Name: Hastings Direct Smart Miles
Rating: 3.29

“At first I got a quote of £128.40 per month online, then it said the website was down when I clicked to purchase that quote.. how convenient. I rang them up and they tried to charge me £200 until I said that it was disgusting and a scam. Soon after the guy on the phone suggested me starting my insurance a few days later and bingo.. guess what the quote was £128.40. Easy enough to get set up with them, very easy to install their black box but don't expect any support from them with anything. Three months after me driving my car some idiot pulled out of a lay by on a national speed limit and slammed into the side of my car and caved in the passenger door and broke my rear wheel axel - complete loss/write off. They rang me up and the only thing they said was to go through the third party's insurance phone line, not very helpful. I wasn't asking for compensation from them but a bit of advice and guidance (As a young driver) in what to do after a crash would have been appreciated. When I sent a complaint the only thing they said was that they followed the right procedure and it's not down to them to come to inspect my car. I was left 8 weeks without knowing what's happening with my car as the other driver was foreign, had a fake number and ignored all letters sent to him. Other than this using their black box is annoying - they say they don't have a curfew but I got home at 10:30pm once and my rating for Time of Day dropped from 100 to 50.. disgusting. I have sent emails asking why this has dropped so much and they have ignored me. I'm now in the process of getting a new car and can't wait to see what admin fees they'll try and charge me..”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“I have been with hastings direct for 5 years, and have not received the customer care as well as satisfaction that I should have. They have a scoring system that does not benefit the customer if they have done well throughout the year. Usually if no claims are made throughout the year the insurance would go down by a reasonable amount! Well not with smsrtmiles (it's little to nothing). The only reason why I am still with them at the moment is because my insurance is a reasonable amount due to MY loyalty as a customer.”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi, our scoring system is based on a score out of 100, with those closest to a full 100 score receiving the largest discounts. Please contact our SmartMiles customer service team if you would like to receive coaching on how to improve your score. ~Connor

Posted 5 years ago

“Terrible experience with this insurer. After being involved in an accident I received horrendous communication, no consistency amongst staff, appalling customer service throughout my claim and unjustified delays (due to no communication and simply no follow up procedures). After battling for months for my settlement, it took half a year to be paid because of simple errors week after week which could have been avoided.”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi, I am very sorry to see you had issues regarding your SmartMiles policy. We will be sure take your feedback on and look to improve in the future. ~Connor

Posted 5 years ago

“The acceleration data being recorded is just not right. Even when accelerating VERY slowly and risking annoying other drivers in the process, my score is staying below 50. It seems this is a real scam because the braking score is high and I know I have had to brake sharply a couple of times in traffic.”

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Posted 7 years ago

“crappest insurance company going. Long story short i got the policy in March this year on a fiat 500, thought it was insanely cheap considering im 19 its harder to get insurance for a good price. I changed my vehicle two months after to a vauxhall corsa, went up by £690 over monthly instalments. So my payments went up from £110, to £145. I changed my address and job title online, it said i was due a refund of almost £1000. But then i received an email saying my payments had gone up. They changed my details WITHOUT my permission which is illegal. from £145, it went to: £164 £175 £194 £203 £240 £303 £404!!!!! which is ridiculous. I made two changes that was suppose to be refunded but yet payments went up to this stupid amount, making just 8 months insurance cover £3232!!!!!!!!!!! I could get a BMW 3.0 Sport for that price!!! bloody scams. along with this, i didn't receive the black box as they lost it in transit, and cancelled my policy because it was apparently my fault that the box didn't come. So i had no insurance for almost a month, as well as loosing my previous job because of this. So as a result of all this crap, when my insurance was reinstated finally after ringing 34430505 times and having my phone bill go up by £200+!!!! A month later, i rang and asked about cancellation fees as obviously i could not afford £404 i'm a 19 year old girl and have only just got out of education!!! I was told there's a cancellation fee of £45, and a non refundable box fee, which i was fine with, but then received a letter stating i owe £1700 for ' on cover insurance fees!!!!!!' However, ive rang and rang to try and get them to sort out this fake scamming figure. And i spoke to a lovely lady called ' DENNELVA'. She is the ONLY person who has helped me, kept her promise, and made me calm. To this point i was going to sue and take the company to court. Really really need to stop scamming younger people, just because we are young and haven't been driving for long does not give them the right to put prices up, scam us and steal our only bit of money. There's older people out there that are worse drivers, and cause more accidents if you look at the ratio between young driver incidents, and elderly people, it will roughly be the same! so why don't their insurance costs get put up as much as ours?”

