Experience using Black box insurance for family car with teen as named driver?

[Greenwood66]

I am shopping around for insurance for DD who will hopefully pass her driving test later this week. She will be a named driver on my car and I will be the main driver using the car to get to and from work every day (this is genuine, & I know some insurance companies won’t insure as they think it might be fronting) . Price-wise a black box policy is going to be cheapest but I’m not sure if it’s best, I’d be really interested in anyone’s experiences of this insurance.

Thanks in advance!

This might seem like a silly question, and I appreciate that different policies work differently, but - maybe showing my age 😊 - I am a bit confused about how some black box specifics actually work on a daily basis and wonder if anyone has experience they can share – I realise these are possibly stupid questions but I can’t find answers online:
Do I also need a phone in the car? Does it always have to be the same phone – multiple drivers (me, DD, DH) = multiple phones? If it runs out of charge or let’s say I forget it – is that a problem? Do I need to login every single time I start the car (lets say I stop at the post office and then at the shop on my way home – 3 separate logins for 3 journeys….)? Or does the box do this all for you?

I’m also aware that drivers can find they are penalised for things out of their control ie if you have to accelerate hard down a short sliproad onto a dual carriageway; swerve on a rural road to avoid large potholes – have you had any issues?

And, finally - (sorry if this is long) - how good are companies about advising you that you have a red warning or whatever – the policy that I have a good quote for (Co-op Young Drivers) seems to have a lot of very poor reviews, with many people commenting they were notified of infractions or even a policy cancellation by post… I don’t intend to go down that route but would rather be aware in advance!

My DS had a black box from Drive Smart - its operation had nothing to do with our phones - the unit was fed from the car battery and then it sent info direct to a main PC we assume! When he changed insurers and didn't need it, DH just cut the power wires feeding it.

There was no 'logging in' with DS box, we just got in the car and drove. It didn't know who was driving!

He could log in to see his stats initially but didn't bother after a while.

I don't know much about them however I do know that it automatically logs everything so there should be no need for phones or things like that. There are a lot of terms and conditions to them.

Black boxes aren’t done using mobile phones but you can download an app afterwards to see how good your driving was for that journey!

They are installed somewhere within the car and I think they have little ball bearings that measure how fast you go around corners, how often you emergency stop etc

I had one as it made my insurance so much cheaper and it’s fantastic.

I went though admiral and because they have the app you can see then and there how many “warnings” you’d have and correct your driving. They give you red, amber, green for each journey and tell you why. So if you’re swerving EVERY journey which you really shouldn’t be then you’d need to fix that

Following, my DS is taking his test soon, dreading the insurance quotes!

Good luck for your DD, I hope she passes.

Mine from Bell (part of Admiral) is plug into the car, no phones or logging in involved.

It offers a very meagre discount a period of time after the monitoring has ended. So I went with the fact that the upfront cost was competitive.

They've not informed me how long I need the black box installed to qualify for the discount so I'm just driving around with it until they ask for it back

My driving reports are emailed to me weekly - seem pretty random to me to be honest. I get mostly Bronze with a few Golds. I won't be qualifying for a discount on that performance but neither will they be removing my cover.

One thing to look out for is curfew times. Some have clauses if the car is driven say, after 10pm it is an automatic 'mark down'

No way would I add my DC to my own policy again. dS was on mine and had an accident three months after passing. Hung around on my record for five years. When it was DD time she had her own policy on an old banger of her own. Good job because she had two accidents in the first year.

Fortunately they are now 25 and 22 so I finally don’t have to declare any longer.and they have stopped scraping their cars.

I second get her her own car, particularly if she'll not often use it. You can reduce the cost by adding your name to her policy.

Alternatively you can add her for periods of time when back from Uni as a student away from home www.wearemarmalade.co.uk/student-driver-insurance

We have like a family policy and my son had a black box for a while. I think it is with Bell.

My daughter had a black box , first years insurance was 1600!secund year less than 800 , next year between 400-600!.

My son had several of these policies. The black box recorder was hard wired into the car - no logging in or out. However, we had multiple problems with them glitching. Showing the car on a road 3/4 miles from home when the car was parked up on our drive!! Recorded as speeding on a 60 mph road when only driving at 50 mph. We did this as the original price was cheaper, but with penalties for various infringements, it didn't really work. We do live in a very rural area with poor mobile signal, so this may have been the cause.

We have an ingenie black box on the kids car
its fab
as is their service

DD had one too, can't remember the name of the provider. She had no issue with it, and indeed could check what it recorded on an app. She did few miles (under 6000) so got the premium much reduced. Still eye watering expensive the first year but a reduction of almost 2/3rd by year 2.

We costed out putting ds1 on my insurance policy vs buying a car and him having his own insurance and it turned out that buying a car and insuring it separately (with a black box) was actually cheaper in the long run. This worked for us on the basis that the car would pass to ds2 after 2 years.

We went with Tesco Black Box policy and they were fantastic when ds1 had a minor accident.

It cost £850 5 years ago. The next year it dropped to £600 even though ds had had an accident. With ds2, it was again £850 but now has dropped to just under £500.

As others have said , you don't need your phone to log in.

Dd has policy with direct line and black box fitted. She downloaded the app and can see her score for each journey. It does not like supermarket car parks! And does not like very short journeys like when we shift cars outside the house. However if someone else is driving and the score is low she contacts them to get journey removed. If the score is high she prefers to keep it.

My two DC (18 and 17) share a car and DH and I are named drivers. Insured with InsuretheBox

Black box is fitted in the car, it doesn't know who is driving. DC1 is the main driver as DC2 will be going away to Uni so overall will use the car less over the year. There is an app on-line but it really only updates once a month and basically credits with up to 100 extra insured miles. They have had mostly 100 but least has been 98, that's due to very little motorway driving which carries less risk.

We are into 2nd year of policy, DC2 was added mid way through 1st year.

I think it's been good for their driving, on the rare occasions DH and I drive it we are careful not to go over limit or accelerate too fast or brake too quickly. :o

We were around £650 for just DC1, an extra £100 to add on DC2 and at renewal we were down to £550 which is good for two teenagers.