Drivers without insurance 'black box' could be forced off the road within 10 years

londonTiger

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Unless you're at the front of the queue, of course, in which case your consumption goes throught the roof.

I saw a video demo of this in action. I wasn't sure why they kept swapping the "lead" car but now I know why.

The cars will all communicate with each other and the know each others destinations. After 5-10 minutes the lead car would drop off and then join the back of the "train".

DigForVictory

Having just sat a mock driving test & failed it (insufficient use of mirrors - something I can remedy by remembering the glowing blush of humiliation), we may all be eyeing telematics warily.

The current just-passed-my-test lot will almost certainly go for it like lemmings as they will be driving to a higher standard (having not let bad habits creep in yet) and reaping the rewards of a telematics box that makes them demonstrably more affordable to insure.

I don't intend to be forced off the road, but I can see I may have to have a few lessons - new cars have safety features I'd never heard of let alone learned to use. Which will do good things for my insurance, for overall road safety, & the satisfaction that this old dog is willing to learn new tricks.

fivetide

InsideInsurance wrote: »

And I agreed with it conceptually but as I pointed out there are other similar examples (eg bedroom rated Home policies) where this actually hasnt happened despite it being "logical" that it would

For it to happen there is the assumption that the majority of good drivers are willing to have one and that the majority of bad drivers dont realise that its bad for them to have one (ie arent taken in by marketing or low headline prices etc or dont realise they are bad)

I think you got confused. You never actually quoted/replied to me directly and no mention of home policies at all after I posted.

Where insurance is concerned there is a massive chance to push it though and you can bet that given the dodgy nature the industry has been selling off our info for years and then blaming ambulance chasers for shoving up premiums they'll be getting a nice incentive from technology companies to make these things as attractive as possible.

Given the e-call thing (or whatever it is) seems to be coming in law, it won't be too tricky to link these items together. All you need is a satellite/mobile signal.

InsideInsurance

fivetide wrote: »

I think you got confused. You never actually quoted/replied to me directly and no mention of home policies at all after I posted.

Its a general discussion, I take it you read all the posts and not the ones explicitly addressed to yourself.

fivetide wrote: »

Where insurance is concerned there is a massive chance to push it though and you can bet that given the dodgy nature the industry has been selling off our info for years and then blaming ambulance chasers for shoving up premiums they'll be getting a nice incentive from technology companies to make these things as attractive as possible.

RBS Insurance/ Direct Line bought the telematics company TRACKER and everyone in the industry believed they were intending to enter the black box market as a result. As per the FT link on https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=direct+line+sells+tracker you can see Direct Line has owned it for 9 years, not brought anything to market and has now sold off the company.

Certainly suggests that the UK's largest private car insurer still doesnt believe that its the next big thing just yet - of cause none of us here are privy to the exact details of the deal but the end buyer was a firm in the telematics to insurers space.

The tech company which I dealt with was certainly wanting to make the deal attractive to insurers because they had ulterior motives, not the insurer (again see prior post).

Aviva are surprisingly the ones leading the charge on these things. They were one of the first to try black box insurance and pulled out of the market. They are also one of the first, here at least, to try using a phone app. Interestingly you can only use it to discount your policy and cannot get loadings from it. Of cause if you feel like a day of driving like an idiot you just leave your phone at home that day. Unexplained "lost" mileage of cause is just your friend driving your car under DOC

fivetide

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Its a general discussion, I take it you read all the posts and not the ones explicitly addressed to yourself.

I do however, your response suggested you had already responded to my post when in fact you hadn't so the lesson here is be more specific in your responses and/or knock off the sarcasm

RBS Insurance/ Direct Line bought the telematics company TRACKER and everyone in the industry believed they were intending to enter the black box market as a result. As per the FT link on https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=direct+line+sells+tracker you can see Direct Line has owned it for 9 years, not brought anything to market and has now sold off the company.

Certainly suggests that the UK's largest private car insurer still doesnt believe that its the next big thing just yet - of cause none of us here are privy to the exact details of the deal but the end buyer was a firm in the telematics to insurers space.

The tech company which I dealt with was certainly wanting to make the deal attractive to insurers because they had ulterior motives, not the insurer (again see prior post).

