By having a Smartbox I saved nearly ?200 on my car insurance for 2017/2018. I'm not a new driver but I hadn't had a car for 4 years so I was starting from scratch, zero no claims bonuses. Nevertheless, I don't like the way they run their scoring, particularly time of day and speeding. There's no transparency or accountability. They can (and did) make up numbers to suit themselves, presumably to keep the customer under pressure to conform to their idiosyncrasies. The time of day score is nonsense. "40% of accidents occur between 10pm and 5am". Well, that's actually over 30% of the day, so it's not really statistically significant. I think many of those stats are for drink drivers: I'm a complete abstainer from alcohol, so I'm penalised for other people's carelessness/ recklessness/ wilfulness. I don't use my car for work, only for attending mainly church related events (mid-week prayer meetings/bible studies) which finish after 10pm, but no alcohol involved or rowdy socialising that's likely to make me lose concentration. If anything, I'd be more sensible and focussed than the average driver. The other one is the speeding score. Before Christmas 2017 a new road opened nearby. Hastings, in their wisdom, decided the limit was 30 mph, when in fact it was actually 40mph (which I'd kept within). Several weeks had passed before I got round to checking my App so I queried why I'd had 20% knocked off my score. They said they'd check it. Before they got back to me I noticed I'd been deducted another 10%- same stretch of road, but, of course, I didn't know at this stage that their system was wrongly saying I'd been speeding. Eventually they 'refunded' 10% for each of the two occasions when I'd made my enquiries. I was back work by the time they told me the reasons why I'd been penalised (in error by them) but I'd asked for communication by email, as I can't take phone calls at work. They agreed to make emails the primary means of communication. I emailed again to challenge their not restoring the full 100% on my speeding score. They refused to email me, and insisted that they had to discuss it over the phone. They have failed to address this matter correctly, and it hasn't affected my premiums for this year's renewal. I have obtained a greater discount than I would have done had I not had the Smartbox, so that's a positive. They have finally increased my (supposed) 'speeding' score to 95% recently, but they didn't reset the 'speeding' and 'time of day' scores for the start of the new insurance period. If I weren't a very careful driver, and my last year's scores hadn't been so good, I would be in a position in which it would be almost impossible to maintain a good score for this and subsequent years as penalties are cumulative, not averaged. e.g. my 'time of day' score was 65% last year. If I drive (very safely) for the next year, with the same time of day profile, I'd be down to 30%! Common sense indicates that I'm being doubly penalised here. My score for subsequent years ought to be the same for the same profile of usage as for the first year. Of course they make their own rules up. They don't have to be moral, logical, fair or just. If you're hard nosed and are prepared to be patronised intensely, like I was, it will save you around ?200 a year on your insurance.