Telematics Box

[Bower]

This would probably be more relevant to young drivers.

So as you all probably know, insurance for young drivers in this country is crazy expensive.

However, when I was looking for a cheap one, I found that a couple of providers (Bell, Insure the box, etc..) can provide a cheap insurance. However, only under the circumstance of installing a telematics box in your car, can you insure your vehicle with that company.

What are your opinions on this?

Are any of you aware of the restrictions that the box has and how it measures your driving performance?

The insurance broker could only say general things like don't brake too hard or don't do any wheel spins or hand brake turns....

He also mentioned that if you go faster than 100 mph your insurance is void immediately.

So do you know anything about how they measure if you corner at high speeds, and do some winter sliding etc??

[jimrex]

I'm 22 and wouldn't touch one with a barge pole. I can understand the principle behind it... if you are an angel and are minimal risk (e.g. only drive locally a couple of times a week during the daytime) you would have cheap insurance.

In reality, I can see insurance companies building up a profile of you as a driver, knowing where you've been, how fast it took you to get there, how you drove, what time of day it was etc. Using this information, I can see them saying "Generally sir you take bends too fast and pull away from the lights with too much gusto, you also drive in the early hours of the morning a lot, therefore we're going to up your premium by £500"

I have no idea exactly what they measure, but it's another example of that big brother society creeping in!

[k13r4n]

I totally agree with jimrex here and I'm 20

[Mathrin]

I'm 22 and wouldn't touch one with a barge pole. I can understand the principle behind it... if you are an angel and are minimal risk (e.g. only drive locally a couple of times a week during the daytime) you would have cheap insurance.

In reality, I can see insurance companies building up a profile of you as a driver, knowing where you've been, how fast it took you to get there, how you drove, what time of day it was etc. Using this information, I can see them saying "Generally sir you take bends too fast and pull away from the lights with too much gusto, you also drive in the early hours of the morning a lot, therefore we're going to up your premium by £500"

I have no idea exactly what they measure, but it's another example of that big brother society creeping in!

That is literally the principal of it. Like seriously, that is how it's explained to you when you sign up, if you're a bad driver, premium goes up, good driver, it goes down.

At the same time, it also means you can tell a hell of a lot when it comes to investigating incidents inolving ITB and Ingenie customers.

[Preee]

If i was a young driver today , i would not fit these devices , as above , they will build a profile which i'm pretty sure they will use against you and will continue to use for future insurance groups as they will pass the information on.Everybody at some stage will pull away from lights a little too fast or corner a little too fast once in a while , could be you may not know the road etc. but these device's will store that info and add pounds to your policy , the only gain will be the insurance , as they will just keep adding and adding and unless you have a complete map of your driving saved you will not be able to argue it.

Save a little more and keep your driving personal to you.

[Mathrin]

There is not actually anywhere or indeed any way we can supply the information held on a telematics unit, to other insurance companies. The DPA breach involved in that is pretty damn big.

[Preee]

There is not actually anywhere or indeed any way we can supply the information held on a telematics unit, to other insurance companies. The DPA breach involved in that is pretty damn big.

I still would not touch one with a barge poll.They have not been introduced to save the driver money , but more to fool the young driver into thinking they will get a good deal , and unless you're a pure saint at driving it will come back and haunt the driver.

"Sir you had Telematic last year , this year your not , so you must be hiding something so now you will pay even more"

[Mathrin]

Rubbish. People change cover policies all the time. It's designed to monitor the way you drive and change the premium accordingly. If you stop using it, you move onto a fixed premium based on about 30 different things that you answer when you sign up for the insurance. Will it go up? Possibly. Will it go down? Possibly. Just because someone would change from a Telematic unit to a standard policy would not make an insurer suggest the policyholder has anything to hide.

[Preee]

Rubbish. People change cover policies all the time. It's designed to monitor the way you drive and change the premium accordingly. If you stop using it, you move onto a fixed premium based on about 30 different things that you answer when you sign up for the insurance. Will it go up? Possibly. Will it go down? Possibly. Just because someone would change from a Telematic unit to a standard policy would not make an insurer suggest the policyholder has anything to hide.

It's just my opinion , i don't trust insurance companies and why should i , if they trusted the car owners , then they could give better policies.Young drivers may be as good a driver as someone who has been driving for 20 years yet they have to pay large sums of money out because they are "all" deemed to be insane behind the wheel of a car.