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Posted 7 years ago

“utterly incompetent and indifferent customer service! One of the guys on the phone service haggles like a south asian street trader and it took 3x 40 minute phone calls to get sense from then when changing car shortly before annual renewal! They forgot to arrange black box fitting to new car (their euphemism - issues connecting with the engineers) then demanded it be fitted at a time that meant changing other plans. No acknowledgement of complaint letters. Overall I'd recommend people stay away rather than use them”

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Posted 7 years ago

“No decent communication with helping their clientele.”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi Alannah, Thanks for leaving your review and feedback, I'm sorry you didn't get the level of communication you expected. If you want to discuss any aspect of your cover, please don't hesitate to get in touch on?01733 308 380 ~Joe

Posted 5 years ago

“Due to a system error, my policy was renewed when I asked for it not to be renewed. 2 days after I got a letter to say my policy had been cancelled, the money was taken out of my account. As I had already paid for car insurance with another provider, this meant I had paid 2 lots of car insurance at over ?400 each which could have put me in serious financial difficulty. Contacted customer services who refunded me the money, but not impressed with what has gone on. The review also says 'thanks for renewing' - well I haven't renewed so that's a load of rubbish! Also the black box system is fine but it seems that if you were out at 10.01pm one evening you had a score of 0 in the time of day section for that day. Surely it would be better to have a graded system due to the time e.g. 75% for 10-11pm, 50% for 11-12pm, 25% for 1-2pm etc - like all of the other measuements taken. Also would have been charged ?90 to remove the box which I think is a bit unfair due to the fact that it had to be fitted for the policy to go ahead.”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi,? Thank you very much for your feedback, I am sorry to hear the policy was renewed by accident but I'm glad that it has been resolved without you having financial worries. As the renewal thanks is automatically set to go out unfortunately you received that as well, apologies ~Joe?

Posted 5 years ago

“Steer well clear!”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Cancelled my insurance! For the next two years you still took your premium without my consent and without and auto re real agreement signed by the card holder who might I add was bot the insurance holder!”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi Luke, I'm sorry to see this - hopefully it's been corrected but if you do still need assistance please get in touch on?01733 308 380 ~Joe?

Posted 5 years ago

“The policy was auto renewed and my card debited without my prior consent. I had to contact Hastings to get the policy cancelled and funds repaid to my card.”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi, Thank for the review, I'm sorry to see you didn't want to renew. We do provide notification in writing 30 days in advance of auto-renewal and make you aware the card will be debited. The letter also provides the means to cancel or change the card just so you're fully aware of your options. We do refund renewals should they be completed and not wanted after the fact as well of course ~Joe ?

Posted 5 years ago

“The customer service at Hastings is appalling”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hello,? I'm sorry to hear that the service you received wasn't at the level you expected. The feedback is appreciated so we can look to improve this going forward -Theo

Posted 5 years ago

“The email I've received asking to leave a review states I've purchased on the 16th of August. I don't know exactly what this is, presumably car insurance renewal, though I have received no other confirmation or receipt of this. I contacted the company via phone to ask to renew my insurance, but to pay monthly. The information the phone operator had was not completely correct and, though he said my request would not be a problem. I received another email not long after the phone call, warning that if my insurance was not paid in full it would be cancelled. I have sent an email following this to enquire what exactly is happening, but not received a reply as of yet (though I understand there is a usual delay with emails and do not expect an immediate response). At this moment in time I'm left unsure if I have insurance or not. I don't know it it is related to a computer error or a person error, but is overall disappointing and I am likely to use a different provider, whom I feel will be more reliable.”

