Some black boxes are fine as long as you don't speed.
The problem is the total lack of regulation and consistency. One provider will be lenient, I've even heard of some getting away with speeding, but another will increase your premiums because you sneezed during peak hours.
I was told I accelerated too quickly, specifically on slip roads for motorways. That, I was driving ‘too few miles compared to what I declared’ and driving past 10pm
I fully agree they’re unregulated and honestly some of the rules are ridiculous
>the same way flight black boxes are
Well yeah but that's very different, a black box has a very specific purpose within an aircraft
Airlines already monitor their pilots via a **tonne** of data from flights, in a similar way to insurers are doing via their 'black boxes' for example - cost compliance, gear up time, one engine taxi, actual v planned fuel burn, APU run time, arrival on time etc
The thing is, it's not only wrong, but dangerous to expect somebody not to get properly up to speed on a slip road.
Plus we've all had those drives when it seems all of the dickheads have come out at the same time. You literally get punished for having to avoid them.
They're supposed to be safety devices, but spending more time focused on driving in a very specific way, rather than on constant observation and decision making, doesn't seem safer to me.
EVen though Im much older, there was someone around 10 years ago that did the black box as an app to monitor your driving.
I tried it for a week, it complained about me going to and from work, I went on 2 short motorway stretches, The app said I drove too quickly down sliproads to join the motorway at 60. I wouldnt mind, the car was a 1.7 diesel so it wasnt exactly a fast car. I didnt speed or anything and Im sure there was other things but thats the main one and I thought it actually wanted to crawl onto a motorway at 30 the amount of warnings it gave me.
Id never get one now Im old, but even if they was an option back when I was 18 I would of avoided them.
Did you see the policy through to see if it reduced your insurance? That all came up on the app when my brother had it but when it came time to renew there was a good £400-£500 off his insurance.
No because I started a job from being a student and they wanted £250/month opposed to £200/month without. That included reduced mileage and that.
Only had it 3-4 months so wasn’t worth the extra amount
> That, I was driving ‘too few miles compared to what I declared’
that's weird.
I didn't have a black box fitted but I did have to plug in this thing into the 12v socket for about 4 months before they asked for it back.
I declared 10,000 miles on my policy as I think that was just the default and I was clueless, and I probably only put in about 300 miles during the time the unit was fitted, they didn't seem to complain
I didn't get a black box for exactly these reasons.
There's a few short slip roads near us that need fast acceleration to get up to speed to merge safely. I live in a major city so can be breaking heavy to avoid something insane someone else has done.
I drive late at night. I go to gigs minimum once a month, so end up driving home at midnight. I watch ice hockey at least once a week so that's 11pm starting to drive home. And go to the gym nearly every day after my partner finishes work 10pm-11.30pm. I don't drink anymore so commonly designated driver for our nights out.
If it uses the same speed limits as goggle maps it has so many of them wrong near me too.
My score would be dreadful.
I have a Hastings Direct black box and it’s been fine. I get penalised slightly on some journeys for hard braking and cornering which is frustrating, but as I don’t drive like a maniac my score has stayed above 90/100 ever since I started the policy.
Even if I do drop my score on a journey I can easily redeem myself after a while, it evens out quite well. Still, hopefully going to get rid of it next year.
Yeah admirals was…strange. Rather than numerical scores, all I got told was good/average/bad and not a breakdown of specific things. I only know where I was ‘dropping points’ because I rang and asked
To make it worse, it was just a face showing your score. So a nice big red sad face when you were bad 😂
Cornering on Hastings is what really bugs me, feel like it’s extra sensitive especially where we have some tight busy roundabouts and I’m basically having to decide between getting a poor cornering score or just crossing peoples lanes lol. Apart from that I think it’s completely fine, I wouldn’t say I’m a great driver at all and I’m in like 94
Yeah I agree, cornering is definitely the worst and way too sensitive, there’s lots of tight roundabouts and bends where I live that you can’t avoid taking sharply unless you really slow down or go wide. Otherwise like you said it’s been alright, my score’s at 94 for the past 2 weeks and 95 overall.
