Hastings Direct Smart Miles Reviews

Name: Hastings Direct Smart Miles
Rating: 3.29

3.3 Rating 1,999 Reviews

56 %

of reviewers recommend Hastings Direct Smart Miles

3.3

Based on 1,999 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

“You...yes you reading this. If you want to: -Be terrified of ever starting your car up -Have a driver rating score that never increases and only ever falls so Hastings can cancel the policy and charge you further -Never look out of the car window at potential danger as you're fixated on your speed indicator -Be reluctant to brake -Be generally stressed through fear of cancellation Then look no further, Hastings Smart Miles is the policy for you!”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Getting home every night for 10pm is very early, most trackers have a later time or allow more flexibility. To enforce this in tge same way in your second year of driving, after getting a discount for good druving is madness. I had a problem with the tracking of my braking in the second year. No matter how careful I was I my score would go down every time the pp refreshed. I spoke to numerous people, they could not explain why this was happening, or when it was happening. They suggested that it could be pot holes or bumps in the road but couldn't tie it down to what time of day or where. I got offered a good discount after my second year but felt that the box was to limiting in night driving and was concerned that my breaking score would continue to drop. I have changed to Diamond without a black box for the same amount of money, as there was no discount offered to other Hastings companies and they were expensive.”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi, Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback on how you found your time with us. We're always looking at how we can improve our service and offer customers the best deal we can and your comments help us to do that?? ~Joe??

Posted 5 years ago

“they might be sightly cheaper than competitiors - but i would never ever buy insurance through them again - insurance companies are awful when having to deal with them - but not as bad as this company! pay the extra money to go else where!!!!”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi,? I'm really sorry to see you had such a negative experience with us. We do try to provide a high standard of customer service and I apologise if we have fallen short on this occasion. I hope you were able to find competitive cover for your vehicle and thank you for having been insured with Hastings Direct Smartmiles -Theo

Posted 5 years ago

“If I could give a 0 I would. Had the box for just over 6 months now and my driving score has always been on 100 until yesterday! I was out driving yesterday and woke up this morning to my speeding being dropped to 90% I contacted the complaint and they can’t even tell me where and when I was speeding!! Also 10pm for a advisory limit????? Absolutely stupid!”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Do not get a black box with Hastings direct it’s a con. My score went down to 40 after 1 week & I’ve been very careful. I have done 90% of my journey’s between 5am - 10pm yet my score did time of day is 35!! Total rip off.”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Don?t buy this insurance!! Black box is like house arrest”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hello Hassan,? ? I do apologise if you feel that way - we work hard to ensure that we only guide our customers towards great driving behaviours rather than impede or restrict you?? ~Joe?

Posted 5 years ago

“Awful said I was cancelled, then decided that they were getting faulty scores and would review over 2 weeks, 8 weeks later and still haven't received an update on it. But still would put my price up for a second year. Luckily I found a better company”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi,?? I do apologise that you haven't received your score review and am sorry that we were unable to keep you on as our customer. Thank you for letting is know and for your review?? ~Joe

Posted 5 years ago

“Having work for an insurance company myself I found Hastings unhelpful, they didn?t seem to know what they were doing, they couldn?t give me dates for payments and generally just did not provide a great customer service, certainly not the level I would expect.”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi,? ? I am very sorry that you were not offered the service you expected and thank you fore the valuable feedback?? ~Joe?

Posted 5 years ago

“Bit frustrating because I had called them the day before asking about whether my husband could be the policy holder and they said they had no quotes. Though I had a quote on my computer at the time so asked not to continue my policy when it runs out and they said no problem. The next night they had taken the money from my account and had to wait a few days to get it back after calling them up and saying again I had asked not to continue”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hello, I'm sorry to hear about the experience you had and I hope this has since been resolved. Please contact us if there's any further assistance you may need and I hope you had a good Christmas and New Year -Theo