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Posted 7 years ago

“only update driver rating/score for bad reasons! Never for driving well for the whole of last year.”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hello, I'm sorry to see that you feel you aren't being rewarded for good driving. ?I hope your score improves soon and reflects this at your renewal -Theo

Posted 5 years ago

“It is the worst insurance imaginable. It seems to punish me solely just for driving. Firstly, they lowered my score because I drove after 10PM, I don't know if this is standard policy across insurance policies or something but it is vastly unfair for people like me whose lifestyle largely involves driving later at night. I altered this after the most condescending and unhelpful call for all time from someone clearly blinding off a script with no idea what they were doing. After this, my score failed to increase after I went to great inconvenient measures to assure this. Not only this but they continued to penalise me due to my breaking. My breaking is fine, I assure you. I live on a council estate and am required to slow down by cars pulling out unannounced and by speed bumps which are on literally every street in the area. I altered all of my routes and driving style to make my driving coincide with their unrealistic, preposterous and insulting driving standards and not only did my score not increase, it fell. It seems as if they are using the scoring system to permanently keep you as close to having your policy cancelled as possible in order to scare you into just not driving or being incredibly paranoid and driving as 'safe' (by ridiculous standards) as is possible. I would literally rather sell a kidney than renew my policy with them. I cannot stress this enough. I'd cancel it now but they charge hundreds for policy cancellations, another harshly anti-customer practice no doubt intended to keep this company from being revealed as the most anti-consumer driving insurance policy imaginable. LOOK LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE”

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Posted 7 years ago

“It is the worst insurance imaginable. It seems to punish me solely just for driving. Firstly, they lowered my score because I drove after 10PM, I don't know if this is standard policy across insurance policies or something but it is vastly unfair for people like me whose lifestyle largely involves driving later at night. I altered this after the most condescending and unhelpful call for all time from someone clearly blinding off a script with no idea what they were doing. After this, my score failed to increase after I went to great inconvenient measures to assure this. Not only this but they continued to penalise me due to my breaking. My breaking is fine, I assure you. I live on a council estate and am required to slow down by cars pulling out unannounced and by speed bumps which are on literally every street in the area. I altered all of my routes and driving style to make my driving coincide with their unrealistic, preposterous and insulting driving standards and not only did my score not increase, it fell. It seems as if they are using the scoring system to permanently keep you as close to having your policy cancelled as possible in order to scare you into just not driving or being incredibly paranoid and driving as 'safe' (by ridiculous standards) as is possible. I would literally rather sell a kidney than renew my policy with them. I cannot stress this enough. I'd cancel it now but they charge hundreds for policy cancellations, another harshly anti-customer practice no doubt intended to keep this company from being revealed as the most anti-consumer driving insurance policy imaginable. LOOK LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“If I could give these a score of -100 I would. Nothing but grief for the 6 weeks I was with them. I must of phoned over 20 times. My previous insurer with a fitted box rated me at 9/10 driver. However according to Hastings direct SMARTMILES I'm a 39/100. I have never sped whilst driving- but they continuiously told me that I was going 40mph in a 30zone- on a road I drive up and down every day that quite often has a speed van sitting at the top. My 4 average scores never changed from word go- but my overall score fluctuated between 38-45/100. Very convient that when FORCED to cancel my policy my score was 39- I only needed 40 to not be cancelled. The grief this insurance have caused! I will never ever recommend this company in my life- they wanted £300 for me to cancel, when my fiance told them to swivel after 2 hours of arguing with a very rude manager. I got the price down to £25- so glad I cancelled. Don't get with Hastings direct SMARTMILES!”

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Posted 7 years ago

“My son had this policy for 6 months (bit longer than most on these reviews) then scores for braking & accelerating went to 0 ! He drives in a busy city with a lots of hill starts, apparently the G force generated from hill starts brought the score down - RIDICULOUS !! 175 days of insurance cover , just over 2000 miles travelled - total rip off. The policy has now been cancelled and we will be faced with a large bill to do this , over £250 !! Plus paying by Direct debit and cancelling proves even more costly upon cancellation as your monthly payments will not cover the insurance and interest charges I have now been told. If you don't want to ripped off then look elsewhere for telematics insurance.”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Prepare to lose money. Absolute SCAM!”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Absolutely awful - same story as everyone else. Cancelled insurance”

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Posted 7 years ago

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

Hastings Direct Smart Miles Reviews