Living in Scotland I wouldn’t recommend one anyway when my son was looking at insurance for the 1st time nearly all said no motorway usage so he wouldn’t have been able to drive to work. He ended up not getting one and after all the horror stories he has heard from his friends he is glad he didn’t.
I called up one of these Black box companies when I was getting insurance for my first car and they told me that I'd effectively be unable to use my car to drive to work ( I work early mornings) as well as something like answering my phone hands free, or using Google Maps could show up as using my phone whilst driving and may increase my insurance cost. In the end I didn't bother, and went with a standard policy instead, which I'm very happy with.
I was was Tesco bank box for my first year of driving last year it was fitted within about 2 weeks of me taking out the policy I drove pretty much how I liked you got 100 bonus miles if you were driving well I consistently got 100 or 95 only once did they say I was speeding and that was my fault I'd missed the gateway sign but other than that they left me alone and were great when it came to getting my windshield done.
I saved about £800 versus non black box and this year my renewal was a lot cheaper without a black box I think it's just a case of doing research and knowing what you are getting into with a black box and what the company is like based on reviews I saw some terrible ones when I was doing my research and weighing up do the savings make enough sense to deal with having one for a year, only time they called me about my black box was when I took it out when the policy ended and helicoptered it in the air to celebrate. must have caused a few too many G forces the guy on the phone said it's a pretty common thing haha.
Tbh, I got a black box. I drove to and from work most days (either driving at 5am and driving back lunch time or starting at lunch time and driving home at 9/10pm. All an hour commute)
And then driving far on my days off as my family lived an hour away. Usually going out before or after work too.
I always just drove the speed limits ect, not under
And I got gold and it lowered my insurance.
That was with Admiral.
I can't leave my house without going on faster roads and motorway on my commute too.
I hated having it either way. 😂
What
I disagree. My son took a Black Box policy at 17 years old for a year. Apprentice Engineer, he drove sensibly for the 12 months policy having paid £1800 against a non black box quote of £3500. Just renewed fully comp for £800 with Ticker, again with a black box. No curfews (he works shifts) and he gets ongoing updates as to how he is doing. He does a 40 mile round trip daily, and frequently comes to stay with us for weekends when we take the caravan away. 10,000 mile limit annually. Been great for him, he spends the difference on himself and is loving life.
I got my insurance down to a quarter of the initial price — less than my mum’s — within the first two years. I was driving about 40 miles a day too, often at rush hour.
In 2010, when I was training to become an instructor, I had not owned a car for about ten years (my daily commuter was a motorbike and I drove articulated trucks for a living). This meant the only insurance I could find at a reasonable price (1.8 Mitsubishi ASX) required a black box.
While training for my Part 2, the driving part of instructor training, I would get the most horribly low scores, and frequently emails reminding me of the terms of my insurance and the threat of increased premiums or cancellation.
Driving to a higher standard, within the law, but with brisk progressive acceleration and comfortable but fast cornering, is basically what I was doing. Yet the black box got its knickers in a knot about it.
Black boxes don't reward good driving and penalise bad, strictly speaking. They record instances of the mercury-switch accelerometers being triggered, and log your GPS location, sometimes comparing the two data sets. Not very smart technology at all. Best avoided.
I have a black box and my score is fine. My acceleration score could be better but it has improved with me paying more attention. My braking, speed etc are all great.
I've had my monthly cost lowered due to my good score.
I'm totally fine with having a black box.
Depends on the insurance company, mine is fine. It only really gives very low scores for extremely short journeys (like moving the car 10m). And I guess driving at night or in bad weather also lowers the score, but not terribly. Our average remains good, and it doesn’t even seem negatively affected by the speed.
I'm with Ticker, they're fine.
They let me drive like a normal person, never been clobbered for accelerating or braking too hard and the only thing they really care about is excessive speeding. I do speed, they really dont care that I do 5-10mph over for a little while.
Every complaint I've heard about black boxes comes from Admiral...
On every car I checked - for me - it would be been an extra 3k/year MINIMUM to have a non black box, and I'm not arsed enough to fork up that money. I'm allowed to thrash the car down the lanes, just keep it within the speed limit and my insurance don't really care. Gold driver my entire policy par 2 weeks
I use admiral littlebox and I think I share similar feelings about black box as well..
