

My son is insured with Ingenie – max. 10% increase in premiums with up to 21% discount for good driving. No curfews.
£25 admin fee to make changes (which I should contest as they have to be reasonable).
Other than that I can’t see a problem.
Rich.

Seems like a good idea to me, knowing your driving is being recorded would be a good disincentive to be a tit when you think no one is looking….

Pity it’s not compulsory for all drivers

Had a look at direct line and with both parents on the policy and a black box fitted it’s just over £500 for a 1.2 suzuki swift.

That’s a lot better than expected1

Hopefully your black box experience will be better than these folks
Black boxes: Can you trust them

Does it also have a curfew, or a policy that driving outside of normal hours is risky?

We didn’t with my youngest, as:
1 I sometimes use his car (I’m a named driver)
2 He works in a hotel so needs to do early/late shifts

Hmm. would mounting the telematics box in one of those camera gimbals (steady cam type thing) keep the costs down?

Reading the T&C’s there’s no mention of a curfew. Having spoken to a girl in work who used to work for an insurance company her advice was ‘avoid if you can’.

With direct line with both my wife and I as named drivers we’re still looking at just under £800.

Black boxes: Can you trust them

All women.. bloke in the office was complaining about the cost of his daughter’s insurance as she refused to have a black box. Another woman. Hmmm.*

*no idea myself 🙂

Daughter (newly qualified but 23) has one, seems to have a curfew of 10pm & restriction on mileage so just make sure you read the small print 🙁 also can give some off the wall readings so worth keeping an eye on results too

mmm think we’ll probably opt out of the black box option then. He’s looking for part time jobs at the moment which could involve either night shift or late finish, I’m pretty sure that would have an impact.

Because a company gives you a discount on “their” policy for having a black box, don’t assume other companies won’t be cheaper without a box. Always look around there’s huge differences between companies.

a curfew of 10pm

Not driving at night makes you a safer driver? What tosh.

Do you have to pay to have the box fitted and pay again if you change cars?

Do you have to pay to have the box fitted and pay again if you change cars?

No, from what I’ve read it’s just a plug into the engine management system connection. So just diy fitment.

I had one for my first year of driving (2013 @ 18 years old). It didn’t have a curfew and my 1.0l Peugeot 106 was so hideously slow that I never had a problem keeping within the targets they set etc. It was much cheaper than getting insurance without, I think it was with Ingenie.

There was no payment for the box, someone came round and fitted it a time to suit me within a 2 week window and they left it in but supposedly deactivated it when the policy ran out and I switched to normal insurance after a year.

Not driving at night makes you a safer driver? What tosh.

Not driving at night, if you are under 25, makes you massively less likely to be making a claim on your insurance.
(Which is all they care about)

Insurance companies have MASSIVE amounts of historical claims data to back this stuff up.
They pay loads of actuaries loads of money to work it all out.

But people always seem to presume they know better.

a curfew of 10pm

Not driving at night makes you a safer driver? What tosh.

Not driving at night means you are less likely to be giving your drunk mates a lift, who will be less likely to goad you into doing something stupid…

Hmm. would mounting the telematics box in one of those camera gimbals (steady cam type thing) keep the costs down?

It depends, how often is your car not upright? If “a lot” then it might make a difference.

But people always seem to presume they know better.

Yeah, there’s always some idiot who doesn’t realise what a fair and wonderful bunch of companies insurers are, with all of our interests at heart.

Yeah, there’s always some idiot who doesn’t realise what a fair and wonderful bunch of companies insurers are, with all of our interests at heart.

Good straw man 😀

Surfer junior has one with Ingenie. No curfew. Main issue is people being aggressive because he drives at the speed limit 🙁

With direct line with both my wife and I as named drivers we’re still looking at just under £800. [/I]

Far cheaper than any of my three sons’ first year insurance premiums and tbh still cheaper than theirs now:
– 22 y/o driving for +4 years, £1000 for 1.6 Fiesta
– 21 y/o driving for +3 years, £800 for a 1.2 Punto
– 18 y/o driving for 6 months, £1700 for 1.6 vtec Civic

Also the eldest insurance has gone back up again, was £600 last year, same details etc.

Yes it was much cheaper than I ever thought it would be, no idea why its so low but I’m not complaining.

