Black box car insurance

The black box belongs to your insurance provider. If you remove the box before your policy ends, then you risk invalidating your policy and won’t be covered for any incidents that occur afterwards. Your provider can also cancel your policy, and you could struggle to find new insurance with that on your record.

When you come to the end of your policy term, if you don’t want to renew with the same insurance provider, you can either:

• Remove a self-fitted box yourself and send it back to your insurer (they’ll usually email you a freepost label to do this) or take it to a suitable recycling centre. Your insurer will tell you what to do
• With a professionally-fitted black box, the insurer can deactivate it remotely so it no longer records your driving data. If you’d rather that the box was removed from your car, your insurer can arrange for an engineer to do that for you, though you’ll be charged a fee. It’s not wise to try to remove a professionally-fitted black box yourself as you could damage your vehicle

Their driving will be monitored, just like yours is, as the box records driving and not a particular person.

You’ll need to ask them to drive carefully as their driving will impact your driver score.

Of course, they must be a named driver on your car insurance policy before they’re able to get behind the wheel.

It depends on the rules of policy. But if you breach any conditions of those rules, you may be charged higher premiums.

A black box will record and recognise if you’ve had an accident. In some cases, the data collected on the black box can prove to be a crucial part of evidence in any investigations, such as to determine who was to blame for the crash. It can show things like how fast you were driving at the time of the accident.

The insurer will never share your black box data with anyone without your consent unless the police request it in the event of an accident.

Your telematics insurer will review your data to give you a renewal quote. If you haven’t made any claims and your driving habits are good, your renewal quote should be cheaper.

You’ll build up a no-claims bonus with telematics, so you could also try shopping around for new quotes and possibly cheaper prices with other insurance providers.

Your black box insurer won’t share your data with other insurers, though, So, if you take out a new black box policy, you’ll need to build up your driver score from scratch.

As well as being designed to reward you with cheaper quotes, a black box policy is also there to help make you a better driver.

That’s why, throughout the term of your policy, you can access the insurer’s app or website to check your regularly updated driver score, plus all the data collected on each journey you’ve made. Here, you can see if you’ve driven well.

Similarly, you’ll see any errors or room for improvement, such as accelerating too sharply or speeding. Then, you can work on improving your driving style and driver score over time so that when you come to renew your car insurance, you’ll pay a lower price that reflects how safely you now drive.

The risk of having an accident is higher at night. But most black box policies won’t go as far as applying an official curfew to your policy which completely bans you from driving late at night.

That said, you may find that regular night-time driving will affect your driver score (and therefore your ability to get the best discounts when you come to renew). For that reason, if you have to drive regularly late at night - for example because of your job - then a black box policy may not be the best type of car insurance for you.

If you do opt for a policy with a curfew, you may find that premiums are cheaper, but you could be penalised if you drive outside of your curfew limit.

When you apply for a quote for any car insurance policy, including black box insurance, you’ll be asked to estimate your annual mileage.

This helps your insurer work out how much to charge for your policy.

People who drive fewer miles usually get lower premiums than someone who racks up lots of miles on the road, simply because there’s less risk.

The black box can let your insurer know if you’re driving substantially over the estimated mileage you’ve given them and you could get charged a higher premium as a result.

Like standard car insurance policies, black box policies last for a year.

At renewal time you can either get a new black box policy, or switch to a standard car insurance policy.

Though black box insurance is mainly targeted at young drivers aged between 17 and 25 who are considered higher risk by insurance companies, almost anyone of any age could take out a telematics policy.

There are usually no restrictions on where you can drive with a black box policy – the important thing is how you drive, not where.

Most black box insurance policies will also cover you to drive abroad, but you should obviously check with your insurer whether that’s the case.