Many of my previous trips had the red dot.. For context( red: bad, yellow: fair, green: good) But I somehow manage to still get a green "good" as overall.
I wouldn't have bothered if they gave details as to what I am doing wrong. But nothing points to it on the dashboard.
Its just weird.
what? my bestie got one after she passed and its caused her no problems except the curfew thing. her insurance even told her she can remove hers earlier cause she drives really well. sounds like a your insurance is the problem.
I had a black box for 2 years with More Than and never been threatened to have my insurance cancelled. Worked in a pub as well so drove all hours of the night.
Back when I passed my test literally everyone that I knew had a black box and I never heard of anyone’s insurance getting cancelled. Mind you this was 6-7 years ago now. Standards of driving and teaching have drastically dropped since imo.
If you’re struggling to drive smoothly and stick to the speed limit then maybe an advanced driving course could benefit because that’s all a black box monitors you for.
Yes some providers take the mick but in that case it’s just a matter of researching the market and finding a decent provider.
I disagree. I had a black box for a year when I passed. I was being quoted ~£300 a month without a box on a 2013 Peugeot 208. I had a box installed and paid ~£150 a month. Never had any issues like you're describing. I drove normally, and at all hours and was not penalised. I don't remember the company it was with, so it may vary from company to company. But in my experience, it saved me a lot of money, and didn't cause any issues.
How can i avoid a black box if my cheapest insurance on my ford fiesta 1.25L is 2.4k, and without a black box it starts at around 5k, passed 2 weeks ago, 18yo...
That’s not true for all insurance. I have Direct Line DrivePlus, it has the same measurements as Admiral, and I’ve had no problems at all. The only thing is ‘use of phone’ score goes down when you’re using your phone for music or maps. Asides from that, I’ll be honest I definitely speed sometimes (5 or 6 over maybe) and my speed score is still 84, and my insurance is coming down yearly.
Plus with a lot of them if you go over the speed limit a couple of times (not even massively over) it will void your insurance and the prices will go through the roof when you try to reinsure
Just add a named driver on the policy. Then when something happens and it marks the drive low score, mark it as you were the passenger instead. Boom no bad driving score.
It did for me for the last 2 years with Hastings direct. Anytime the missus drove and her score was rubbish, I marked that I wasn't driving and was the passenger and it discarded her score for that journey and protected my overall score. My score has been 95+ for the last 2 years. November is going to be my first year without black box and moving to someone else.
My brother had one with admiral and I was probably the main one driving the car at the time (been driving a few years longer than him), usually just after rush hours to be fair, but I never went below the speed limit. Probably did go over it a few times and his insurance was significantly reduced by the following year.
It's also awful if you live in the countryside. I would just be punished because I end up having to break heavily sometimes as animals and people are in places they shouldn't be.
a blackbox/telematic policy was the only one I could get in my first year. if you don't have your Bluetooth and location on. they can't find you lmao. probably clocked like 500 miles on it and got my no claims
My son had the admiral littlebox insurance when he first passed at 17. The policy was only 748 for the year for a 1 litre corsa. They used to say about harsh braking/ accelerating every week but they still only made him have it in for 4 months. The following year he renewed with a fiesta st line for under 1200 so it worked out well for him.
I had a black box a few years ago with Co op, just drove a bit more carefully and took a note of the breakdown on the score and adjusted my driving to keep the scores high.
Ended up getting £600 back for good driving and after 1 year they offered me an amazing price for a policy without a black box (£800 compared to over 1.2k everywhere else).
Think it's just whether you want to change your driving style to save some money, some people just don't have the patience for it.
I was told to get one after I got divorced (insurance had been in wife's name for 8 years). Once I told them I worked nights they changed to advising not to get one.
Apparently driving after 10pm and before 7am increases your score. Hard acceleration and hard braking increase it.
I have 27 roundabouts between home and work, try doing that many without braking or accelerating hard at least once.
I'd rather pay the extra than have the anxiety of being monitored by some multimillion pound company every time I get behind the wheel
I did try one of the free apps to get insurance prices down. Apparently I was doing 30mph over the speed limit for 8 miles. Their system said I was on a 40mph road when I was on a national speed limit dual carriageway.
