Insurance cancelled after 1 week

[Gavia]

Funk said:

These black boxes seem like a very bad idea...

• Can think you're doing 70 cross-country on a road that doesn't exist in their 'map' (or worse, aligns you to the old 30mph road nearest your location which the new bypass replaced).
• Someone else with their own insurance driving your car with a black box can result in YOUR policy being cancelled or premiums increasing (even though there is NO exposure to the insurer of the owner of the vehicle). How ridiculous.
• Driving slowly at high revs in a low gear can result in the auto-cancellation of a policy as described above!

What if a new driver is scared to make an emergency manoeuvre because it might 'flag' on their black box records? Maybe I'm missing something but without context and accuracy, black boxes seem to be a blunt and useless tool. The ramifications of having insurance cancelled on you at such a young age is also not worth the risk imo.

This might come as a complete surprise to you, but insurance won’t be cancelled for a one off incident. I know you’d like to think it does and come up with whacky scenarios, but not every scenario can be covered.

You three scenarios are anecdotes from on here that, if true, and there’s possibly a debate on that, aren’t every day occurrences and so aren’t a reason to throw the whole thing in the bin.

Edited by Gavia on Thursday 19th July 13:14

[catso]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Maybe but, as far as I know your insurance company and other authorities don't have access to that tracking?

Or do they and should I get a tinfoil wrap on the car?...

[bad company]

catso said:

Maybe but, as far as I know your insurance company and other authorities don't have access to that tracking?

Or do they and should I get a tinfoil wrap on the car?...

The police do. A chum of mine recently did jail time. He claimed his car had been cloned to get out of speeding & parking tickets. Got caught by mobile phone records.

[SonicShadow]

desolate said:

SonicShadow said:

bad company said:

Yes but your phone is tracking you.

No st. The difference is some level of tracking is required for a cell phone to function. It is not required for a car.

There is a initiative called "e call" that means that all new vehicles must be equipped to call an emergency number with the precise location of the vehicle.
It was due to commence in April. Not sure if it did.

At face value it sounds reasonable - a small erosion of privacy for a 'greater good'. My issue with it is once the hardware / infrastructure is in place on the majority of vehicles on the road, future changes to the law could open this up for other usages.

I think I'll stick to rusty old Japanese stboxes for as long as I can

[Plug Life]

Speed kills ...your insurance

[C70R]

maclarkk said:

Very unlike Adrian Flux to be difficult

My experience is 100% to the contrary!

[surveyor_101]

desolate said:

I'd try and read the letters if I were you.
It's pretty difficult to summarily cancel a policy like that.

Yeh I have heard of refusal to renew after 10-12mths of bad driving but not cancel a policy after 14 days.

Do you know for certain she hasn't told some porky pies or a payment hasn't bounced?

[surveyor_101]

C70R said:

My experience is 100% to the contrary!

Yeh I second that, never again adrian flux.

[Funk]

surveyor_101 said:

C70R said:

My experience is 100% to the contrary!

Yeh I second that, never again adrian flux.

I spent ages on the phone to them getting a quote (as PH had a discount code at the time). After what felt like an eternity on the phone they then came back with a quote so absurdly out of line with everywhere else I swore I'd never bother with them again...and I won't.

[BertBert]

Funk said:

These black boxes seem like a very bad idea...

• Can think you're doing 70 cross-country on a road that doesn't exist in their 'map' (or worse, aligns you to the old 30mph road nearest your location which the new bypass replaced).
• Someone else with their own insurance driving your car with a black box can result in YOUR policy being cancelled or premiums increasing (even though there is NO exposure to the insurer of the owner of the vehicle). How ridiculous.
• Driving slowly at high revs in a low gear can result in the auto-cancellation of a policy as described above!

What if a new driver is scared to make an emergency manoeuvre because it might 'flag' on their black box records? Maybe I'm missing something but without context and accuracy, black boxes seem to be a blunt and useless tool. The ramifications of having insurance cancelled on you at such a young age is also not worth the risk imo.

So you think that paying based on specific information about the individual's driving behaviour is a blunt tool, but doing it based on car type, postcode, accidents and convictions isn't a blunt too?

And to your specific complaints - I suspect mistakes are few (phew? hehe, sorry wrong thread) and far between and can probably be appealed. Someone else driving - yes fair point, but it's not that hard is it? Also I expect there is an appeals process. And to the driving slowly at high revs, that's just bks. The boxes are not connected to the car's electronics by canbus or any other means, so the black box has no idea of revs.

I think twiggy means you ...

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Punter: I hate insurance. They just lump me in with others of a similar age/vehicle/ risk profile. They don't look at me as in individual.
Insurance Industry: Black box policy available. Enables us to monitor you as an individual, not part of some homogenous group.
Punter: You can bloody stick that you bunch of crooks. I don't want you spying on me.

