Has anyone any experience of this type of policy?
I have just obtained an on-line quotation for my 18-year old daughter, to drive the same car in her own name as she currently drives as a secondary user with my wife as main driver.
The quotation is almost exactly the same, at about £1200.
For that she would start earning her own NCD, and the possibility of lower (or higher) premium depending on her driving as measured by a Smartbox.
Is there a snag here? Does the box perhaps have to be fitted at some agents miles away, with a fitting and rental charge? Or does it just come through the post and I plug it in?
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The actual amount you'll pay is dependent on how, where and when the car is driven. Hence the box. It could cost more then the quoted figure surely?
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>> The actual amount you'll pay is dependent on how, where and when the car is
>> driven. Hence the box. It could cost more then the quoted figure surely?
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Absolutely. You fill in estimated details, like speeds, hours of use, mileage, etc, and then what you actually pay reflects any departure from your estimate.
The questions asked include:
annual mileage
whether you obey speed limits or not
night time use - ie after 6pm or after 11pm
other users, and their mileages, hours etc.
The implication is that the box can monitor those things - like Satnav with personal activation cards for each named driver?
So if I said I mostly drove the car within the speed limit before 6pm, but in reality my daughter drove at 80mph at 1 am, it would spot that and the premium would go up.
Or alternatively she said she would drive 20 miles to college each day, but in fact my wife went shopping once a week, the premium would go down.
Is that really what it does?
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We have had a Smartbox for nearly three months. My 17yo son as a named driver on my wifes car. So far works well. So far we are on course for a reduced premium as both my wife and son stick to speed limits and drive carefully.
To respond to some of your questions:
A man comes and fits the box to your car at a time and place to suit you.
He checks and takes a photo of all driving licences and log book.
It can't distinguish between drivers.
It has three wires - live, switched live and earth.
The most you can pay extra is 20%.
It doesn't like the car to be used between 11pm and 6am (it will seriously affect your score).
There are serious consequences for exceeding the speed limit by approx 100%.
It knows where the car is 24/7.
It monitors acceleration/deceleration rate and how fast you corner.
Average driving equals an average score - drive like a looney and expect to pay more.
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Many thanks for that reponse Chris, it makes it seem quite clear. We'll certainly investigate further when the time comes for renewal. It appears to be a (relatively) painless way of getting a young person started on her own insurance and building up her own NCD.
The only puzzling thing is that it doesn't distinguish between drivers. Insurance companies make such a thing about forbidding fronting, but this system doesn't seem to care. It would be interesting to know just how much analysis it went into examining locations, regularity of routes, etc. So perhaps by deduction it could distinguish between, say, my using it to commute round the M25, my wife shopping at Tesco at 6am, and my daughter stopping out every night.
I wonder if "use after 11pm" means driving, or merely parked away from home?
But it does seem like a system that might actually allow a young person to get credit for careful driving.
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>> The only puzzling thing is that it doesn't distinguish between drivers.
Why should it? Its the nag in the cab, doesn't matter who the driver is, they know its there looking over them like big brother.
Insurance companies make such
>> a thing about forbidding fronting, but this system doesn't seem to care. It would be
>> interesting to know just how much analysis it went into examining locations, regularity of routes,
>> etc. So perhaps by deduction it could distinguish between, say, my using it to commute
>> round the M25, my wife shopping at Tesco at 6am, and my daughter stopping out
>> every night.
>> I wonder if "use after 11pm" means driving, or merely parked away from home?
No need for any of that, it measures your (whoever it is) driving standards.
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>> No need for any of that, it measures your (whoever it is) driving standards.
And the young driver is the main driver of the car after all. So not expecting other drivers to put on as many miles on the car.
So it's a bit of big brother watching all use of the car. If dad drives it like a maniac at 2am.... child will suffer as it will assume it's them that did this. Which is fair enough. Otherwise one would not go down this route of having a box monitoring driving in the car.
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>>
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>> No need for any of that, it measures your (whoever it is) driving standards.
>>
That's true. But they award the NCD to the policyholder. So the tearaway son who can't keep his foot off the accelerator pedal might be driving "Dad" 's fronted TPO old banger, while plodding old Dad builds up an easy NCD for him in the smartboxed car?
It just seems a bit counter-intuitive that they make such a thing of matching the premium to the specific driver, and then appear to require no personal identification at all.
If cars can recognize individuals and adjust the seats, mirrrors etc to personal settings, I'd have thought Smartbox could be made to do so too.
Anyway, it sounds worth pursuing in a few months time. But clearly to get optimum advantage one needs to know exactly what it is measuring. For a startoff, is "use" any time away from base, or time actually driving away from base?
eg if it spent a week parked at Heathrow, would that score nil because it wasn't being used, or 7 nights of continuous 11-6 use?
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I suppose, whether you have a blackbox or not, the time that fronting may be exposed is if/when you come to make a claim. I very much doubt the CoOp look at your driving record until you make a claim.
If you have told them your wife is the main driver and your daughter will only be an occasional user, when they look at the record and see that Monday to Friday the car is parked at the local college and your wife works five miles away – they may realise you’ve been telling porkies!
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Hey, can i join Smartbox again if ive been with them before but had my policy cancelled?>> Has anyone any experience of this type of policy?
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Co-op young drivers - Smartbox - rtj70