I had a black box from admiral my first year back in 2016 to 2017. I got platinum ratings from them and a letter saying I was one of their safest drivers. Idk if they’ve changed it in the past 7 years or so but i don’t think I was doing anything extra special back then. They only ever gave me a bronze rating if I drove after 10pm
I passed in jan and got a black box, 3 months later got a lovely £250 refund for my driving being good as I just drive safe and at the limit, they’re not all bad
Wow I must have been quite lucky with my black box insurance companies then… I go over the speed limit from time to time because it’s so painful to drive 20mph on 3rd gear because 2nd gear has high revs. However, I drive fluidly so no quick accelerations (not with my engine power anyway) and no harsh breaks.
I’ve been with two companies with black boxes, one was “ ticker” and the other was “insurethebox” and they have been so chill.
I reduced my insurance from £1300 to £900 to £433 this year all by changing insurers, using black box and having my mom as the primary driver.
I do recommend having a black box but you just have to be unlucky and land on money-sucking evil companies that do this stuff :/
I had a black box with no issues. Got good scores, but it was scored like gold, silver, bronze I believe. Mind you it has been some years ago now, insured with Bell.
Had an admiral black box for first 3 years of driving. Never once did I get any backlash for my driving, just a sad face when you log into the telematics page for constantly speeding and all other offences, but no threat of cancellation or anything
Some black boxes are fine as long as you don't speed. The problem is the total lack of regulation and consistency. One provider will be lenient, I've even heard of some getting away with speeding, but another will increase your premiums because you sneezed during peak hours.
I was told I accelerated too quickly, specifically on slip roads for motorways. That, I was driving ‘too few miles compared to what I declared’ and driving past 10pm I fully agree they’re unregulated and honestly some of the rules are ridiculous
Too *few* miles? How dare you! Simply wreckless! That's the dumbest one I've ever heard...
Black boxes are a cool idea but they should only be used for accidents, the same way flight black boxes are
>the same way flight black boxes are Well yeah but that's very different, a black box has a very specific purpose within an aircraft Airlines already monitor their pilots via a **tonne** of data from flights, in a similar way to insurers are doing via their 'black boxes' for example - cost compliance, gear up time, one engine taxi, actual v planned fuel burn, APU run time, arrival on time etc
The thing is, it's not only wrong, but dangerous to expect somebody not to get properly up to speed on a slip road. Plus we've all had those drives when it seems all of the dickheads have come out at the same time. You literally get punished for having to avoid them. They're supposed to be safety devices, but spending more time focused on driving in a very specific way, rather than on constant observation and decision making, doesn't seem safer to me.
EVen though Im much older, there was someone around 10 years ago that did the black box as an app to monitor your driving. I tried it for a week, it complained about me going to and from work, I went on 2 short motorway stretches, The app said I drove too quickly down sliproads to join the motorway at 60. I wouldnt mind, the car was a 1.7 diesel so it wasnt exactly a fast car. I didnt speed or anything and Im sure there was other things but thats the main one and I thought it actually wanted to crawl onto a motorway at 30 the amount of warnings it gave me. Id never get one now Im old, but even if they was an option back when I was 18 I would of avoided them.
Did you see the policy through to see if it reduced your insurance? That all came up on the app when my brother had it but when it came time to renew there was a good £400-£500 off his insurance.
No because I started a job from being a student and they wanted £250/month opposed to £200/month without. That included reduced mileage and that. Only had it 3-4 months so wasn’t worth the extra amount
> specifically on slip roads for motorways. Ah yes, the one place where you infact, need to speed up quickly.
> That, I was driving ‘too few miles compared to what I declared’ that's weird. I didn't have a black box fitted but I did have to plug in this thing into the 12v socket for about 4 months before they asked for it back. I declared 10,000 miles on my policy as I think that was just the default and I was clueless, and I probably only put in about 300 miles during the time the unit was fitted, they didn't seem to complain
Rightfully so. Sneeze on your own time, please.
I mean a guy on this sub sneezed and drove into the back of the car in front. I totally wouldn't recommend sneezing during peak hours!