Posted 5 years ago

“Unfortunately can't give zero stars. Hi there, I made the mistake of taking out car insurance with Hastings Direct Smartmiles (a service using a black box) I took this insurance out in April 2017 and after receiving a warning they were going to retract it in June from my low score, I started taking notes and screenshots of my score to try and understand where I was going wrong. 8 months later, I am still baffled as to how these figures reflect my driving. The figures very rarely change, and if they do they drop significantly. I feel as though it is a scam to try and get me to pay to cancel or they will cancel it themselves which will clearly jeopardise my future of car insurance purchasing. I am aware I am not the only one with this problem looking at the appalling reviews below. My Issues with the box are as follows: a) my braking hasn't changed from 31% since 5/7/17 despite me never slamming on my brakes. b) my speeding has always hovered round the 50% mark since I got my insurance in April, despite me never going over the speeding limit. c) My time of day has always hovered at 60%, despite what must be over 6,700 miles driven in the day. More irritating was that I was told by Hastings themselves there wasn't a curfew on the box which, there quite clearly is. d) Acceleration is my biggest issue, starting at 10, I stopped using the screen when my car tells me to change gear following Hastings advice which upped the score to around 25. I then chose to stop using cruise control which managed to get me a 'high score' of 50 (why this isn't higher due to my utmost care taken when accelerating I don't know) However in the past week this has suddenly dropped to 25 for absolutely no reason. You will see from the attach screenshots that some days it dramatically just drops with no valid excuse. I am aware they give out safe driving 'tips' but after calling 4/5 times about these persistent issues, I believe that the company has put it off long enough.. especially when the tips include: 1. Put a cup of water on my dashboard to avoid accelerating harshly 2. Don’t crawl in rush hour traffic, use handbrake rather than foot brake and wait for traffic to disperse.. at the time I lived in London.. I’d never get home! 3. Crawl out of roads at roundabouts to avoid harsh acceleration, despite this being a crash hazard. 4. Refrain from braking. I said I work 9 – 5 in London with many people who are unable to drive in my area, causing me to hit my brakes or crash into them. Her response: well that would be their fault so it wouldn’t affect your insurance. They would rather I crashed into someone which could cause injury or death just to try and improve their broken black box?! The disaster of this insurance company is making me want to just sell my car which isn't how it should be. Avoid like the plague, sometimes cheapest ends up costing you more.. financially and mentally!”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Stay away mo matter they are cheap easy pay bit extra go with any other company who have good review HESTING DIRECT IF THEY LOOK AT REVIEWS MORE THEN 90% CUSTOMERS ARE COMPLAINING BUT IT SEEMS CUSTOMERS SRE WRONG BUT THEY ARE RIGHT no matter who has drive our car we drove over 80 miles still under 40 customers service are rude they don’t want to listen”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Terrible service, worst company to go with all they want is your bank details, they never asked me if I would like bouns protection and never went over the terms and conditions with me and being a customer of there's for 4 years you would think they would add it on as a thank you instead they demand ?900 more... I will never take out insurance with them again !!”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi,?? I am very sorry you were not offered that particular benefit - it is not usually available until certain insurer parameters are met?? ~Joe?

Posted 5 years ago

“Answer my email about the non sensicle request to pay ?0.00 or my insurance will be cancelled!”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi,? On occasion human error can cause a letter such as this to be generated, however the system will not cancel a policy with no outstanding balance, I can assure you? ? ~Joe

Posted 5 years ago

“You replaced my initial renewal proposal with another that was more expensive. You have not treated me fairly; you did not give me clear information and kept me appropriately informed before, during and after the point of sale.”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi James,? I'm sorry to see you have had an issue with your renewal quote. To discuss it further, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us free on?0800 0354790 and we'll be happy to look into it with you?? ~Joe

Posted 5 years ago

“The system is simply NOT accurate and even though I have contacted Hastings they have done nothing to look into this nor send me the information that was promised. I do a short journey to work of slightly over 1 mile (I may need my car at work) and this takes a between 2 and 3 minutes maximum - this has NEVER been shown as anything less than 6 and sometimes up to 9 minutes - not a biggie but a glaring inaccuracy to me which does not fill you with confidence. Then there is the braking - my car is an automatic vehicle - the system does not seem to be able to cope with this and short journeys - at one point my breaking score had fallen to zero! - yet speeding and acceleration was 100.......how can that realistically be - in a 30 mph limit most of the time. I have experimented and now have a score of 77 - this has been done by making sure I do a long journey a week (this really bumps it up) - it seems it is not just braking but erratic braking - i.e. if you do short journeys with frequent braking (downhill with 2 traffic lights as mine is) then this does not add up! So I now make sure Iget a long journey in and try not to brake at all on the daily journey in (ridiculous - but it works!) I will definitely have it removed at the end of the term - and advise anyone that the system is NOT fit for purpose indeed misleads....”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Would give them no stars if I could. Awful insurance company. I had a lot of trouble with my car battery during winter last year I had to keep replacing it to which they continuously threatened to cancel my insurance as they were convinced I was just disconnecting the black box. Couldn?t even drive past 10 with them dragging my score down which is ridiculous as I work later than that a lot of weekends. The staff were very unhelpful when I would phone and try to discuss these issues and when I even considered renewing with them I basically wasted an hour on the phone to them be told I can?t be insured by them. Nightmare just made things difficult that didn?t need to be at all”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hello,? I'm sorry to hear that you had such a negative customer experience with us. We disclose the limitations and parameters that can affect your score before the policy is purchased so I do apologise if they were missed. It's disheartening to see this feedback concerning members of staff and I'll arrange for this to be passed back to the team so we can look to impove the level of service going forward -Theo

