Is black box insurance worth it

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Hi,,I have just changed my 16 plate 200 Diesel Sport C Class for an 18 plate 2,0 Litre Diesel Coupe with the Amg kit..Insurance Nightmare..My Insurance has went from £700 a year to £1400..Could hardly get a company to insure me but the ones I have found want to install a Black Box..I can't believe it...They are telling me its a high performance car,,fps,,it's not exactly a Ferrari..
Its certainly not a Ferrari, it's not even an AMG FFS. That hike in premium is madness. Probably because the 'AMG' is in the title and the wheels and bodywork will cost more to fix.
 
I am about to insure a youngster to drive and I am not convinced by the black box, I hear anecdotal stories of some of them sending spurious data out that is almost impossible to prove wrong ie: crazy speeds and phantom 3 am journeys etc. And how does it work if I jump in the BB car and zoom to the shops on an errand ? My journey is logged as the learner driver I guess ?
 
For a 17 year old just starting on their insurance journey, a BB makes sense. The price is almost halved (£950 with BB, £1850 without) in my son's experience.

Having used his car a bit, and having helped him understand the ratings and data that the BB shares, I would not recommend them unless the saving truly is game changing. They are fairly unsophisticated devices, even those like my son's with GPS and accelerometer chips included, and the algorithm in the back end are just not capable of handling the inputs reliably. The data presented on your scores definitely trends correctly with real world behaviour, but there are plenty of odd anomalies and random events that mean it is hard to trust the scores.

For the parent of a 17 year old, it is great. Your children save money, and it forces them to drive considerately, safely and to the law. It also gives them a very plausible reason not to show off in front of their friends.

Later in life, you will just spend your whole time driving worrying about going slightly over speed limits, braking too hard, and generally removing any element of fun from the equation. Add to that the general feeling of doubt in the data means you are always worrying slightly that a data error from the BB will cause your insurance company to threaten/cancel.

Martin.
 
Hi,,I have just changed my 16 plate 200 Diesel Sport C Class for an 18 plate 2,0 Litre Diesel Coupe with the Amg kit..Insurance Nightmare..My Insurance has went from £700 a year to £1400..Could hardly get a company to insure me but the ones I have found want to install a Black Box..I can't believe it...They are telling me its a high performance car,,fps,,it's not exactly a Ferrari..
I don't want to sound impertinent, but do you have a poor driving / claims record? I can't see any reason why there should be such a disparity in premiums between those two cars unless there's some other factor at work.

A couple of suggestions: Have you tried Aviva? They underwrite the Merecedes-Benz insurance scheme which I've never found to be particularly competitive, but their own branded policies offer good cover and are more reasonably priced in my experience. Failing that, I'd suggest talking to a specialist motor insurance broker to see what they can find. At least they should be able to flush out any particular matters that are adversely affecting your risk profile and give you advice.

As an aside, you've illustrated the very important point that checking insurance rates for the car you want before you commit to it can save a great deal of pain later.
 
Speaking with a 20 year old lad who works for my company last night. He has a black box fitted which reduced his premium from £1300 to £700. He has just received his second 'Red Flag' warning, giving him notice that if he gets one more it's three strikes and we cancel your insurance.

He is accused of doing 67mph in a 30 limit. He demanded the date, time and location. Turns out he was doing 67 on the M20 near Folkestone, but the GPS put him in a 100m long cul-de-sac on a new housing estate nestled next to the motorway. He has appealed the 'flag' and has to wait 14 days for it to be reviewed by his insurers 'black box team'!
 
Company vehicle insurance is a blanket insurance covering all drivers. If black boxes were fitted to their vehicles then the costs for transgression of one driver would push the price up for the whole fleet, not just the one who is driving. Cannot see the sense in that.
I agree though that fitting to vehicles of new drivers ,and having P stickers, was to try and reduced the number of accidents caused by the inconsiderate teenagers who think that they know it all.

Roger
 
Company vehicle insurance is a blanket insurance covering all drivers. If black boxes were fitted to their vehicles then the costs for transgression of one driver would push the price up for the whole fleet, not just the one who is driving. Cannot see the sense in that.
I agree though that fitting to vehicles of new drivers ,and having P stickers, was to try and reduced the number of accidents caused by the inconsiderate teenagers who think that they know it all.

Roger
Makes my point in post 22 valid. I hope his appeal works. This BB technology appears to be a bit primitive to me.
 
Thanks all...I was banned for DD in 2006...I now have 8 years no claims bonus.I do have an SP30 (speeding) on 13/5/2016...I cannot believe what's going on.The drunk driving is well expired and one poxy speeding ticket nearly 4 years ago.Scrum Insurance company's.
 
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אם אתה מחפש שירות אדיב ודיסקרטי באמת,
הגעת למקום הנכון...
 

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