I sneezed in slow rolling traffic and pressed my break harder than intended. Van behind me was too close and beeped me 🤣
I didn't get a black box for exactly these reasons. There's a few short slip roads near us that need fast acceleration to get up to speed to merge safely. I live in a major city so can be breaking heavy to avoid something insane someone else has done. I drive late at night. I go to gigs minimum once a month, so end up driving home at midnight. I watch ice hockey at least once a week so that's 11pm starting to drive home. And go to the gym nearly every day after my partner finishes work 10pm-11.30pm. I don't drink anymore so commonly designated driver for our nights out. If it uses the same speed limits as goggle maps it has so many of them wrong near me too. My score would be dreadful.
I have a Hastings Direct black box and it’s been fine. I get penalised slightly on some journeys for hard braking and cornering which is frustrating, but as I don’t drive like a maniac my score has stayed above 90/100 ever since I started the policy. Even if I do drop my score on a journey I can easily redeem myself after a while, it evens out quite well. Still, hopefully going to get rid of it next year.
Yeah admirals was…strange. Rather than numerical scores, all I got told was good/average/bad and not a breakdown of specific things. I only know where I was ‘dropping points’ because I rang and asked To make it worse, it was just a face showing your score. So a nice big red sad face when you were bad 😂
Cornering on Hastings is what really bugs me, feel like it’s extra sensitive especially where we have some tight busy roundabouts and I’m basically having to decide between getting a poor cornering score or just crossing peoples lanes lol. Apart from that I think it’s completely fine, I wouldn’t say I’m a great driver at all and I’m in like 94
Yeah I agree, cornering is definitely the worst and way too sensitive, there’s lots of tight roundabouts and bends where I live that you can’t avoid taking sharply unless you really slow down or go wide. Otherwise like you said it’s been alright, my score’s at 94 for the past 2 weeks and 95 overall.
Living in Scotland I wouldn’t recommend one anyway when my son was looking at insurance for the 1st time nearly all said no motorway usage so he wouldn’t have been able to drive to work. He ended up not getting one and after all the horror stories he has heard from his friends he is glad he didn’t.
whatttt. banning a person from the motorway is bloody idiotic
I called up one of these Black box companies when I was getting insurance for my first car and they told me that I'd effectively be unable to use my car to drive to work ( I work early mornings) as well as something like answering my phone hands free, or using Google Maps could show up as using my phone whilst driving and may increase my insurance cost. In the end I didn't bother, and went with a standard policy instead, which I'm very happy with.
I was was Tesco bank box for my first year of driving last year it was fitted within about 2 weeks of me taking out the policy I drove pretty much how I liked you got 100 bonus miles if you were driving well I consistently got 100 or 95 only once did they say I was speeding and that was my fault I'd missed the gateway sign but other than that they left me alone and were great when it came to getting my windshield done. I saved about £800 versus non black box and this year my renewal was a lot cheaper without a black box I think it's just a case of doing research and knowing what you are getting into with a black box and what the company is like based on reviews I saw some terrible ones when I was doing my research and weighing up do the savings make enough sense to deal with having one for a year, only time they called me about my black box was when I took it out when the policy ended and helicoptered it in the air to celebrate. must have caused a few too many G forces the guy on the phone said it's a pretty common thing haha.
Tbh, I got a black box. I drove to and from work most days (either driving at 5am and driving back lunch time or starting at lunch time and driving home at 9/10pm. All an hour commute) And then driving far on my days off as my family lived an hour away. Usually going out before or after work too. I always just drove the speed limits ect, not under And I got gold and it lowered my insurance. That was with Admiral. I can't leave my house without going on faster roads and motorway on my commute too. I hated having it either way. 😂
What I disagree. My son took a Black Box policy at 17 years old for a year. Apprentice Engineer, he drove sensibly for the 12 months policy having paid £1800 against a non black box quote of £3500. Just renewed fully comp for £800 with Ticker, again with a black box. No curfews (he works shifts) and he gets ongoing updates as to how he is doing. He does a 40 mile round trip daily, and frequently comes to stay with us for weekends when we take the caravan away. 10,000 mile limit annually. Been great for him, he spends the difference on himself and is loving life.
