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

Filter: Rated 1 None 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Stars Helpful

“Second day in and already I'm stressed. First 12 journey perfect. Then travel into Doncster says I need to avoid breaking hard. Where this happened I'm clueless. Then I get marked down for breaking hard on the return journey. 7 points gone for what. Seems to me I've been drawn in to cheaper insurance at the expense of happy motoring. At this rate I wont have any points left in no time at all.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Black box is just not reflective of my driving. I drive a hybrid car and am very steady when I drive to stay on electric fuel. However 2 weeks in and score is low and the Hastings App is stating issues with braking and turning corners to fast. It just never happens so unless you are driving a car that has a 1 Ltr engine stay away from this insurance.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“I think the black box is far too sensitive. I won't renew with them as I feel they are taking advantage of people. My concern is, and it is demonstrated by a lot of the comments is that as an insurance company they are going to hide behind the statistics. The data tells us this and the data tells us that. This is very dangerous ground as a consumer to be hearing.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“My insurance was cancelled because my score dropped below 30, but here’s the weird thing. The black box was extremely over sensitive, marking me down for taking corners too fast when i definitely was not, even marked me down when i emergancy stopped because it was either that or a head on collision?? and here’s the even weirder part- the year before i was insured with another company black box and no issues. after cancelling my hastings policy i’ve gone with another company which tells me im a “gold driver”. so im struggling to understand how hastings thinks im such an awful driver, if two other telematics boxes have told me im a great driver? honestly would not recommend this company to anyone if you’re looking for a black box policy. it’s just a money grab. only thing i have good to say about them is how easy it was to cancel my insurance before they cancelled it themselves”

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Posted 1 year ago

“The drive app useing the Tab is rubbish works when it feels like when u pulling away from junction to busy main road it say on hard acceleration and when u stopping to give away on coming traffic says harsh braking which gives u bad score.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Absolutely terrible organisation. We live on a hill and most of the car journeys are local, ie schools, local shops etc. It requires more breaking and acceleration than in what I assume they see fit and have had a nasty conversation with their so called customer services. They talked over me when speaking and kept repeating the same script. There are also multiple journeys that are not being recorded to get a correct average. All they repeat is ‘the data shows’. It’s a classic scenario of The Customer Says. My advise is to stay away..”

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Posted 1 year ago

“This is crazy, I am a professional driver and the first day I used the app, I was getting score 100, now past 2 days I am driving the same, but the app is giving low scores and showing phone usage while driving, harsh braking, bad acceleration? What nonsense, this is absurd as my driving has not changed and I never use the phone whilst driving. Very disappointed, it seems like a flippin scam, I want to cancel this policy asap!”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Over sensitive on breaking, if you break perfectly 8 x out of 10 it takes the 2 that were bad, I drive a BMW 520D MSport 2 litre setting off is totally different from a 1 litre, you need to take this into consideration 🤬”