I’ve got one in my car via AXA as my job title carries a ridiculous insurance markup 😐

Even though I have 10 year’s no claims I struggle to get normal prices below £8-900 but with the box on a scaled rate depending on my time of use I haven’t paid above £450p/a for the last 3 years. It charges me more if I use the car during rush hour but as I cycle to work the vast majority of my driving is evenings and weekends. It does measure driving style although it is rather generous on it’s thresholds for claiming I’ve been naughty, normal progress doesn’t throw up anything. I thought it would be a problem driving abroad but I can just phone them up and pay a few quid extra for the time I’m away and driving records in the dates stated is ignored. The only problem I’ve had with it is that it flags up that I’ve been off-roading every time I go to a trail centre or BPW, quickly sorted via the status page and a techie helping me set up exemption zones so it’s rarely a problem now. I don’t think the policy is available anymore though as I was told at the last renewal that if I change my car the box won’t be transferable and I’ll be on a normal policy again.

I worked for several years developing telematics based insurance technology and the subsequent policies. I remain generally of the opinion they are a good thing that allow good drivers to demonstrate their care and even reduce the risk of some drivers having an accident and as such also reduce the cost of insurance for everyone especially young drivers.

Probably the only decent thing I have done in work tbh and I’m happy enough for my son to have one in his car.

Yeah, there’s always some idiot who doesn’t realise what a fair and wonderful bunch of companies insurers are, with all of our interests at heart.

I presume as you haven’t addressed the actual point I was making, that you agree with what I said ?

Pity it’s not compulsory for all drivers

Why, what, exactly would be achieved, that no-claims bonus doesn’t?
Let’s face it, the black box is unlikely to show if you habitually use a hand-held mobile, is it?

Probably not. But it would show if you were speeding so driving above 30 in 30 would be captured. As would motorway speeding and likely tailgating and higher speed cornering and erratic driving in general, accelerating quickly etc. Do you know how these work?

So if it plugs in to the cars management system do you have to declare it to the insurance company as a modification? Or do they add it as an exemption in the policy?

Discount this year and then it’s used to assess the premium next year. It doesn’t like the dark and also busy roads so far (son hasn’t tried it late at night) and drops your score from 100% accordingly. Plugs into OBD port, also records harsh braking, excess speed, etc

Probably not. But it would show if you were speeding so driving above 30 in 30 would be captured. As would motorway speeding and likely tailgating and higher speed cornering and erratic driving in general, accelerating quickly etc. Do you know how these work?[/I]

I reckon that my maximum NCD and no accidents/incidents since I was a teenager show better how ‘safe’ I am.

IME (+30 years of driving cars, m/c’s, vans, lorries, cycles up to 40k pa) speeding is irrelevant, it’s inappropriate speeding that’s the problem.

Had a look at direct line and with both parents on the policy and a black box fitted it’s just over £500 for a 1.2 suzuki swift.

Bear in mind its still monitoring when the parent is driving…..

Hmm. would mounting the telematics box in one of those camera gimbals (steady cam type thing) keep the costs down?

Sounds like insurance fraud to me

Mine’s mounted on the bulkhead behind the glovebox, no way it would fit on a camera gimball!! Doubt it would help as the cornering and braking loads would be the same, it would just take out the juddering from the road surface. It’s about the size of 3 stacked CD cases. I can plug a dashcam into it, might look into that at some point.

So, these black box things – are they only really for young drivers?
What about those of us who hardly use their cars, except and weekends, how would it work as like a pay-as-you-drive insurance?

Bear in mind its still monitoring when the parent is driving…..

Yes and we would either be using the car during rush hour or on country roads at the weekend, neither of which would be particularly helpful in giving a discount at renewal.

I’m 35 and have been driving since I was 18, no crashes or claims in the last 9 years. Dropped my premium by nearly 50%. They help if you flag up as a poor driver when they use their traditional risk scoring method as you give them better data to use to work out your premium.

Do they take into account the kind of car you have? What is accelerating wildly in 1.0 fwd car might be only gently pulling away completely in control in a more powerful 4wd vehicle for instance.

Wouldn’t know, I’ve only got 60 rampaging horses under the bonnet 😀