1st car insurance - little box admiral

[SentfromSamsung]

Does anyone have experience of this?

We're a bit confused.

What are you confused about? I had a hastings direct one. You stick the little box in the car and download an app and the app records your driving. You can check the app to check your rating. It made my insurance much cheaper and the following year I was able to get cheap insurance without the box as id got a reasonable rating.

What if you have a 2nd driver on your car? What happens then?

I'm a named driver on my child's insurance but she's the only one who needs to have the black box on. If she's a passenger she has to go into the app and tell it she's not driving.

I don't have to do anything though, whether or not she's in the car with me.

Ds thinks if he makes one mistake it will put his insurance up - is this true?

Depends on the mistake.

The telematics box records speed, location, time and G Forces. So harsh acceleration and braking would cause an "event" to be logged which may increase his premium. As will driving during rush hour and late at night. Speeding will also trigger an event log.

Thanks Chiseltip. I get the speeding bit, but driving in rush hour isn't bad driving and hard to avoid if that's when you work.

DD 18 has that insurance, it brought the price down a lot. I'm named driver and if she's in the car and I drive, she has to tell the app.

It monitors her driving and she consistently gets 85% or more. I think your driving has to be very poor for them to cancel the insurance!

It had to stay in the car all of the time when we had one. The other drivers have to drive in away that won't impact the new driver ie no / fee late nights/ speeding. Weekly score + threat to cancel if consistently no improvement.

I got a couple of warnings on the app claiming I've accelerated hard and something else (can't remember now) but think unless you're regularly driving like a dick it'll help your insurance cost

@SentfromSamsung
Could you tell me whether you decided to use Admiral? We are currently on Churchill Drivesure and Admiral are cheapest this year (£150). Churchill said they couldnt match it.

Yes, we've gone with it - so far it's ok I think. Won't get a driving score until 250 mikes and then apparently gives a weekly score BUT the app tracks journeys and gives a record on speed, braking and phone use and my DS has to mark the journey down as him as a passenger if, for example it's me driving at that time.

The curfew is frustrating - it doesn't say you can't drive during those hours but if you have a late night job then it's not the insurance for you. We haven't tested it yesterday with an out of curfew drive as want a clean sheet until we see the driving score but ultimately there will come a time when an out of hours drive will be unavoidable - will be interesting to see what impact, if any, it will have on the score

A bit late now but I have a Hastings black box and have had no issues with it. You get a two week score and an overall score, there’s no curfew or penalty for driving at night or in rush hour, and they can’t increase your premium mid-policy either.

You need a score above 40 - anything between 30-40 and you’ll be given warnings, and below 30 and you’ll risk cancellation.

My score is 96.

Dd had this. No problems as such however I’d say the weekly driving scores weren’t accurate. Her “smoothness “ score was always low. Dd went away for a few weeks so in the interest of research I drove her car a couple of times. Drove it like I was on a driving test, rural roads with no crazy braking. The smoothness score was still low.

And iirc the nighttime driving score wasn’t perfect which was interesting as I only drove in the middle of the day.

Thank you for your replies.
Still unsure whether to switch since I am the named policy holder (my car) which is used by DS when he is home from University. We had to have telematics as soon as I put him on my insurance or pay another £1000+

The car is used mainly for school runs at peak time with lots of traffic and food shops. Will also check out Hastings Direct. On the Churchill Drivesure, you can check each journey after it is completed and logs all journies with no need to classify whether driver/passenger.