SuperHamz

No doubt there will always be idiots and fraudsters will be out to make bogus claims, no matter how robust the test is.

I also doubt the premiums would be reduced with the introduction of any black box technology, it's never in the insurance company's interest to reduce premiums.

richmc

You got that half right Ben, I've never seen premiums go down, seldom stay the same, and never go down (unless you are prepared to spend a week trawling and negotiating).

The only, and very rare time they do go down is when you get your renewall through and the same cover from the same company is cheaper on a comparison site and you argue the toss, even then you get "thats for new customers only" you only get it when you reply "well I better cancel my policy, then i'll be a new customer" and go through the application again.

lovegroova

My insurer has quoted me 15% less this year than last. They needed to reduce my premium to keep me as a customer. As a "good customer" in that I've never made a claim, it's most definitely in their interest to do so.

That's competition for you.



As above, my renewal this year is 15% cheaper than last. Also, the comparison cost via confused.com was higher than my renewal

to Admiral

None of the "independent" brokers on this site were able to get anywhere near my renewal, particularly with a £100 excess.

As for Black boxes, it'll be little different to having a Tracker fitted, or being a member of RoSPA or the IAM, you will get an additional (variable) discount for using one, so it's up to you whether you want to have one.

Dembo

The EU bit is to fit all cars with a black box that allows the emergency services to find you when you're upside down in a ditch. Hard to see why that would put people off buying cars.

My insurance has gone down the last 3 or 4 years, and only went up slightly this year after making a claim.

andy2000

Insurance premiums have gone down in the last few years for a number of reasons, but the biggest factor is the introduction of technology to reduce policy and claims fraud.

Why would you want to pay a higher premium just so you don't get a box ? I suspect your issue is not about the boxes themselves but your perception of what happens to the data. But chances are you have a smartphone and don't have an issue with the data on that.



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andy2000

I would certainly rather have one of these than be bleeding to death in a ditch hoping someone might drive past and notice me there. I once arrived at an accident on the A30 in Devon. The car went down a bank, if I hadn't seen it myself there's no way I'd have noticed a car down there.

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BenRNBP

I think you are aguing the debate well for the insurance company side, but you are right about lack of trust with personal data. I don't believe that my data would only be used to calculate risk for my insurance premium - eventually advertising would be targeted based on where I've been and at what time of day.

I think there are also the practicalites of it - if I got a box fitted tomorrow would my premium go down even though there's been no historical data collected on what type of driver I am ? Or would you have to wait for a few weeks, collect data then give me a refund for staying within the speed limits or charge me extra if I go over ?

If I then shopped around next year and went with a different insurer they'd either have to have access to my historical data from my previous insurer or start afresh again.

lovegroova

Here are some answers to your quetions from from Admiral (yes, you do get a discount at the outset, and no, information is not shared with 3rd parties) http://www.admiral.com/telematics/littlebox/

BenRNBP

The info still doesn't say what happens if you are deemed a poor driver. Which looks like that could happen if you accelerate too fast or brake too hard.

I think if I were 17 again I'd consider it so I could build up evidence about my driving, but it's just not for me at 39 years old with 22 years without a claim.

Starlight

I think quite a few people will be wary of this because what we do not know is how much tolerance is built into the system and at what point does behavior outside of the insurers acceptable limits trigger and what sort of penalty will they apply.

I would hazard a guess that 75-80% of all drivers will exceed a speed limit on a weekly or monthly basis even if its by 1 or 2 mph. Even the Police allow an acceptable over speed to allow for error before triggering speeding fines. Also with location data will they also track poor driving behavior such as straight lining roundabouts, not indicating when changing lanes, queue jumping etc etc.

Without considerable information as to what the insurers are looking for in the data and what the consequences of exceeding their limits are many people will stay wary of such things. Those who do not think about this level of detail (we do not know this information at the moment) could sign up and find that while they drive steady and within the speed limits their other driving habits catch them out and cause higher premiums.

Clearly I would expect many performance car forums to rage over such proposals, because even if the insurer does not pass on speeding information to the Police, such actions are likely (even if you never have an accident) to cause premium increases as you are not a safe driver in their view and so you are effectively paying some form of penalty for such a driving style.

We need more information to make an informed choice and the see how the industry and any users get on which this technology as it permeates more and more cars.

With regard to the emergency system, I see no problem with that but I am concerned about a box recording location and speed all the time for my car as it will possibly cramp the spirited driving we can sometimes enjoy. Also with more and more problems associated with the hackable nature of these complex system on cars, it further opens the car up to the ever high tech criminal and their ability to steal data / or the car because these system install vulnerabilities in the electronic / digital systems in the car.

Ooo that was a wall of text - sorry.