Hastings Direct Smart Miles Reviews

Name: Hastings Direct Smart Miles
Rating: 3.29

3.3 Rating 2,005 Reviews

56 %

of reviewers recommend Hastings Direct Smart Miles

3.3

Based on 2,005 reviews

Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Courier
On-time Delivery	Greater than 72%
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Telephone, Email, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In	Under An Hour

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Hastings Direct Smart Miles 1 star review on 12th July 2024

James

Hastings Direct Smart Miles 5 star review on 29th September 2023

Jason Major

Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

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“Doubled my premium on renewal. Managed to talk to someone and got it reduced. Then they emailed me to say full amount was due. After 50 MINUTES on the phone managed to get sorted that it was direct debit (as I'd already been with them the year before. Two weeks later they cancel my policy leaving me with NO COVER when my husband had already gone out in the car. Absolutely rubbish, would never recommend them and never touch that company again.”

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Posted 5 hours ago

“Wish I'd read the reviews first. Its such a painful device, making me down for ' hard braking ' or accelerating too quickly....you sometimes have to when you drive if some moron suddenly stops in front of you or unless you want someone else rear ending you. I'm not a fast driver but sticking just on or below EVERY speed limit is ridiculous. I do lots of 5 or 6am drives when no one else is on the road so going 5 or 10 mph above the limit isn't awful. No chance with this thing. Even blamed me for going round a roundabout too quickly when I certainly did no such thing. Luckily I've realised this within the 2 week cooling off period so going to ask for my money back and pay £100 more to get less frustrated!”

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Posted 1 week ago

“Had Hastings telematics for 1 week. Awful device. Totally and utterly not suited to urban driving. Score went down to 35 in 5 days having done less than 60 miles. Said they WILL cancel insurance if score went below 30. So when you pull up to a busy island you have 2 choices+ option 1 pull out normally and accelerate to fall into line with the traffic flow as per the highway code and get deducted points from the black box Option 2 pull out like a funeral car and get stoved into the back by another road user or at the very least get every road use in the area very annoyed. Verdict... Avoid if at all possible. It's very stressful and it my opinion downright dangerous!”

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Posted 3 weeks ago

“I'm currently using hastings direct black box as it was the cheapest option for me at the moment. I'd recommend not choosing if you can. My drives are mostly OK, but as of recently it's been marking me down for hard acceleration, cornering and braking when I havent done any such thing. It is ridiculously sensitive. One of my most recent drives I was marked for hard accelation at a stop light that involved me stopping at a set of traffic lights which required me to do a hillstart, and in the same drive, going round a mini roundabout at 10mph, I was marked down for hard cornering. The drive previous, I was marked down 3 times in the drive for hard accelation all at traffic lights, which isn't possible since all 3 times I was behind other drivers. I am driving how I normally drive and before the last couple of days, everything has been fine, I don't know what's going on with the box recently but it's causing me stress and anxiety. Reading others reviews, I'm glad I'm not alone in my experience.”

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Posted 3 weeks ago

“Telematics Hastings. Having bread many of the comments below I understand most of them and agree with them. Firstly I have 40 years plus of driving experience but I decided to cancel my trade insurance and get a private insurance. I had one no fault accident, my insurance has gone through the roof from £950 pounds to £3,200. This was unbelievable. I then searched online very more competitive rate as a private driver and the best I got was £1800. Hastings offered £1150 with telematics. The initial setup and use was a bit confusing because they demand that you leave your bluetooth on permanently. I still unable to work out whether I have to sign in to my account on the app also when driving as the app logs me out frequently. I log in before I start my journey leaving the Bluetooth on as well while the phone is in the cradle. My points are high 93. When I first started using the app I had an incident where I was advised my braking was hard, this was incorrect. I was driving down the usual country lane with many pullings to allow other traffic to come by thus having to use the brakes frequently many blind spots but without breaking hard merely pulling over at least 12 times on this country lane. This resulted in the notification hard breaking. Road such as this will not provide a good score I believe and cause anxiety. Using a telematics one has to drive like a complete learner at the slowest possible pace. You've heard of Sunday drivers this is the way they want you to drive. The roads in our region in Suffolk I disgusting especially country lions the entire country need to improve its infrastructure this adds further anxiety when driving. The condition of the roads are a major factor I believe in causing errors especially breaking. The app forces you to keep exactly within the speed limits while crawling around corners causing frustration to other drivers behind you and I have noticed several drivers becoming frustrated and I don't blame them. I will be putting a little sign in the back of my vehicle stating Hastings black box. This black box puts you on edge and de-focuses you in many ways from normal driving. As when people failed their test you can be over cautious and the app causes you to be so consistently. When I get my insurance reduced over the next year or so I will not be using these black boxes anymore. They are an unrealistic requirement causing anxiety, frustration by other drivers, including loss of general focus on the road as one continues endlessly to look at signage making sure speed limits are not broken which causes lack of focus on the road including breaking where you have to break so far ahead in order to avoid hard breaking notifications which is not a normal course of driving. I have no idea of my insurance will come down in cost but I will battle on for the next year that I will avoid this black box in the future.”

