Young drivers ‘let down over insurance app faults’

Young people are being threatened with having their car insurance cancelled due to faults with an app that aims to make policies more affordable, the BBC has been told.

Carrot Insurance uses phone data to measure journey length, acceleration and braking – but some say it often fails to work or wrongly records data.

Tory MP Craig Tracey questioned whether it was “fit for purpose”.

Carrot said it was “extremely sorry” some had had a “poor experience”.

It told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme “for the vast majority” of young people, the app helps to reduce their premiums and to improve their driving safety.

‘Rewards good driving’

Carrot Insurance describes its Better Driver app as “a clever bit of technology which uses ‘telematics’ to measure acceleration, braking, swerving, and the number and length of journeys that you make”.

Users can then be rewarded for good driving.

The premise is to help lower car insurance for younger people – who traditionally pay higher prices, as they are considered more at risk of an accident.

Most telematics services run from a black box, which is a small device fitted to a car, that records data when it is being driven.

But Carrot Insurance’s Better Driver policy relies solely on GPS and Bluetooth – and requires a WiFi or data connection.

More than 20 young people have told the Victoria Derbyshire programme they have had issues with the app – in some cases causing them to have their insurance cancelled, or end the policy themselves.