Is your black box car insurance void if you have a crash while speeding?

MrMaxP

Hey all,

We're adding our 18-year-old son to our car insurance now he's passed his test and the black box quotes are a few hundred quid cheaper. My only concern is that the insurance company could void the insurance if an accident happened while one of us was speeding. We're not speeding demons, but I'm sure we are guilty of going a few miles over the limit some of the time. This makes me concerned that if the black box shows, for example, I had a crash when doing 44 in a 40, would they void the insurance and refuse to pay for repairs? Or even worse, seek to claim back the third-party costs from me? This makes me wonder if speeding will always void your insurance in the case of a crash, it's just much harder to prove if you don't have a black box.

Googling the question just gives me answers to speeding fines voiding your insurance if you don't inform them, not actual speeding when you have a crash. Has anyone had experience with this? Should we pay the extra money and avoid black box insurance?

user1977

Insurance would be fairly pointless if they could void it just because you were arguably committing an offence at the time - which surely is going to be the case in a huge proportion of at-fault claims, even if it's just careless driving? I don't think a black box makes a difference other than providing more evidence of what happened.

Smithcom

MrMaxP said:

Hey all,

We're adding our 18-year-old son to our car insurance now he's passed his test and the black box quotes are a few hundred quid cheaper. My only concern is that the insurance company could void the insurance if an accident happened while one of us was speeding. We're not speeding demons, but I'm sure we are guilty of going a few miles over the limit some of the time. This makes me concerned that if the black box shows, for example, I had a crash when doing 44 in a 40, would they void the insurance and refuse to pay for repairs? Or even worse, seek to claim back the third-party costs from me? This makes me wonder if speeding will always void your insurance in the case of a crash, it's just much harder to prove if you don't have a black box.

Googling the question just gives me answers to speeding fines voiding your insurance if you don't inform them, not actual speeding when you have a crash. Has anyone had experience with this? Should we pay the extra money and avoid black box insurance?

As per User1977 above, no the policy will not be voided, just because of a speeding offence.  Your question is good, but no need to about voidance because of speeding.

I would personally avoid a Black Box Insurance policy unless there was no other viable option.   If the insurer does not like the driving (i.e speeding, rough handling, computer error etc) the policy can be cancelled by the insurer.  Cancellations are potentially disclosable, forever, for any genre of insurance purchase.  Some insurers only ask 5 years re cancellations, but many are open-ended.  I personally think that some strong regulation is required regarding the impact of policy cancellation on future insurance purchases.  

I do appreciate that there can be a big difference in price between black box and no black box.    But I stand by my comments above.

SC

DullGreyGuy

MrMaxP said:

Hey all,

We're adding our 18-year-old son to our car insurance now he's passed his test and the black box quotes are a few hundred quid cheaper. My only concern is that the insurance company could void the insurance if an accident happened while one of us was speeding. We're not speeding demons, but I'm sure we are guilty of going a few miles over the limit some of the time. This makes me concerned that if the black box shows, for example, I had a crash when doing 44 in a 40, would they void the insurance and refuse to pay for repairs? Or even worse, seek to claim back the third-party costs from me? This makes me wonder if speeding will always void your insurance in the case of a crash, it's just much harder to prove if you don't have a black box.

Googling the question just gives me answers to speeding fines voiding your insurance if you don't inform them, not actual speeding when you have a crash. Has anyone had experience with this? Should we pay the extra money and avoid black box insurance?

The biggest claims made against Motor insurance is from third parties not the policyholder. Its to cover third parties that makes Motor a mandatory class of insurance. As others have said it wouldnt support its purpose if insurers could easily avoid paying third party claims due to things like speeding. In fact the law goes the other way and says if your son let his drunk 16 year old mate drive the car then your insurers would still have to pay the third party losses in the first instance (they'd have a right of recovery though). 

Now, first party losses are not mandatory insurance and so this gives more scope to insurers to decide they wont pay for damage to your vehicle if you do something stupid. To date this tends to be limited to people who drink/drug drive... some insurance policies would allow them to avoid your vehicle damages in those circumstances but sill have to pay for the third party.  In theory black box insurers could introduce similar clauses for speeding but to date they havent to the best of my knowledge. 

You also have to remember the difference between void and cancel - void makes it that the policy never existed whereas canceling is from a point in time forward. Its much harder for an insurer to justify voiding a policy than cancelling it. 

Where you are more likely to run into problems is at renewal where if you show the signs of a bad driver then your premiums increase significantly or they decline to renew despite the fact you are claim free. 

daveyjp

Highly unlikely, but as all insurance is based on the policy documentation you need to read the documents fully.

 If it was serious excess speed which lead to an accident the police would likely be involved.  It is possible to interrogate ECUs on board modern cars to ascertain speeds etc prior to an accident so all the data is collected anyway.