Do you have one of these fitted , and if you do has/is it working out better value for you?

[b1g_dav3]

21, wouldn't go near. Sorry but you can boot a car in the legal speed limit and have fun, I do so safely as let's face it I quite like my life, but according to them, it's an excuse to add more premium. I have 4 years no claims and had a Matiz going round country roads at 50/60 depending on speed limit, I'm still here now!

[Bower]

What they said is that info stored on telematics box will only be used by them, they are not allowed to share it with another company... Your points are clear and valid, however the price goes up by a whopping thousand pounds if you choose not to have one... I have to decide until next week...

I got a quick question about voluntary access:

If you increase to let's say 500 pounds, does this mean that

a) you will have to pay 500 quid only when you are guilty for the accident?

B) you are not guilty for the accident, but when you take it to the garage you still have to pay 500 out of your pocket?

Thanks in advance!

[iNath]

I got a quick question about voluntary access:

If you increase to let's say 500 pounds, does this mean that

a) you will have to pay 500 quid only when you are guilty for the accident?

B) you are not guilty for the accident, but when you take it to the garage you still have to pay 500 out of your pocket?

Thanks in advance!

In any accident in which you need a repair you will have to pay the first £500 worth. If you were not at fault and this is proven/settled by the insurance companies you will get the money back.

[JonM]

Adding to iNath, when a car very kindly drove into me my ar was still easily roadworthy so Admiral agreed to wait on the repair to see if it would be settled by the other insurer. The other insurer admitted fault on behalf of the other driver as they recieved no response and I didn't have to pay any excess when getting it repaired - which helped my cash flow a lot. Didnt take too long to sort either... (Probably thanks to the evidence I provided).

Although, strangely about 10-11 months later, Admiral wrote to me saying Direct Line changed their mind and were fighting the case and was asked if I was prepared to go to court. I however didn't have time to do this. Either way, my case was settled and any changes between Admiral and Direct Line wouldn't affect me.

[Bower]

Nath, thanks again buddy! it was supposed to be a ) and b ) , wasn't trying to put the cool smile on , jokes :DDD

[Mathrin]

It's just my opinion , i don't trust insurance companies and why should i , if they trusted the car owners , then they could give better policies.Young drivers may be as good a driver as someone who has been driving for 20 years yet they have to pay large sums of money out because they are "all" deemed to be insane behind the wheel of a car.

Do you have one of these fitted , and if you do has/is it working out better value for you?

I know this is going to sound like it's defending by own line of business blindly, but...here goes.

Motor insurance is not a massive profit making business. There are a couple of reasons that premiums are so high, and that is due to the amount of fraud that arises from accidents. Someone has an accident - standard reserve for that is £800 per person, another £800 if there is a hire car involved. If it goes over to Personal Injury, it's all down to the type of injury "sustained".

You would not believe the payouts we have to make on these claims because its very hard to prove they're fraudulent within the boundary of the law, even if we know for a fact that it is.

Yes, we make some profit on motor insurance, we are a business after all - we have to make money. So if you think - you go into the back of another person. Very very easy to rack up 3 or 4 thousand on a claim, if it's not a particularly bad one. If It's a write off, depending on the cars involved, could be more, could be less. but you've only paid £300 for your years insurance. That means we could be down anywhere from 2700 to 9700 quid easy, Again, this is before anything particularly injury related steps in.

A lot of motorists seem to think that insurance should be free, or cheap as anything. Fact is, if we charged £200 flat rate for everyone, we would be out of business in a year, easily. How do we pay for peoples repairs, when we have no money in the bank?

As for why it's expensive to insure a young driver? Everyone knows the answer :- less experienced, can be more likely to speed, more likely to cause or be involved in accidents. Means when we pay out on claims, we are not as much down the pan as we would have been. If you don't claim, brilliant, get a large discount thanks to now having 1 years NCD on your renewal premium. Telematics is a dynamic approach to insurance as it can give you (as can be seen here) that it reduces your premium by a substantial amount, if you're young and a sensible driver. Drive like a moron, box knows you'e causing more of a risk for other road users, hikes up the premium in anticipation for any claims. Saying that we're tarring everyone with the same brush, yeah that is true, but again, we need to stay afloat. It's no good charging you £300 premium for an 18 year old who has a crash within a week of passing his test, it's too late then and we've lost a hell of a lot of money.

