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The AA is planning to launch a satnav-enabled car insurance policy, which would give drivers some small way to help reduce their spiralling premiums by “proving” they’re safe on the roads.
Those who sign up for one of its new Drivesafe policies will have a man from The AA install a ‘pay-how-you-drive’ Drivesafe box in their cars, which tracks data like your speed, cornering and braking behaviour, which will be used to create a custom Drivesafe score. It also checks where you park the car overnight and how many miles you drive, so no bending the truth with those two any more.
The better your score, the lower your continually adjusted insurance premium may be. An online Drive safe Dashboard and forthcoming iPhone app will let users track their own scores and work on their skills. [AA Drivesafe via BBC]
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I wounder if this will affect people with considerable no claims bonuses since they have already proved they are safe.
Would honestly pay £1000 more on my insurance not to have this.
I think unless you are a 75+ year old driver, you’re not gonna get a good safety rating…
Being a dimwit causes accidents too!
This is nothing new, the co-operative insurence have been offering a similar scheme targeted at 17 year old males (like myself), it is essentially a black box style device which they fit to your vehicle, it monitors your driving style and applies an appropriate reduction to your policy, the only problem is that it prohibits you from driving between 12am and 6am, bit of a problem fro me. Otherwise it’s a great idea, especially as my premiums on a VW polo will be anything from £6000 up.
My insurance was £1800 on a 1.8 when I was 17 (4 years ago). Try Admiral and put your parents as named drivers and any sisters who can drive if you have them.
Ok, thanks for the tip, I got that quote from a comparison site, I did it as a worst case, so me as the named and only driver, living inner city ect. It’s still going to cost me the best part of my salary.
I had an idea about a similar system a while ago.
Essentially, every year after passing your test, you could arrange a retest that would be a more basic theory-style test covering the most important aspects of driving/the highway code/whatever. Good things to cover would probably be whatever people tend to forget most after passing, found via studies etc.
As a driver, you would pay for the retest (say, £10 or whatever would be borderline profitable), but a pass would cut your insurance down by a fair chunk, much more than the test would cost.
I consider myself a safe driver but what worries me about this is that if you don’t drive 25 mph in a 30 mph area then it will raise your premiums. Obviously, I’m being a bit extreme but it would be good to know the tolerance on these before signing up.