Hastings Direct Smart Miles Reviews

Name: Hastings Direct Smart Miles
Rating: 3.29

3.3 Rating 2,006 Reviews

56 %

of reviewers recommend Hastings Direct Smart Miles

3.3

Based on 2,006 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

“My son had his insurance cancelled due to poor breaking.. what a joke of a company PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read the other comments before buying from these guys.. do not use Hastings there is nothing smart about our children being ripped off by an insurance company... you may as well flush your money down the toilet.. I will never use this company ever again..”

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Posted 8 years ago

“What went wrong? It would be easier for me to explain what went right!. Absolutley terrible service! Sent me 4/5 letters threatening to cancel my insurance for absolutley no reason! They have me 2 warnings for 'excessively speeding' when I phoned them to find out the speed I was supposedly doing they refused to answer. The staff are terribly rude and not helpfull at all. Don't be fooled by the cheap quotes because you will pay for it in the long run! Thank cod I have switched insurers! Do NOT go with Hastings direct smart miles!!!!!!!”

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Posted 8 years ago

“DO NOT TAKE OUT A POLICY WITH THEM- My speed is FINE and scored HIGH AND SO IS MY ACCELERATION! TIME OF DAY: 86% DAYTIME DRIVING BUT STILL SCORES ZERO. BRAKING: 0 They have cancelled my policy and told me to drive more carefully next time I drive. Cancelled my insurance and still took a my money for that month. STAFF ARE SO RUDE. I am now in my overdraft because I have to fork out another deposit. 26 days in. Really upset and broke. :-(”

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Posted 8 years ago

“I'm 19 and i took this insurance out as it was the cheapest, sadly I didn't read the reviews! I've had it for a few weeks and already my score is dropping dramatically! My boyfriend is normally in the car with me when I use it and he even says my driving is perfectly fine! Even when I drive slow to avoid braking as much it still seems to go down! If it continues to go down then i will be cancelling my insurance! They've already added £70 on each month for reasons I still don't no! Customer service was a pile of Sh*t as well! Very Arrogant! Wouldn't give my parter any infomation as to why is has gone up even though his name is on the system as a second driver! I'm only a couple of weeks in so I dread to think what it will be like in a few months! 👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻”

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Posted 8 years ago

“It feels overly generous giving 1 star since I was sold insurance that wasn't fit for purpose. Despite knowing I'm a nurse (adding a young driver) they never mentioned I'd be penalised greatly on the black box due to my shifts. Only mentioning the expected rush hours. The advice to improve my score is to car share/use other transport when travelling late at night to reduce the use age of my car! Looking for an alternative company. Of very little use to young drivers who often top up studies/income with bar/waitressing work. Avoid!!!”

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Posted 8 years ago

“If I could give 1 star I would. This company is the most ridiculous insurance company ever. My sons speed score was 95 and his acceleration was 60. In two separate incidents someone pulled out in front of him causing him 2 brake and his score dipped to 38. I was in the car on both occasions with him so was witness to it. Policy cancelled because of OTHER people even though his speed was excellent. SAVE YOUR MONEY take insurance elsewhere. Very unhelpful”

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Posted 8 years ago

“Took out the policy as soon as i passed, the price was great and so no questions was asked, two warnings later and a threat of cancellation i have had to cancel the insurance myself. Unclear terms and conditions such as the curfew, claims that there isn't one yet driving between 10pm-5pm affects your score. Don't insure with this company, it is a terrible organisation especially for young drivers. I have insured myself with a better company with clear conditions.”

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Posted 8 years ago

“Complete scam of a company! Avoid at all costs, wish I'd known what I know now. The black box scores are VERY unfair and unless you drive like your grandparents expect your policy to be cancelled. I had mine cancelled last year and have now entered a battle with them as they are trying to charge me the full premium balance (over £1,000). DO NOT INSURE WITH THEM!!!”

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Posted 8 years ago

“If I could leave 0 stars then I would, acceleration and braking both gone down to below 50? But speeding is still at 100... Surely if I'm accelerating that harshly and then that would mean I was speeding? AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS, going to save up and then cancel them as soon as.”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

“Absolute joke of a company. Avoid it as if it was the plague, currently still stuck with them, (3 months so far). Advertise as no curfew, yet drop your score dramatically after 10pm. When I first got this faulty black box off them it didn't track my speed or breaking for about 6 weeks. Instantly put my time of day to below 20 because I came home one day at 10.30. Called them 7 times so far pointing out the box doesn't work correctly, but they're adamant it's fine. After 3 month with my brakeing score at 80+ it has dropped down to 30 within 1 week. Apparently I must be doing an emergency stop every 5 minutes. My acceleration has gone from 20-40 since I decided to stop caring as they're going to cancel it anyway, and have been accelerating hard. Waste of time talking to them, even pointed out that my speed is 95/100 and I HAVE been speeding so clearly it's not working or else it would track me. But no apparently the box is fine. Avoid at all costs!”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

“Absolute shite, cancelled my insurance because their readings are wrong, it's said my breaking has been 0 since day 1, after ringing them up to sort it, it was left so I thought nothing of it. Useless scamming company making it near to impossible for young drivers.”