I realise thiss got a bit preachy, and I'm sorry. But claiming insurance companies have no reason to trust the people we insure is pure BS, plain and simple. If anything, we trust everything you say. We have to. That is until you get involved in an incident and we find your car has been modded. Or you don't actually keep it where you say you do. Thats when we have to get nasty, and honesty? It's their own fault when they're stuck with no insurance, and a written off car that we won't deal with if we choose to void the policy, based on the offenses.

As for your question, no I do not have one of these fitted. I am 24, passed my test in february, have a brand new car, and even with the additional premium of working in motorclaims, I pay between 800 and 900 yearly. Next year it will drop to around 500ish with a years NCD. I have no problem with this, having had the exposure to road incidents that my job involves.

I'll shut up about my job now.

[iNath]

Best response on this forum, will have to favourite this as I feel I'll be linking back to it a lot every time someone moans about insurance!

[Mathrin]

I didnt even touch on the "Well what do I pay insurance for?!" types ;)

[Brigante]

I'm 23 in november, passed my test at 17, did my pass plus. Driving an 05 plate mk2 focus 1.6. Technically this is my first car and I've had it 6months so no no claims bonus yet. On paper a new driver but I've been driving pretty much the whole time as my old work provided company and hire cars so I was driving a different car every week n working all over the country so never at home. Hence never needing my own car till now and not having my own ncb. So like I said on paper my first car and a new driver, even though I've been driving nearly 5years, covered countless motorway miles as well as drove round pretty much every town n city in the country (this obviously wont matter to an insurer). Live in a semi rough area like everyone else and the car is parked on a private driveway overnight. I'm actually one of these rare people that actually doesn't speed and doesn't go over 69 on the motorway unless overtaking hgv's. Actually a very careful driver due to having the Missus in passenger seat most of the time. What would you say is a rough yearly premium for me mate?

[Brigante]

Apologies for the lengthy post ;)

[Stoney871]

The devices record excessive lateral g forces and rapid forward and reverse movement indicating swerving or braking/accelerating hard.

We have them fitted to our work vehicles connected to tracking units and are downloadable in the case of accidents.

Seeing as most of my work driving involves high speeds and heavy driving I'm surprised my unit hasn't blown a fuse by now.

[Mathrin]

What would you say is a rough yearly premium for me mate?

Unfortunately its is 100% impossible to give you an answer that would be accurate.

Premium takes into account some of the following

Make

Model

Engine size

Mods

Home address

Address of where it is kept (if different)

How vehicle is stored

What security there is on the vehicle

What you will be using it for (SD+P, Class 1, COOG)

If you've had any previous accidents coming up on the Claims Underwriting Exchange (CUE)

If you've had any convictions

Any one of these variables could severely increase or decrease the premium.

[Bower]

Got the admiral insurance without the telematics box today...

I decided that I am grown up enough so that no one would look over my shoulder and see how much I press the gas pedal...

Ended up paying only 60 quid more, just had to increase the voluntary access.

I kinda liked the idea of telematics box, but the fact that they monitor what time of day you drive is just simply ridiculous.

If I drive at night, it doesn't mean that I am going sideways with a hand on the hanbrake at 100 mph racing another kid. Maybe I just like to put some calming r'n'b music on volume 4 at 00:30 and simply go to see a girl who lives at the other side of the town.

Got a bit emotional there :D

Anyways, thanks for advice guys!

[Stoney871]

A bit of a departure from the main theme but slightly relevant.

A few years ago I had an old car I got from a friend, rang for an insurance quote and was asked about security devices.

I told them it had an after market alarm and they asked if it was thatcham approved.

I told them I didn't know and was advised that to received security device discount on my policy they would have to send someone to inspect the alarm at a cost to me of £80.

I asked them what the annual alarm discount on the policy would be and they informed me it was------£5.

Suffice to say I politely declined the alarm discount.

[Mathrin]

If I drive at night, it doesn't mean that I am going sideways with a hand on the hanbrake at 100 mph racing another kid. Maybe I just like to put some calming r'n'b music on volume 4 at 00:30 and simply go to see a girl who lives at the other side of the town.

You might not do, but there are a lot of people who do ;)

[Brigante]

Where do people like me who work shifts stand with a box n a curfew restricting them from driving at night, if they have to drive at night when working a night shift for instance?