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Posted 4 weeks ago

“To be honest I do get what some people are saying on here about exceleration because there are times when has a good driver it's needed to avoid danger, and of course I saw the use of phone added points down has well and for that I'm not at all surprised because that's a big danger unless car accommodates hands free, but don't let the reviews put you off if you drive sensibly it's not at all bad.”

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Posted 4 weeks ago

“The Hasting direct box is extremely frustrating. While I was driving on the motorway, another driver attempted to overtake me recklessly, forcing me to brake for my own safety. Despite being blameless, I received 3 penalty points, which I believe is unjust. As a retiree who rarely drives, I question the purpose of having insurance that only adds to my stress.”

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Posted 1 month ago

“I’m currently with them and it is atrocious. Marks you down for accelerating. What do they expect me to do not get up to the speed limit ?”

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Posted 2 months ago

“Terrible service. Terrible company. Cancelled our black box insurance without any notice because our live-away student was not driving the car enough. Even though that was stated on the policy and was a fully paid up contract. Avoid if you can.”

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Posted 2 months ago

“Telling me something I did but in reality never done tht at all”

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Posted 2 months ago

“Avoid, avoid, avoid, box does not actually record your driving and just causes you stress and anxiety every time you get in the car. Worse thing I ever did !! I only agreed to this as I had no no claims after driving a work lease car for 16 years and my insurance quotes were sky high. I have never had an accident but this makes me nervous every time I drive and definitely do not recommend it to anyone. Every time I am driving it is deducting points for braking despite never braking suddenly or hard. I have contacted Hastings and go a copy and paste reply …: its not worth the worry!!”

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Posted 2 months ago

“My son had fabulous scores after a year with Adrian flux but their renewal was too high so we were lured to Hastings. HUGE mistake. Their black box is horrific and my son's score went through the floor. My (retired police officer) husband then drove the car to try and improve the score and his score was also terrible, even though he was driving at 30mph on rural roads with a 50mph limit. They are threatening to cancel the policy, so we're getting out before they do. Tickets insurance looks good.”

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Posted 2 months ago

“Black box is ridiculously sensitive and points system overzealous, 25 points off for each thing it picks up, mostly on error”

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Posted 3 months ago

“Absolute rubbish. Unreasonable, illogical and just plain unfair scoring. Doesn’t take into consideration those who work unsociable hours, make several trips in one day, have to accelerate quickly in order to join a motorway from a slip road, have to travel frequently (to & from work) on an A road with varying speed limits…. I too wish I’d read the reviews before purchasing this insurance.”

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Posted 3 months ago

“New driver, black box insurance. Score of 38, policy cancelled because the score was ‘below 30’…. No warning, no explanation. Penalised for accelerating harshly but in a 13 year old small car she needs to accelerate or she will stall. Avoid at all costs. I wish we’d read the reviews before we bought the policy.”

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Posted 3 months ago

“You are scored negatively for using your mobile phone. This would be fine if it was the sole purpose however as a parent who allows their child use of the phone makes it completely unfair. Low score and nothing to do with any part of driving. Other insurance companies assess driving scores fairly without penalties if the phone is used legitimately. Please explain the justification.”

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Posted 3 months ago

“Appallingly, at my age 55, I have used a fair few insurance companies. This without a doubt is the worst! Don't waste your time, the quotes maybe low but they cancel the policy willy nilly. Our telematics didn't get delivered for 10 days so they cancelled. We called they reinstated. We received the box but couldn't pair it. Went on holiday, came back and they've cancelled it again!!! Never ever have I had an insurance company whonoperate like this. I dread to think of how they operate if you've had an accident!! Apparently their telematics score differently on your app to what they see! Waste of my time and effort. Do not buy a policy from these cowboys.”

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Posted 3 months ago

“Awful and impossible to remain within their 'parameters'. I never used my phone and stuck to the speed limits but apparently I 'braked' too much/hard and 'accelerated' too much/hard - really very difficult to understand what it is exactly that you're supposed to do - crash into people that pull out in front of you? Also, it says that only affectes your fuel so no idea why they're even scoring you on that!? Ridiculous. I drove so slowly, carefully and tried not to brake (!?) and still couldn't get my score above 19 - 30 is their minimum. Again, ridiculous. My insurance is now being cancelled and the only positive I can say about this insurance is that there's no charge for the cancellation. Customer Service actually was also good, so won't mark them down for that.”

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Posted 3 months ago

“Cancellation after 1 trip, went from a score of 100 to 9 in 1 trip, should’ve checked the reviews first then I’d never have gone with these!… Never again..”

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Posted 3 months ago

“Worst insurance I have ever been with. I had the black box delivered late and received an email to advise they were cancelling my insurance.( I hadn’t even had the black box delivered yet). 2 weeks in I received another email to advise my score had dipped below 30 and they would be cancelling my insurance, I looked at the app and it was above 30? I rang to complain and they advised the app can be faulty but will still be cancelling my insurance and they tried to charge me a cancellation fee.Will never go with these again definitely worth paying a bit extra and going with a proper insurance company. Awful system. Seems as though any chance they get to cancel they will, I cancelled before they could and refused to pay any fee’s, joke of a company.”

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Posted 4 months ago

Hastings Direct Smart Miles is rated 3.3 based on 2,005 reviews