12 May How satisfied are you with your Black Box technology?
One of the most popular new technologies around is the ‘Black Box’. For the most part, they’ve seemed an absolute hit with teenage drivers, and per The Guardian ‘Figures have revealed a 40% surge in the space of a year in the take-up of so-called telematics-based motor insurance policies, with almost 455,000 people now using the technology to monitor their driving skills in exchange for cheaper premiums’. Nevertheless, the cheaper premiums and technology that monitors the driving isn’t quite all it’s made out to be for some customers.
Competitive car insurance website ‘Compare the Market’ claim the typical price a first-time driver of around 18 – 22 years old, will pay £1300 for annual converge. The telematics companies say not only will they bring down your initial price when agreeing to use the driving technology, but they will also give you a sum of money back (usually around £200) if your driving is what they like to call ‘satisfactory’. However, it seems no obligatory requirements are stated in the small print as to how exactly you should be driving. All companies that use the black box technology also state that opting to have the black box software monitor the individuals driving will also allow an instant cheaper renewal when the agreed period of insurance is up. However, are the drivers wanting to insure with them again?
Jasmin Price, a university student and part time barmaid has had her own unique experience with using the telematics software in her car over the past few years. Jasmin, who has been insured for three years now has had three different experiences with using the black box technology.
“I’ve had completely different experiences with all three insurers over the last few years but my last time of insurance was by far the worst. My first time was fine, no quibbles with the policy. Second time around I had trouble fitting the device since I was asked to do it myself, which I found strange as my first insurance company did it for me and there was no fuss surrounding the fitting of the actual box. I couldn’t seem to get the box working – I could fit it in my car but the device wasn’t working. I was getting emails and calls 24/7 because the company couldn’t see my driving data or GPRS. I ended up getting the device taken out my car and the insurance company forgetting about it as it was becoming such a hassle – they kept the cover as the same price though, which was great!
My third time of insuring was a little different. Thankfully the company fitted the device for me and all seemed to be going well. I’d been driving for about two weeks when I started getting emails saying I was ‘driving at peek times’ and if I continued to drive within those times my entire policy would get cancelled and it would be increasingly hard and expensive to reinsure. I queried as to what ‘peak times’ were, I got a response that was ‘between 5am – 9am and 9.30pm-2.30am’. I work part time at weekends in a bar so tend to finish very late and I’m up and out early every morning driving to my nearest train station for university. When I realised I was constantly driving in peak times I just didn’t know what to do. My policy ended up getting cancelled and I now cannot find insurance as no company wants to insure me due to having a previous policy cancelled, unless I want to pay around £5000! Black boxes have ruined my life!!”
Having a black box can be beneficial to not only yourself, but your insurance company, especially when getting out of these sticky situations. According to Direct Line ‘Ten million drivers regularly break the 30mph speed limit’ Paul Felton, The Head of Telematics at Direct Line, said: “Drivers are speeding much more than they think they are, particularly the young.”
Direct Line, Insure the Box and The Co-operative Insurance confirmed to Telegraph Money that they had handed over telematics records to the police on the production of a court order. However, they stressed that these instances involved serious criminal investigations, rather than minor road misdemeanors. In Jasmin Price’s example, her telematics wasn’t reading the correct GPRS or driving data so therefore giving the data records to the police could have turned bad!
Gavin Carter (name changed for confidentiality) from Elephant Car Insurance Ltd explained the prices you pay for being a young and sometimes ‘reckless driver’.
Gavin stated ‘As much as the telematics devices seem to work amongst most customers, there have been many cases to where users have not been happy and the devices have not lived up to what they thought they were going to be. I think that many customers, especially teens just think it’s a cheap way to get insurance and don’t realise you do have to drive just like you did on the day you were tested. Being young myself, I do feel it’s hard to be the ‘perfect customer’ and get the money back that we promise. It’s definitely not as easy and cheap as its made out to be, but we’ve gotta make money as a company’.
A claimant said there had been an accident at a road junction in Gravesend, Kent involving two strangers. When their insurance company looked deeper into the allegations and checked the black box information, it showed one of the cars involved had been parked for 20 minutes earlier in the day outside the address of a company owned by the other person. It also showed the initial impact had taken place on a country lane before the car was driven to the site of the alleged accident.
“There were many other causes for concern in these particular cases and an in-depth investigation proved extremely fruitful in terms of evidence against the claimants,” said Adrian Steele, claims director at Insure the Box. “It was clear that they were closely connected in their personal lives, and the high number of claims involving more than one of the group of policyholders was a strong indicator of fraud,” he added. “This was an intricate and multi-stranded fraud ring,” said Stratos Gatzouris, a partner at law firm Hill Dickinson who worked on the intriguing case.
According to Which.co.uk The average driver forks out almost £1,000 a year for comprehensive car insurance, compared to £450 in 2000. Having asked nine of the biggest UK insurers to outline exactly where this money goes, we discovered that 73p of every pound is spent on paying claims, while 23p goes on overheads such as administration and marketing. Just over 2p of every pound is accounted for by profit.
Aviva told us that 49p in every pound of claims spend goes toward paying third-party personal injury claims. The spend on personal injury claims for the Co-operative, Esure and Shiela’s Wheels was 38p in every pound. An Aviva spokesperson told us: ‘At a time when accidents have continued to fall across the last 15 years, it seems at odds that the number of injury claims during this time has almost doubled.’ According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), fraud can add up to £50 to the annual insurance bill for every UK policyholder.
Here’s some top tips created on how to cut down the price of your insurance:
- Create a high excess. If you don’t plan on having any accidents, set it high!
- Fully check out your planned insurer before you commit. You don’t want any unexpected surprises.
- Pay for your cover annually, it avoids unnecessary communication between you and your insurer (plus! It’s always cheaper)
- Let them know all your occupations. They’re more likely to be lenient with driving times when you have been upfront.
Telematics software, otherwise known as the infamous black box has shown the positives and negatives of having the technology in your vehicle. It seems as if younger drivers are expecting the telematics to have ‘no limits’ or no expectations as such for your driving to be up to spec. The BBC have said “One in five young drivers having an accident within their first 12 months of being on the road, insurance premiums are high. Many look to ways to reduce their costs and the black box seems to be a way of doing it”
Critics say they cost too much and civil liberty campaigners have expressed concern about the potential for invasion of privacy, or data incriminating drivers. It has been proved to be a great source of technology though when it comes to finding out and differentiating between the real fraudsters and the ones who just want to drive their car! Allegations were put to The British Car Insurance industry body; however, no comments were made in response to the allegations made regarding the telematics devices used in teenager’s cars.
