A new report has revealed the six types of drivers who could benefit from having black box insurance – where premiums are based on your driving behaviour.
This type of insurance involves a black box being professionally installed in your car and this box monitors how and when you drive and relays this information back to the insurer, which then calculates your premiums based on the data it has received.
As revealed by The Telegraph, Black box insurance is popular among young drivers trying to reduce the cost of cover, but motorists of other ages can also benefit as listed below:
Young drivers:
Young drivers aged between the ages of 17-24 are statistically the most likely to be involved in a car accident, which means premiums can be sky-high. According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI) drivers in this age group are three times more likely than drivers of other ages to be responsible for “catastrophic claims”.
Back box insurance enables insurers to tailor premiums to suit each individual based on their driving habits, rather than relying on statistics alone to determine the cost of their cover. So provided young drivers can demonstrate they are responsible motorists, premiums will be lower than they would be if they opted for conventional cover.
New drivers:
If you have only recently passed your driving test, and therefore have limited experience on the roads, you will also be considered high risk by insurers, regardless of your age. Black Box insurance could help you pay cheaper premiums as premiums will be based on how and when you drive, so the safer you are, the lower your premiums will be.
Low mileage drivers:
If you only drive a few miles every so often, it doesn’t make sense to pay the same insurance premiums as someone who drives 10,000 miles or more every year. Many black box policies allow you to choose exactly how many miles you’ll drive, and use this information to help work out your premium. If you don’t exceed this number, then you won’t have to pay any extra.
A spokesman for black box insurer Insurethebox told The Telegraph: “For those drivers who need to travel further, top up miles are available in bundles of 250, 500, 1,000 or 2,000 miles.”
Similarly, Coverbox’s “pay as you drive” scheme, also allows you to buy more miles if you underestimate your annual mileage.
Careful drivers:
If you pride yourself on being a particularly safe driver, black box insurance could potentially reward you with lower premiums. For example, with black box cover from Ingenie, every three months your policy is reviewed and a discount is applied if you’re driving well. Ingenie claims that 70 per cent of its customers have received a good driving discount.
The AA’s Drivesafe policy assesses how you anticipate traffic and follow the landscape, so the better you drive, the lower your premiums will be.
Slow drivers:
Black box insurance is not for boy racers. You don’t have to crawl along the roads, but you must always stick within speed limits. Remember that speed can be assessed in other ways too. For example, if you take corners too sharply and are braking while doing so, this could work against you if you have a black box installed. Similarly, you’ll need to take care not to accelerate too fast away from traffic lights or to brake hard when you see a traffic jam in front of you.
Daytime drivers:
Driving late at night or in the small hours is considered much riskier than driving during the daytime. This means drivers with black box insurance are likely to see premiums rise if they regularly drive at night, while some such as iKube and Co-op, have curfews so that if you drive late at night you could be fined or see premiums rise. If you tend only to drive during the day, then black box cover could be for you as you will be rewarded for driving during “low risk” periods.