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Posted 1 year ago

“While i can understand how the system is supposed to work. It is badly flawed. Overly sensitive. Not up to real world use. The breaking warnings are ridiculous. Driving through single track lanes with blind bends, hairpins and passing places. Combined with High hedges. Farm equipment in road. Sometimes hard breaking is necessary. The hard acceleration warnings come up on anything other than glacial speed acceleration. Ive been driving for 30 yrs. On four continents. 11 countries. Including 3rd World countries. 17yrs no claims bonus. This system is shambolic. Your more worried about the score, making you second guess yourself. Making you a more unsafe road user.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Just been on call with this pathetic company and queried their policy rule about breaking with "what if a child steps out in front of my car and I have to break suddenly do you expect me to just mow them down" they said yes. Absolutely despicable and inhumane company.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“It keeps telling me I have used my phone when I haven't. If I switch from car radio to external source (audible on phone) I do NOT need to touch or look at my phone for the current title to start playing, yet the app determines I'm looking at my phone. Utter bollox”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Hastings You Drive app is too difficult to use. Worked fine (I think) on one phone then wont switch to a new phone - same number and SIM. Horizon style. To boot, I did not know that I signed up to it (driving dat). I will be more careful next time. I would not recommend this type of policy. Too much bloody hassle.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Do not deal with this company there suppose to refund my payment in full if I decide to cancel within 14 days. I cancelled within 2 days and they charged me £40.00 How can they get away with this it’s written in law that you get a full refund if you cancel within 14 days.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“I m driving with black boxes on the busses for the last 10 years and i m awarded for the last 15 years for my safety driving...that box is inaccurate, very bad calibrated ,showing you are on the phone while phone is moving and they said is accurate...accurate means honedty...you try to overtake a staller and it shows speeding...you brake to avoid a bike cuts your way in a single file it shoes to much brake...but most annoying is yhst they trying to tell you that you are a bad driver after 25 years no claim without any blame worth accident...time to wske up ...as for the one 97 score....it looks suspicious...how it vomes so many drivers to be bad and only few to be good...another propaganda of underestimation minds and psychological bullying....”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Daylight robbery - stay away from Hastings Direct. I was not informed about the black box and app when I purchased insurance online. They customer journey experience is deceitful - I didn't want the black box and they sold me the Smart Miles policy. They have harassed for the last two weeks. They have bombarded me with text messages, emails and letters remind me to keep driving to keep my score high. This is NOT the policy I bought and they pushed it upon me and they are now saying it was my fault. I am left with their extortionate cancellation fee of £45 and £75 outstanding balance. This is after being with them for less than a month. DAYLIGHT ROBBERY. I wouldn't recommend Hastings Direct Insurance to anyone. Pay more elsewhere but have peace of mind - they are robbers!”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Hasting Direct sent me numerous correspondence after 2 weeks of being insured with them to say I'm under the score of 30 and within this correspondence it tells me that I need to improve, which I do and my score goes into the 40s. Next thing they are contacting me to tell me they are cancelling my policy. What was the point of telling me to improve? Really not worth using this policy”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Not happy with Hastings black box insurance.They emailing a lot and stressing ..always not happy and i was i worrying while driving if black box works or not -lots of stress while driving.Not always their black box works..My final turning point and cancelation was because they said i must drive at least east once a week or my insurance will be cancelled! From 29 th of August london is in Ultra Low Emission every trip cost me £12.50 (they are not interested- they want data every week) Zone (ULEZ) expanded on 29 August 2023 and to cover all London borough .My car car was parked in one place from 29th- Hastings insurance was stressing me and asked to drive every week (they need my driving data or insurance will be cancelled. Stay away from them. What would happen if I'm ill or go away for few month abroad or not reading emails .? Not worth it any penny..”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Useless YouDrive with Hastings - Would give 0 stars if possible. Took me 2 days to get the stupid app and device to work with my Android phone and still it doesn't record all journeys/data? Customer services and tech support still can't tell me why??? Now having to charge phone all the time because the app uses up battery and Hastings insist you turn off power save/battery optimisation. Then the driving criteria? Despite driving for 25 years with only one accident which was not my fault (cut up by idiot on roundabout) I am scoring low all the time usually failing on braking despite all other scores being 100% but still overall score down. Worrying about speed, acceleration, taking corner at normal speed instead of the Hastings apparently obligatory 5 mph and braking too quickly. Constantly slowing other road users and would say this kind of driving necessary to keep scores down is actually more risky. Scared of braking if a car suddenly stops or someone pulls out or a pedestrian steps out in road or even too hard at traffic lights/junctions? Absolutely ludicrous. If my 'normal' driving is such a risk how have I avoided accidents for so many years??? Really not worth the money saved but probably stuck with it for the year now.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Absolutely terrible i am.an experienced.druver cant get score abive 15 no speeding or any poor driving constantly worried about how to get score up when driving a hinder rather than a help”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Insured the Sons car through this lot and what a big mistake. This has to be the most useless company as regards insurance. Have been driving over 40 years and some 400000 miles covered and have never seen the likes of it in my life of driving. Insurance was taken out with this lot and Black Box fitted he had one with another company the previous year and had no issues, but the mistake I made was trying to help him with the young driver insurance scams. This company is a total scam. His score had been in the 70 to 95 range and by reading the reviews hear he was doing good. Anyway he had used the car for a short journey with me in it as a passenger and as he was approaching a side road a car decided to pull out he applied the brakes but not what I would call hard, but not a normal breaking event. His score was 30 as the journey was short this had a bearing on his score as well. He then had not used the car as was off school due to being not at home. It would appear that score are a average over some made up time which I am still not sure how it's worked out. The bottom line from what I can see if your score is low because of some event you need to drive more to get it back up but you need to apply certain factors like time of day and the roads you drive on. He received a letter about his driving score and his policy being cancelled. He then received another letter about getting his driving back on track. Then another email telling him his policy would be cancelled due to his score falling below 30 which was clearly the result of him applying his brakes. I spoke to them and to give some credit the person I spoke to appeared to agreed that looking at the stats it was some what unfair. Any way I cancelled the policy as by the look of things it was going to be cancelled anyway and I moved it inline with my own. He is now on a policy with no black box and can use his brakes when he needs to without feeling the need to be thinking should he apply or hit the object. His insurance was a bit more expensive but a way better company. My word of advice is steer clear of Hastings I really could not trust them if there was to be a claim if this is the way they treat people. The number of people I have passed comment on about this company does surprise me. It is certainly a company I will never be with or any of my family and my advice is if you don't want scammed you should do the same or you will regret it.”

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Posted 1 year ago

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