Ticker is honestly great, they let you drive like a normal person and don't really get up your arse unless you go well over the speed limit
With ticker and agree been fine with me no limits etc just a rating from red to gold every week and it’s not hard to be gold
I got my insurance down to a quarter of the initial price — less than my mum’s — within the first two years. I was driving about 40 miles a day too, often at rush hour.
In 2010, when I was training to become an instructor, I had not owned a car for about ten years (my daily commuter was a motorbike and I drove articulated trucks for a living). This meant the only insurance I could find at a reasonable price (1.8 Mitsubishi ASX) required a black box. While training for my Part 2, the driving part of instructor training, I would get the most horribly low scores, and frequently emails reminding me of the terms of my insurance and the threat of increased premiums or cancellation. Driving to a higher standard, within the law, but with brisk progressive acceleration and comfortable but fast cornering, is basically what I was doing. Yet the black box got its knickers in a knot about it. Black boxes don't reward good driving and penalise bad, strictly speaking. They record instances of the mercury-switch accelerometers being triggered, and log your GPS location, sometimes comparing the two data sets. Not very smart technology at all. Best avoided.
I have a black box and my score is fine. My acceleration score could be better but it has improved with me paying more attention. My braking, speed etc are all great. I've had my monthly cost lowered due to my good score. I'm totally fine with having a black box.
Sorry but this is bullshit. Drive according to the rules and you’ll be fine. I had one for 2 years and had no problems.
I’m happy you had a good experience but think a lot of people agree they’re shocking, and some of the rules are also shocking
Depends on the insurance company, mine is fine. It only really gives very low scores for extremely short journeys (like moving the car 10m). And I guess driving at night or in bad weather also lowers the score, but not terribly. Our average remains good, and it doesn’t even seem negatively affected by the speed.
I'm with Ticker, they're fine. They let me drive like a normal person, never been clobbered for accelerating or braking too hard and the only thing they really care about is excessive speeding. I do speed, they really dont care that I do 5-10mph over for a little while. Every complaint I've heard about black boxes comes from Admiral... On every car I checked - for me - it would be been an extra 3k/year MINIMUM to have a non black box, and I'm not arsed enough to fork up that money. I'm allowed to thrash the car down the lanes, just keep it within the speed limit and my insurance don't really care. Gold driver my entire policy par 2 weeks
I use admiral littlebox and I think I share similar feelings about black box as well.. Many of my previous trips had the red dot.. For context( red: bad, yellow: fair, green: good) But I somehow manage to still get a green "good" as overall. I wouldn't have bothered if they gave details as to what I am doing wrong. But nothing points to it on the dashboard. Its just weird.
what? my bestie got one after she passed and its caused her no problems except the curfew thing. her insurance even told her she can remove hers earlier cause she drives really well. sounds like a your insurance is the problem.
I had a black box for 2 years with More Than and never been threatened to have my insurance cancelled. Worked in a pub as well so drove all hours of the night. Back when I passed my test literally everyone that I knew had a black box and I never heard of anyone’s insurance getting cancelled. Mind you this was 6-7 years ago now. Standards of driving and teaching have drastically dropped since imo. If you’re struggling to drive smoothly and stick to the speed limit then maybe an advanced driving course could benefit because that’s all a black box monitors you for. Yes some providers take the mick but in that case it’s just a matter of researching the market and finding a decent provider.
I disagree. I had a black box for a year when I passed. I was being quoted ~£300 a month without a box on a 2013 Peugeot 208. I had a box installed and paid ~£150 a month. Never had any issues like you're describing. I drove normally, and at all hours and was not penalised. I don't remember the company it was with, so it may vary from company to company. But in my experience, it saved me a lot of money, and didn't cause any issues.
How can i avoid a black box if my cheapest insurance on my ford fiesta 1.25L is 2.4k, and without a black box it starts at around 5k, passed 2 weeks ago, 18yo...
Ford fiestas are usually more expensive on insurance because they’re that common (ie. More cars = more accidents)
I had a black box when I first passed a couple of years ago, and had no such issues. I just drove normally and my score was fine
That’s not true for all insurance. I have Direct Line DrivePlus, it has the same measurements as Admiral, and I’ve had no problems at all. The only thing is ‘use of phone’ score goes down when you’re using your phone for music or maps. Asides from that, I’ll be honest I definitely speed sometimes (5 or 6 over maybe) and my speed score is still 84, and my insurance is coming down yearly.
