If you’re a young driver in the UK, getting car insurance is unfortunately going to be very expensive. The only way to significantly bring down the cost is to get a black box insurance policy. In this article, I’ve tried to condense everything useful I learned about buying black box car insurance for my teenage son.
In Summary
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Black Box Car Insurance Makes A Big Difference In Cost
A Black Box insurance policy requires a device to be installed in the car to monitor how well the car is being driven. If the car is being driven reasonably well, it can make a significant difference to the insurance premium.
I focused on four different insurance companies with black boxes for my 18 year old son. The cost of the policy was reduced by anywhere between 20% and 50%, compared to not having a box policy.
He ended up going with Admiral black box insurance, which nearly halved the cost of his insurance premium from £3400 to £1800.
Types of Black Box
There are two main types of ‘Black Box’ used by UK car insurance companies for new and young drivers:
- Professionally installed – An engineer will come out and install a device in your car
- Self install \ Plug-in – The insurance company will post a device that you plug into your car diagnostic port or the 12V cigarette lighter port.
How does a Black Box work
The Black Box measures various factors that are used to determine how well the car is being driven. Exactly what is measured varies between car insurance companies, but typically, the following things are measured:
- Speed: Is the car being driven within the speed limit
- Acceleration: How smoothly or aggressively you accelerate.
- Braking: Sudden or harsh braking.
- Cornering: How sharply you take corners.
- Mileage: Tracks the total distance you drive.
- Time of Driving: Time of day or night you are driving. Some insurance companies don’t permit driving in the middle of the night, e.g. 11:00 pm to 5:00 am. Other insurance companies allow late night driving, but may record it as a negative.
- Phone use: How much you use your phone when driving
- Location: GPS to track your location.
Cheapest Black Box Insurance Companies
When I was looking for my son’s car insurance policy with a black box, four insurance companies kept popping up in comparison websites or as recommendations from online forums as being the cheapest, they were:
Because there are so many factors that affect insurance policies, the four companies listed above might not be the cheapest for everyone, but I think they’re a good starting point.
TOP TIP – Filling out online forms to get quotes from different insurance companies is a pain in the backside. To make the process a little easier, get a password manager (I recommend BitWarden, it’s free) that can be configured to automatically fill forms. It will save you a shedload of time.
How Strict Are Black Boxes
Many online forums, including Reddit, suggest that the black boxes used to monitor driving are very strict and that it doesn’t take much for an insurer to cancel your policy. This was a bit of concern, as getting car insurance cancelled by the insurer makes it very difficult to get insured again.
Without a Black Box, my son’s premium would be too expensive and he would not be able to insure his car. So for him, it was worth getting the black box even if it was strict. He was just going to have to drive sensibly or not be able to drive at all.
In this article, I’ve discussed how strict Admiral’s black box, called LittleBox, can be. I can only comment on Admiral, as that’s the company my son went with for his insurance.
What Happens If Black Box Car Insurance Is Cancelled
The biggest problem with black box car insurance is if you get poor driving scores, the insurance company will cancel the the insurance policy. A cancelled insurance policy is bad news as it significantly increases future insurance premiums and for young drivers it will make it very difficult, if not impossible to get insured.
The good news is you can avoid your insurance being cancelled if you cancel the policy yourself before the insurer does. All the companies I looked at give a short notice period before cancellation, and if you cancel during that time, it won’t count as the insurer cancelling your policy
Tips On Buying Car Black Box Insurance
- Make sure you read the terms and conditions for black box insurance, as they differ a lot between insurers. e.g. some insurers don’t allow driving between certain hours at night, some have mileage limits etc
- Shop around. I found that there are huge price differences between different insurers.
- Understand all the costs involved. Check if there is a black box installation \ removal cost, what are early cancellation costs, are there additional mileage costs etc
- Insurance groups. In the UK cars fall into one of five insurance groups. To get the cheapest car insurance, buy a car that is in group one.
- Don’t trust the comparison website costs. I found the quotes from comparison websites often increased when you went on to get the insurance from the insurer.
- Look at getting multi car policy. Bundling extra cars or home insurance with a single insurer cuts black box premiums. Admiral offers substantial discounts for taking out multiple insurance policies through them.
- Good driving only counts when you renew with the same insurer. Insurance companies don’t share positive driving data, so if you want lower renewal costs for driving well, you’ll need to stick with your current insurer.
Final Thoughts
Black Box insurance is a great option to have for young drivers. It can significantly reduce the insurance premium costs, which are notoriously high for young drivers in the UK. The main things to lookout for when getting black box car insurance are restrictions imposed by the insurers, like not being insured to drive between certain hours at night or limit on the miles per month etc.