Posted 5 years ago

“My car was written off after an accident at the end of August and I received an insurance payment in October. I then received the various emails: 1. We're cancelling your policy - 18/10/17 Now your claim has been settled, we're cancelling your insurance policy as you no longer have a vehicle to insure. This will take effect from 23:59 on 17/11/2017. I then received the following email providing a quote on a car that no longer exists and on policy that they had cancelled?? 2. Thank you for choosing SmartMiles with Hastings Direct. Your motor insurance is due for renewal on 19 November 2017 and we want to take the opportunity to inform you of the next steps in the renewal process and also confirm your premium and payment details. I then received this email for a car that had been written off and payed out for by them?? 3. Recently, we wrote to you about your insurance renewal to let you know that we'd be taking payment on your renewal date. Unfortunately, we were unable to take this payment. We want to make sure that you're covered, so we've attached your certificate of insurance and schedule. If you wish to continue your insurance through us we'll require a payment of ?1,219.01 (Including Insurance Premium Tax at current rates) by 25/11/2017. 4.Further to our previous correspondence, this email is to confirm that your insurance policy has been cancelled from 20 November 2017 We'll be in touch again within the next 14 days to give you a breakdown of anything that you owe us, or any refunds that we owe you. I then spoke to a member of staff over the phone on 21/11/17 after receiving these emails after my policy had been cancelled ( see item 1). I was told that the claims department should have told me to cancel my policy?? 1. this was not the case 2. I have received email telling me that my insurance policy had been CANCELLED. I was then told that Hastings had tried to collect over ?1000 to for new my policy on a car that they have written off and they had payed out for? what exactly would I be insuring if the payment had been successful!! I was then told that there ay be some charges as they had been unable to collect the money for a car that HASTINGS HAD WRITTEN OFF AND PAYED OUT FOR??? I think that the service I have received was very poor and very insensitive. Thankfully there were no serious injuries ( or worse) due to the accident involving the write off of the car. There systems need to be looked into in more detail to prevent an unnecessary stress from customers.”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hi Joshua, I am very sorry to see you were in an accident and hope you are well.? I am sympathetic of your situation and apologise for any distress caused. At this time, I would recommend logging a complaint with our SmartMiles team using the link below;? https://www.hastingsdirectsmartmiles.com/contact ~Connor

Posted 5 years ago

“Absolute JOKE as I've had the black box for a week and already went down 10 points for breaking??????? Next time a cyclist cuts infront of me I wont break ill just run them over :):)”

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Posted 7 years ago

“After a few days of taking out insurance with Hastings smartmiles I decided to read through the reviews online of how easy it is to fit the black box etc. After reading through just the first page of reviews (which were all terrible!!) I decided to cancel my policy as I was still within my 14 day Right to Cancel period. I was then told i will be charged a £25 cancellation fee (which i was never told when i took out the insurance) and that they couldn't give me an exact figure over the phone of how much i will be refunded and i will receive a letter within 14 days. The whole company is a scam which is why they charge so little at first to draw customers in (especially young drivers) and then charge you much more throughout the year. I am just grateful that i noticed the reviews just 4 days into my policy. I would rather pay the extra couple of hundred pound to know that i am with a legit insurer who wont scam me out of loads of money!”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Overall scores went up. Average score went down to understand 40???”

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Posted 7 years ago

Hastings Direct Smart Miles is rated 3.3 based on 1,999 reviews