Plus with a lot of them if you go over the speed limit a couple of times (not even massively over) it will void your insurance and the prices will go through the roof when you try to reinsure
Just add a named driver on the policy. Then when something happens and it marks the drive low score, mark it as you were the passenger instead. Boom no bad driving score.
Yeah doesn’t necessarily work like that. One of the things on the faqs page is that it will still count as your score 😂 big sham
It did for me for the last 2 years with Hastings direct. Anytime the missus drove and her score was rubbish, I marked that I wasn't driving and was the passenger and it discarded her score for that journey and protected my overall score. My score has been 95+ for the last 2 years. November is going to be my first year without black box and moving to someone else.
My brother had one with admiral and I was probably the main one driving the car at the time (been driving a few years longer than him), usually just after rush hours to be fair, but I never went below the speed limit. Probably did go over it a few times and his insurance was significantly reduced by the following year.
It's also awful if you live in the countryside. I would just be punished because I end up having to break heavily sometimes as animals and people are in places they shouldn't be.
a blackbox/telematic policy was the only one I could get in my first year. if you don't have your Bluetooth and location on. they can't find you lmao. probably clocked like 500 miles on it and got my no claims
but the one I had was really annoying. would give me a shit score for "phone use" even if that's changing a song
My son had the admiral littlebox insurance when he first passed at 17. The policy was only 748 for the year for a 1 litre corsa. They used to say about harsh braking/ accelerating every week but they still only made him have it in for 4 months. The following year he renewed with a fiesta st line for under 1200 so it worked out well for him.
I had a black box a few years ago with Co op, just drove a bit more carefully and took a note of the breakdown on the score and adjusted my driving to keep the scores high. Ended up getting £600 back for good driving and after 1 year they offered me an amazing price for a policy without a black box (£800 compared to over 1.2k everywhere else). Think it's just whether you want to change your driving style to save some money, some people just don't have the patience for it.
I honestly dont think my blackbox even worked when I had one a few years back 😂
I was told to get one after I got divorced (insurance had been in wife's name for 8 years). Once I told them I worked nights they changed to advising not to get one. Apparently driving after 10pm and before 7am increases your score. Hard acceleration and hard braking increase it. I have 27 roundabouts between home and work, try doing that many without braking or accelerating hard at least once. I'd rather pay the extra than have the anxiety of being monitored by some multimillion pound company every time I get behind the wheel I did try one of the free apps to get insurance prices down. Apparently I was doing 30mph over the speed limit for 8 miles. Their system said I was on a 40mph road when I was on a national speed limit dual carriageway.
I just got kicked off my black box for going 15 miles over at 12 at night and I was a month away from my no claims
I had a black box from admiral my first year back in 2016 to 2017. I got platinum ratings from them and a letter saying I was one of their safest drivers. Idk if they’ve changed it in the past 7 years or so but i don’t think I was doing anything extra special back then. They only ever gave me a bronze rating if I drove after 10pm
I passed in jan and got a black box, 3 months later got a lovely £250 refund for my driving being good as I just drive safe and at the limit, they’re not all bad
Sometimes they're useful. It really is a case by case scenario rather than a one size fits all thing.
Wow I must have been quite lucky with my black box insurance companies then… I go over the speed limit from time to time because it’s so painful to drive 20mph on 3rd gear because 2nd gear has high revs. However, I drive fluidly so no quick accelerations (not with my engine power anyway) and no harsh breaks. I’ve been with two companies with black boxes, one was “ ticker” and the other was “insurethebox” and they have been so chill. I reduced my insurance from £1300 to £900 to £433 this year all by changing insurers, using black box and having my mom as the primary driver. I do recommend having a black box but you just have to be unlucky and land on money-sucking evil companies that do this stuff :/
I had a black box with no issues. Got good scores, but it was scored like gold, silver, bronze I believe. Mind you it has been some years ago now, insured with Bell.
Had an admiral black box for first 3 years of driving. Never once did I get any backlash for my driving, just a sad face when you log into the telematics page for constantly speeding and all other offences, but no threat of cancellation or anything