[TooMany2cvs]

desolate said:

SonicShadow said:

There is a initiative called "e call" that means that all new vehicles must be equipped to call an emergency number with the precise location of the vehicle.
It was due to commence in April. Not sure if it did.

At face value it sounds reasonable - a small erosion of privacy for a 'greater good'. My issue with it is once the hardware / infrastructure is in place on the majority of vehicles on the road, future changes to the law could open this up for other usages.

Who's on the other end of the line?

Since PSA bought Opel, they announced that they're discontinuing OnStar service at the end of 2020 for the cars that have it fitted.
https://www.vauxhall.co.uk/experience/onstar/overv...

[InitialDave]

Don't some just plug into the OBD2 port? This will provides power and also easy access to speed, rpm etc.

[surveyor_101]

BertBert said:

What happens if you take the car to a garage and they employ the mechanic from Synter Mercedes Bristol who goes on a rollercoaster drive around bristol activating your collision warning system! Can you then get a letter from the garage to say that it wasn't you?

[OverSteery]

Several posters have said or implied that a Black boxes can monitor the gears or revs. Is this true?

I thought they were simple GPS & accelerator device- taking only a 12v power and mounting point from the car.

Monitoring Revs and/or gear selection would be an order of magnitude more difficult. It would probably require integration into the cars circuits with the risks to warranty and the need to be different for each vehicle. I guess they could hook into the OBD port, but my son had a black box and the ODB port was un-occupied.

[berlintaxi]

surveyor_101 said:

BertBert said:

What happens if you take the car to a garage and they employ the mechanic from Synter Mercedes Bristol who goes on a rollercoaster drive around bristol activating your collision warning system! Can you then get a letter from the garage to say that it wasn't you?

Seeing as the story made the national press, otherwise you wouldn't have heard of it, I doubt you would need a letter from the dealer.

[SonicShadow]

OverSteery said:

Several posters have said or implied that a Black boxes can monitor the gears or revs. Is this true?

I thought they were simple GPS & accelerator device- taking only a 12v power and mounting point from the car.

Monitoring Revs and/or gear selection would be an order of magnitude more difficult. It would probably require integration into the cars circuits with the risks to warranty and the need to be different for each vehicle. I guess they could hook into the OBD port, but my son had a black box and the ODB port was un-occupied.

They could wire it in before the OBD port. Couple reasons for doing this - more difficult to tamper with / remove, and will still allow connection of an OBD scanner without removal of the insurance box.

[anonymous-user]

OverSteery said:

Several posters have said or implied that a Black boxes can monitor the gears or revs. Is this true?

I thought they were simple GPS & accelerator device- taking only a 12v power and mounting point from the car.

Monitoring Revs and/or gear selection would be an order of magnitude more difficult. It would probably require integration into the cars circuits with the risks to warranty and the need to be different for each vehicle. I guess they could hook into the OBD port, but my son had a black box and the ODB port was un-occupied.

Many of them integrate with the vehicle's Can Bus so yes they can.

Some go into the ODB port so they get whatever data you can get from that.

Others just operate in a similar manner to a mobile phone.

[surveyor_101]

berlintaxi said:

Seeing as the story made the national press, otherwise you wouldn't have heard of it, I doubt you would need a letter from the dealer.

Only because the driver refused the offers of goodwill that seemed to be on the basis that he didn't go public and he did go public and made Synter look like a bunch of ass hats.

I have had a similar incident with an Audi dealer where the tech took our car up a 40mph at 70mph. Guess what that Audi dealer won't work on cars with dash cams anymore and refused to even tell me if disciplinary action was taken. They told me I was not entitled to film inside their workshops and they had to protect their customer's privacy.

I stopped going there after the tech removed my dash cam, cable and all and threw it on the back seat!

[Haltamer]

I've got a black box that is one of the simple GPS / Accelerometer devices. I wouldn't want anything more than that - And OBD Monitoring RPM et al is ridiculous. There are no connections to my car other than the 12V + - though, so foiling the device wouldn't be too difficult - Just a quick battery swap.

That said, I've gone at a reasonable pelt on UK Roads and I've never had any issue; In fact, I've done fairly well for "good boy points" and have always received a fair dollop of bonus miles each month for being one of the safest drivers.

Interesting to see how that goes this month, as I was Vmaxing on the Autobahn - 100+ for a fair while, and I've not had an instant ban just yet.

[Hammy98]

OP - Did you get a refund...?

I know they were planning to cancel but if you cancelled during the cooling off period surely they would have to refund you the premium minus the cost of the week she was covered, any admin fees and the cost of the telematics box?