Black Box - Insurance Cancelled

[Countdown]

NewCarGuy said:

Some of you are talking about the old style black boxes, they don't really use those anymore. It's just a small device that plugs into your cards ODB port now.

Ours is a small (matchbox size) box stuck in the corner of the dash, linked to my wife’s phone. No wires or plugs. Although there are 3 drivers on the Policy it only scores when she’s in the car.

[Mr E]

Countdown said:

Ours is a small (matchbox size) box stuck in the corner of the dash, linked to my wife’s phone. No wires or plugs. Although there are 3 drivers on the Policy it only scores when she’s in the car.

How does it know who is driving?

[Countdown]

Mr E said:

How does it know who is driving?

if my wife's phone is in the car it assumes she's driving, although she can go onto the Hastings App and change the setting from "Driver" to Passenger"

[Mr E]

Countdown said:

if my wife's phone is in the car it assumes she's driving, although she can go onto the Hastings App and change the setting from "Driver" to Passenger"

Presume the contract states she must have a phone with her, working and with Bluetooth enabled at all times when driving as a condition of insurance.

Otherwise I can think of a lot of ways to circumvent that working.

[blueg33]

Countdown said:

My wife’s policy this year is a BB policy with Hastings Direct. It was £500 cheaper than the next best. It’s high mainly because our youngest is insured on it as a named driver.

Tbh it doesn’t seem onerous at all. She gets reports/scores every day on the App, she’s averaging 98 so it’s not exactly requiring high standards.

I genuinely find this astonishing. It must be something to do with the car or where the car is kept. I have always been able to find non black box policies for my kids at the same or even lower prices than black box. My daughter is 24 and is with Hastings Direct, her insurance without a BB on a Mazda 2 is £426, up from about £350 last year. Also insured on the car as additional drivers are: me, my wife and my 28 year old son. The car is covered for business use and commuting. The policy includes breakdown and legal cover.

[Countdown]

Mr E said:

Presume the contract states she must have a phone with her, working and with Bluetooth enabled at all times when driving as a condition of insurance.

Otherwise I can think of a lot of ways to circumvent that working.

I’m not 100% sure to be honest but I can’t think of any reason why she’d deliberately try to circumvent it.

Not sure if I mentioned this but when my eldest started driving the cheapest policies for the first two years were both black box ones (at that time some bloke used to come round and install them somewhere in the engine bay IIRC). I think she saved over £1,000 in Year 1 and £600 in Year 2 and there were no problems in either year. I’m not sure why there’s so much hate for BB policies. Obvs if you enjoy accelerating hard, braking late, cornering at speed you’re not going to enjoy some electronic gadget snitching on you but the solution is simple; don’t get a BB policy.

[ro250]

Countdown said:

NewCarGuy said:

Some of you are talking about the old style black boxes, they don't really use those anymore. It's just a small device that plugs into your cards ODB port now.

Ours is a small (matchbox size) box stuck in the corner of the dash, linked to my wife’s phone. No wires or plugs. Although there are 3 drivers on the Policy it only scores when she’s in the car.

My son has a BB in his first car. It actually doesn't connect to the phone as far as I can tell - it transmits the data to the insurer and then that data is transmitted back to the app so he can see his data. Took me a while to work this out as I couldn't understand why there was no pairing process with the phone. This does mean that I have to drive sensibly when I use it as it doesn't know who is driving.

That's a Ticker policy.

[FMOB]

The quoted post from BunkMoreland is about right, GPS is not a robust signal so can suffer with positional degradation for many reasons, insurance companies should treat the data with a bit of caution as some data is obviously absurd.

https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accura...

[Pica-Pica]

ro250 said:

My son has a BB in his first car. It actually doesn't connect to the phone as far as I can tell - it transmits the data to the insurer and then that data is transmitted back to the app so he can see his data. Took me a while to work this out as I couldn't understand why there was no pairing process with the phone. This does mean that I have to drive sensibly when I use it as it doesn't know who is driving.

That's a Ticker policy.

That’s the way I would understand a BB phone app working, too.

[Robertb]

bad company said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Yes, 40 year ago. But clearly they are now part of the whole profiteering cartel, so surely it's time for someone else to enter the market.

I’m old enough to remember ‘Fire, Auto Marine’.

and Independent Insurance...