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Posted 8 years ago

“So they cancelled my policy and naw there not sure why they did #asholes”

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Posted 8 years ago

“I will never associate myself with this company again. Incorrect reading on the 'acceleration' element of my box... The score is 0 whilst the others are 90 and above. Called numerous times in July 2016, was given the wrong information and rudeness, admitted by Hastings, and no help whatsoever. They performed a diagnostics check on the box which came back as fine. Had numerous experienced drivers, and a driving instructor in my car telling me there is nothing wrong with my driving. Was recently told about the company's appearance on WatchDog, concerning their incorrect readings, so after research I have found that false box readings have been given to numerous customers. Called to discuss the possibility of this happening with my box and the customer advisor went to all lengths to avoid the question. He also became quite rude near the end of the call, a quality that I think must be trained into a number of these call answerers; I've experienced it all but one times I've dealt with this shoddy company. Wouldn't care so much if I hadn't cleared the bank to pay for this insurance. Do not use Hastings Smart Miles.”

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Posted 8 years ago

“1 star is too higher rating. Was all fine for the first few months, reasonable prices and helpful customer service. We then moved from the middle of a town into the middle of the countryside. The rest of the family's insurance went down considerably, and mine went up from £98 a month to nearly £400! That's over £4000 a year! I'm a good driver, I check my driver rating regularly and it always has good, if not excellent, scores. Really unhelpful customer service who just read off of a screen and can't actually tell us exactly why my insurance has gone up so much. They just keep repeating that it "depends on the driver", and that we're in a "high risk" area, which is a load of rubbish. Will not be using them again. STAY CLEAR!”

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Posted 8 years ago

“PLEASE AVOID!!!! MONEYSPINNING SCAM.”

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Posted 8 years ago

“1 star is to many for Hastings direct!!! What a bunch of ####s this black box is crap just a money maker £210 feel so sorry for young drivers putting up with this just so they can drive wtf!!!!!!”

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Posted 8 years ago

“Absolutely disgusted. Took out a policy for my son on a provisional licence cost £1564 and was told by one of the pathetic customer service advisors that there would be small premium to pay once my son had passed his driving test. To then be told he needed to pay an extra £1000! Data protection was also breached they allowed me to discuss insurance without authorisation!! When my son addressed this there was no knowledge by the customer service team. WARNING DO NOT GO WITH THESE PEOPLE. we are now waiting for the refund!”

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Posted 8 years ago

“Customer service has no idea what they are doing, was with same company last year yet still asking for proof of no claims! Have rung them at least 5 times to inform them of this but never get the same person. My son has authorised me to speak for him but when I ring I get told they can't discuss it with me as I am not authorised! ( do they even log anything you tell them)! They have threatened to cancel my sons policy even though they have been notified that his no claims bonus is with them! Definately wouldn't recommend this company to anyone if you want to keep your sanity, so frustrating talking to the monkeys on the end of the line, would like to speak with organ grinder instead! AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!”

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Posted 8 years ago

“These boxes are set up to make you fail, braking System is not just for erratic breaking if you are in heavy traffic which most uk roads are these days it will go against you stopping and starting with traffic flows, so basically you can't drive your car when there are other cars on the road, and doesn't matter how if a low percentage you use after 10pm even if it's an emergency you can forget it, your score does not improve as quickly as it declines, These boxes do not get any approvals from the government or DVLA they are set up to their own designs....., Be very careful!!!!!”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

“I am 18 years old and took the insurance policy out myself in November 2016 - unfortunately I had not read the reviews and went with this policy as I was fooled by the low prices. The initial payment of £290 and then monthly payments of £85 after that (for a year) seemed reasonable and affordable. I kept track of my driving on the app and within the first week my scores were 100-speed and 100-acceleration but had reduced to 0-braking and 0-time of day, this took my score down to 38? I'm not sure how they calculate that! They emailed me and rang me with cancellation threats and told me I needed to improve my score to 40 to keep my policy, I didn't understand how I could drive more carefully but I tried anyway.. My braking score went up to 10 (mostly due to slow driving and therefore rarely to use my brake) and they were happy with a score of 42. However it reduced again and this time they sent me an email (no call) with another threat to cancel my policy if it didn't improve, and then said they would cancel it at the end of January 2017, but obviously this would effect attempts to get insured elsewhere - therefore I was forced to cancel my policy. They have taken a total of £460 off me for 2 months and 4 days of insurance - the woman on the phone laughed when I said it was a good job they weren't charging to cancel my insurance as they'd only just charged me for another months insurance 5 days before I was forced to cancel! The SmartMiles box deducts your score no matter how well you drive, and although it shows your journey it does not show ur score for each journey, therefore they lack evidence in where they have reduced the score! I have spoken to family and friends who have also had 'black box' fitted in their car (some of whom drive a lot worse then I ever do!!) and they have never had a problem with their insurance, and they get a score for each journey! This company is out to scam young drivers and I only hope that people read these reviews and don't make the mistake I did!”

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Posted 8 years ago

Hastings Direct Smart Miles is rated 3.3 based on 2,006 reviews