Aviva are surprisingly the ones leading the charge on these things. They were one of the first to try black box insurance and pulled out of the market. They are also one of the first, here at least, to try using a phone app. Interestingly you can only use it to discount your policy and cannot get loadings from it. Of cause if you feel like a day of driving like an idiot you just leave your phone at home that day. Unexplained "lost" mileage of cause is just your friend driving your car under DOC

Again though, the coverage for mobiles has moved on massively. The 4G network currently under construction offers a huge amount of opportunity to shift data backwards and forwards. A trial effort 9 years ago bears little resemblance to the technological picture today I feel.

InsideInsurance

fivetide wrote: »

Again though, the coverage for mobiles has moved on massively. The 4G network currently under construction offers a huge amount of opportunity to shift data backwards and forwards. A trial effort 9 years ago bears little resemblance to the technological picture today I feel.

But the fact that the two largest private motor insurers having exited the blackbox market doesnt bode well for it, esp as DLs actual exit was only this year not 9 years ago.

Smartphone type apps are a slightly different proposition however. Its not fitted to your car so no compulsion to use it and little to stop someone putting it into their grans car rather than their own.

The network for data transfer is not an issue, plenty of data is already available even without 4G. The issues are getting over peoples resistance to get black boxes fitted or working out ways to avoid fraud with mobile apps.

Certainly the tech company I spoke to a few years ago were of the opinion the black box wont ever take off fully unless the government mandated all new cars come with one either as a way to cut thefts, impose road tax by use or some other big brother watching.

Cornucopia

Why would having a black box (for an already safe, mature driver) make one's driving safer and result in fewer claims? And if it doesn't, what scope would there be for a reduction in premiums?

I can understand it as a means to "rehabilitate" drivers with a poor record of claims, but otherwise, I can't really see the point.

Hopefully, the legions of safe drivers will vote with their wallets against any company that seeks to impose this.

InsideInsurance

Cornucopia wrote: »

Why would having a black box (for an already safe, mature driver) make one's driving safer and result in fewer claims?

Because they are incentivised with an additional discount if they avoid harsh braking/ accelerating, keep to speed limits, drive on "safe" roads, dont drive at the high risk times of the day etc.

That said for me as a moderately safe, becoming mature driver the estimate for black box insurance was much higher than my current standard policy and thats before they learn how right foot heavy I can be

Cornucopia

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Because they are incentivised with an additional discount if they avoid harsh braking/ accelerating, keep to speed limits, drive on "safe" roads, dont drive at the high risk times of the day etc.

That doesn't really make sense - an arbitrary set of issues, which may well have little or no bearing on claims. And if there is no bearing on claims, there is no scope for a discount.

For safe, mature drivers, accidents are freak occurrences. Typical accident frequency: every 7 years/84000 miles. For me personally, it has been much longer than that.

So if one of these people also happens to hoon around, it obviously has no impact on their claims record.

That said for me as a moderately safe, becoming mature driver the estimate for black box insurance was much higher than my current standard policy and thats before they learn how right foot heavy I can be

Indeed.

System

InsideInsurance wrote: »

I am not convinced yet that this will happen in those timescales. It was 9 years ago that I worked on a project with an insurer to make changes/ acquisitions to enable them to introduce their own solution but they never brought it to market and I believe either have sold or trying to sell what they'd acquired to make it happen.

5 years ago I was in talks with one of the key providers of the tech and even those guys werent interested in it for the long term but were wanting their kit in as many cars as possible as they were betting on tax discs being replaced with pay by use using telematics and wanted both the data to lobby for it/ position themselves as the main supplier for it.

It could happen, but I'd be surprised.

I work for an M2M provider but they own a very small telematics subsidiary. I would disagree with you. This is very real and is currently about to happen slot more in commercial fleets so I can see this being rolled out to individuals quite easily within a decade.

The technology for what is being mentioned already exists. Commercial fleets are tracking their vehicles and logging driver statistics already. There are already established devices like an LMU2720 that work in conjunction with a cars own diagnostics to give accurate data feedback.

This isn't really going to be a GPS solution (as GPS isn't really that reliable at accurately tracking - as shown by missing plane MH370). This will probably be a M2M solution which will require a SIM loaded configured device to a network, with insurers white labelling established and maintained platforms (or outsourcing this function).