Why Aviva Wants Black Box Insurance Made Compulsory for Every New Driver

New drivers are more than twice as likely to make a collision claim in their first year on the road as motorists with a year or more of experience, according to research from Aviva that the insurer says justifies a change in the law. The figures show 11 per cent of new drivers claim for a collision in their first 12 months, against 5 per cent of drivers who have been on the road for longer, and Aviva is now pressing the government to make telematics, or “black box”, insurance compulsory for every driver aged 17 to 24 in their first year behind the wheel.

The proposal lands as the Department for Transport works through its wider Road Safety Strategy, giving Aviva’s intervention a real chance of being folded into whatever legislation eventually follows the government’s ongoing consultation work on young and novice drivers.

The Numbers Behind the Push

Aviva’s data shows telematics customers cut their collision claims by almost 50 per cent over the course of a policy, compared with a reduction of around 30 per cent among drivers on standard cover, a gap the insurer attributes to the real-time feedback black box devices give on speed, braking, cornering and phone use behind the wheel. More than half of drivers who received the poorest initial driving scores went on to improve once they were shown the data and given advice on what to change.

The scale of the underlying safety problem is stark. Department for Transport figures cited alongside the research show 4,740 people were killed or seriously injured in 2024 in collisions involving a driver aged 17 to 24, around one in five of all such casualties in car crashes, yet this age group makes up just 7 per cent of licence holders. Speeding, driving too fast for the conditions and aggressive driving all show up disproportionately in crashes involving younger drivers, according to official data referenced in the study.

What Aviva Is Actually Asking For

Owen Morris, CEO of UK Personal Lines at Aviva, put the case in blunt terms, saying too many lives continue to be lost through inexperience and unsafe driving habits. “While numbers have fallen, that number is still too high, leaving families devastated at the loss of loved ones,” he said. Morris argues that the first year on the road is when new drivers are most at risk, and that mandatory telematics would give them what he called a “virtual coach” monitoring habits and flagging risky behaviour before it leads to a crash.

Aviva’s specific ask has two parts. The first is a legal requirement for all drivers aged 17 to 24 to hold a telematics policy in their first year with a full licence. The second is the removal of Insurance Premium Tax, currently levied at the standard rate of 12 per cent on motor insurance premiums, from telematics policies taken out by young drivers in that first year, which the insurer argues would offset some of the cost of the mandate and make compliant policies more affordable rather than an extra financial burden on newly qualified drivers already facing the highest premiums on the market.

How Much This Could Actually Cost or Save Drivers

Premiums for young drivers are already far higher than the market average, a gap that black box policies are partly designed to close. Fully comp cover for a 17 to 24-year-old currently averages £1,533, more than double the £719 national average across all age groups, according to pricing data gathered over the spring. Telematics policies typically offer a lower starting premium in exchange for the driver accepting monitoring, with the potential for further discounts as a track record of safe driving builds up, though premiums can also rise if a driver’s data shows consistently risky habits.

Removing the 12 per cent Insurance Premium Tax specifically from telematics policies for this age group would represent a meaningful saving on a £1,533 average premium, roughly £184 if applied to the full amount, though the actual saving would depend on how any such exemption was structured and whether insurers passed the full benefit on to customers.

How Britain’s System Compares With Other Countries

The UK’s current safety net for new drivers is the two-year new driver probation period, under which any driver who accumulates six penalty points within their first two years of holding a full licence has their licence automatically revoked and must reapply as a learner, retaking both theory and practical tests. That system, in place from the late 1990s, works entirely after the fact, penalising accumulated points rather than intervening before a crash happens, which is precisely the gap Aviva argues telematics could fill.

Other countries have gone further before a driver even reaches that stage. Several US states and Canadian provinces already restrict newly qualified drivers through graduated licensing systems, including passenger limits and night-time driving curfews rather than data monitoring. Mandatory telematics for young drivers as a legal requirement, rather than an insurer-offered discount product, would put the UK ahead of most comparable countries in using in-car monitoring specifically, rather than blanket restrictions on when or with whom a new driver can travel.

The Public Mood and What Happens Next

Public backing for the idea appears to run ahead of any formal government commitment. Aviva’s research found close to three-quarters of drivers surveyed support making telematics compulsory for young drivers, and support was not confined to older motorists nervous about younger road users: six in ten drivers aged 17 to 24 themselves backed the proposal, suggesting the idea is not simply being imposed on a reluctant group from outside.

Morris said Aviva wants ministers to treat telematics as “a central part of new driver education and training” while the government’s road safety consultation work continues, rather than leaving it to insurers to promote black box policies purely as a discount product. Whether that translates into an actual legal mandate depends on decisions still to be made within the Department for Transport’s broader review of penalties and requirements for new and novice drivers, a process that has already touched on lower drink-drive limits for young motorists and tougher rules around penalty points in the two-year new driver probation period.

For now, telematics insurance remains voluntary. Drivers considering it, or parents of newly qualified young drivers, can compare black box policies through standard insurance comparison sites, where providers set out how driving scores are calculated and what happens if a driver’s habits are judged consistently risky, a process worth understanding fully before signing up, mandate or no mandate.

How the Technology Actually Scores a Driver

A telematics box, whether a physical unit plugged into the car or a smartphone app using the phone’s own sensors, tracks acceleration, braking force, cornering speed, the time of day a journey takes place and, on some policies, phone handling while the car is moving. Insurers turn that raw data into a driving score, typically out of 100, which is reviewed periodically rather than after every single trip, giving new drivers a chance to see patterns in their own habits rather than being penalised for one bad manoeuvre.

Several insurers beyond Aviva already build their entire young-driver offering around this model, including specialist providers such as ingenie, Marmalade and By Miles, alongside black box options from mainstream insurers. What most of these policies have in common, and what Aviva’s proposed mandate would extend to every 17 to 24-year-old rather than just those who choose to sign up, is a curfew-style penalty structure: driving late at night or via harsh braking repeatedly pushes a score down, while smooth, well-timed journeys push it back up, with premiums at renewal reflecting the trend rather than a single incident.

Sources:

• https://www.gbnews.com/lifestyle/cars/young-drivers-black-box-car-insurance-new-laws
• https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposed-changes-to-penalties-for-motoring-offences/proposed-changes-to-penalities-for-motoring-offences