[ro250]

Pica-Pica said:

ro250 said:

My son has a BB in his first car. It actually doesn't connect to the phone as far as I can tell - it transmits the data to the insurer and then that data is transmitted back to the app so he can see his data. Took me a while to work this out as I couldn't understand why there was no pairing process with the phone. This does mean that I have to drive sensibly when I use it as it doesn't know who is driving.

That's a Ticker policy.

That’s the way I would understand a BB phone app working, too.

What confused me was that the original Ticker 'black boxes' were a stick on puck you put on your windscreen which I think you did pair with your phone.

As a nervous parent of a new driver, I'm more than happy to know he's driving sensibly due to the black box!

[Aunty Pasty]

Both stick-on black boxes and OBD port black boxes are still in use. It varies between company and sometimes depends on what car you have due to compatibility issues.

[garypotter]

plenty of keyboard experts on here....

Back ot he OP i owuld strongly advise you speak to the company in question and make a formal complaint to them first before you go to the ombudsman as there is a route that has to be taken before the ombudsman gets involved. Find out why they are cancelling and also do seek professional help, there has been some good advice on this forum but it gets burried by the ste experts.

If they cancel your policy that will be on your records and your premiums will be sky high high, a friend's son was 19 with a BB his policy was cancelled and it went from £1800 to £5500 for a vw polo.

Insurance companies are a business they have made losses for long eneough so why not break even or make a profit? Why are joe public so cross about paying for insurance when they can lose £10k plus a year on having a brand new car on the drive!!

[Puzzles]

garypotter said:

plenty of keyboard experts on here....

Back ot he OP i owuld strongly advise you speak to the company in question and make a formal complaint to them first before you go to the ombudsman as there is a route that has to be taken before the ombudsman gets involved. Find out why they are cancelling and also do seek professional help, there has been some good advice on this forum but it gets burried by the ste experts.

If they cancel your policy that will be on your records and your premiums will be sky high high, a friend's son was 19 with a BB his policy was cancelled and it went from £1800 to £5500 for a vw polo.

Insurance companies are a business they have made losses for long eneough so why not break even or make a profit? Why are joe public so cross about paying for insurance when they can lose £10k plus a year on having a brand new car on the drive!!

Bloody hell. Was £5.5k the best he could get?

[119]

Of the couple of times the kids had them, the insurer sent a guy round to fit it and hide it.

They don’t just send them out in the post in the hope that the insured would do it surely?

[740EVTORQUES]

Yes ours arrived in the post for both our daughters.

If it’s not fitted and active then they aren’t insured that’s the motivation.

Our daughters were keen to show off their scores for good driving so it certainly had the right effect for them and saved a lot on their 1st year insurance (1st year was only £600 which seemed pretty good.)

[oldaudi]

We had a very different experience with Bell. 17 year old daughter, £1800 with a black box.1.4 10 year old Polo Bell sent the black box, it was Velcro’d to the passenger footwell carpet and plugged into the cigarette power.

No phone apps. We were informed that it uses GPS to collect data for as long as it was plugged in. My daughter got some Emails regarding inactivity and that she was not driving enough to capture data. As her confidence increased she drove more and we started receiving Emails regarding her performance.

I drove the car often with the black box connected so it would’ve collected that data too which went towards her final reports. After 6 months and less than 1000 miles they collected enough data and I’ve returned the box. We should get a reductions after 1 year if we remain with them.

They know if the box is unplugged as it stops transmitting but they don’t know who is driving. If it wasnt plugged in the insurance was void.

Edit: just read all the threads again and saw some also with Bell who had the same experience as us. They seem good for young drivers, although not had to make a claim yet!

Edited by oldaudi on Monday 1st July 20:00

[Rough101]

CoolHands said:

If you think about it, it would be best to position the box on the roll centre of the car, to minimise cornering and fore / aft motion in acceleration and braking. If you have it off centre etc as I guess many people do, you will be reporting back ‘worse’ data.

I I know, but there was nowhere to put it, it was as close to the centre as I could get it and it worked out fine.
For a new driver, having to drive monitored for 3 months after passing a test is no bad thing.

Edited by Rough101 on Tuesday 2nd July 08:42

[charltjr]

So OP, what has the insurer said now they're open?

Worst case you just cancel it yourself before they cancel it so you don't have to declare it as a cancelled policy.

[carreauchompeur]

CoolHands said:

If you have to fit a black box surely you just fit it to your mother’s car?

Absolutely not, she’s a bloody nightmare