I haven't owned a car in about eight years, so I'm suffering the same insurance woes I did as a teenlad.
Has anyone had any experience with those black box policies? I'm looking at about 700 quid a year with one, and 1100 without, so I'm likely to go for it, but I'm more than willing to pay the extra for a normal policy if it's too much palaver.
The main issue I have with them personally is the vagueness regarding how the data will be interpreted, and particularly with how it will develop in the future.
At the moment they seem to be sold to drivers mostly on the basis of penalisation for "bad" driving, bad being things like braking/cornering aggressively, driving at night etc. However I expect that in the future it'll gradually evolve into a system which is much more like "pay per drive", it'll work out much much cheaper for some people, but for others like myself who have no other option but to drive on an accident-prone section of the A38 to get to work everyday, costs will be massively inflated, regardless of how safe my driving style is otherwise.
>>3539 Those policies are opaque, meaning you have literally no idea what your driving is doing to your premium (other than that it almost certainly isn't reducing it), and there's no clarity in how that data is used (apart from whatever policies they publish, which are almost certainly full of lies and half-truths). Basically, unless you want to relinquish entirely your ability to properly compare policies, stay well away from them.
>>3539 I'm almost 30 and I pay just shy of a grand. It is more or less the average these day for people our age depending on where you live. Stop being a cheap bastard. If you can't afford it, don't buy a car. The black box is like the Gestapo. You don't know what they are judging you on, and it will never work to your benefit.
Out of people I know who've had a black box they all seemed to have saved money in the short term without any obvious negative sides. Though some enforce a curfew I think, which would be pretty shit in my view.
I guess it comes down to how much you care about data protection/privacy, they represent quite a worrying slippery slope. Though if you own a mobile phone you're likely already giving out similar data to what a black box would collect (GPS, accelerometer etc.) so you might just think fuck-it anyway.
I am 28 and pay about 400 quid. To be paying a grand I imagine you must do lots of miles, or you have been in an accident, or you drive a car that tends to get in accidents.
Not more than 10k a year in miles, and it's a new but small 308. The only reason I'm paying so much is because I haven't insured anything in years, and my profession doesn't help as it's long hours and late night commuting. My plan was to take the Big Brother box for a year or two until I have some NCB back.
In my mind the worst that can happen is when I come to renew my insurance they want to charge me more, in which case I tell them where to shove it and go back to driving in freedom with some other insurer. I have an android phone, so Google already knows where I live, work, and how often I have a shit, so I'm not sure that changes much.
