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Hastings Direct Smart Miles Reviews

3.3 Rating 1,958 Reviews

57 %

of reviewers recommend Hastings Direct Smart Miles

Company Reviews

Product Reviews

3.3

Based on 1,958 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 5 star review on 29th September 2023

Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

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“A frustrating, unhelpful device. I drive a hearse for a living and even when driving in a hearse-driving like manner I have had lousy scores. I drive a 3L Discovery only when I have - it is a tow car for our caravan. Have had to deactivate every notification source I can as I was penalised for using the phone. I NEVER EVER use the phone when driving. After 1 week of driving since then my scores have crept back up but last night's short trip, driven in a saintly manner, has inexplicably brought them right down to low 40s and in an amber warning colours. I drove as though I was in my hearse. Really thinking of paying the upper premium. They haven't got it sorted.”

Posted 11 months ago

“tried to add a temporary driver for 1 day to our policy and was told that hastings would not do this. upon asking for a reason i was told by the agent that they would not tell her. for lack of transparency on something so simple i am concerned if actually have to make a claim. complaints procedure told me that this was because it was an australian licence. i have personally added temp drivers to a policy before and numerous people iasked the same. all with international licences. not very impressed with the complaints experience even though never expected anything other than the reason. obfuscation and the email received from her glosses over the issue. she gets a 1*”

Posted 1 year ago

“Don’t use! The most sensitive black box ever. Says you’re breaking harshly all the time when you are just breaking normally. Hard cornering is anything over 15mph & you can’t accelerate at all without it marking you down. If you drive like a normal person then avoid this insurance or they’ll cancel your policy after 3 weeks. Marks you as on your phone when you’re using a sat nav. Was told I should put the phone in a holder at all times just in case the phone moves in my pocket and the screen gets touched as this will mark down as phone use. no one can use your phone whilst driving. My old black box before this one gave me a happy face 95% of the time and now apparently I have a score of 12 with the Hastings you drive. How did it go from almost perfect with admiral to so poor with Hastings? Cancelling the insurance & getting a new one as it’s a joke. Not worth the stress & having to drive like you’re on a driving test all the time. If you got out and pushed the car it would say you was going too quick Guy on the phone was very unhelpful & told me to drive better & didn’t seem to have an explanation on why my driving was good with admiral but a week later it was poor with the hastings black box”

Posted 1 year ago

“APP doesn't work so. Cant seem to find live chat anywhere despite the advertisement of it. Email address for complaints won't accept any mail. Wouldn't even help me with the app on the phone despite numerous password changes. Seems to work on the computer but that is not going to work with the black box or the app. Nightmare and will not give full money back!!! I would steer clear of this company - pardon the pun!!!! Cheap means poor service by the looks of it.such hassle”

Posted 1 year ago

“They put a claim against me as a policyholder with hastings , when the accident fault was deemed to be because of the third party not myself. Tried to contact them to at least understand why they do that & they never responded to my emails . Of course this affected me on my next car insurance .”

Posted 1 year ago

“My daughter had the box for 2 months then it stopped working. After contacting hastings she was told she was force stopping it by swiping it off her screen. This she did when she got inside the house. No where did it say to keep it open at all times. The box itself wouldnt connect no lights on. She was constantly phoning and being put on hold for 30 mins at a time to be told if it didnt start recording miles they would cancel her insurance. She kept telling them the box wasnt working but they were not interested. Finally we decided the best thing to do was change insurers and cancel hastings. Awfull experience for her and from what i have read a lot of other youngsters too. Avoid at all costs”

Posted 1 year ago

“Terrible customer services. Called a few weeks backs as my score was low due to me using my 'phone' i use my phone as a sat nav within a secure phone holder. I was told this would be fine as long as i don't touch the screen and not to worry. Called this morning as my score is low again due to me using my 'phone' was told i need to switch my phone off once the maps has been enabled so the screen is black and just hear the sat nav talk. If anyone knows how Sat navs work, you look at the screen to navigate your route. Sat navs can be very unpredictable with telling you in little notice so viewing on a screen can be alot more helpful for some. I have been told to leave the app running in the background whilst i drive. Which i have and this makes no difference whatsoever. I was told by one staff member as long as the app had tracked one teip a week then that's all that matters, that's not how a black box should work. Being told numerous of things by different staff to then not get issue solved. Will be looking elsewhere for a new insurance policy.”

Posted 1 year ago

“Terrible service ! If you're a new driver DO NOT go with this company. Only had the insurance for a week with the telematics system , this was my 2nd year of driving biut 1st year with this company. My review system kept marking my braking as very bad eventho I was doing it very carefully. Called up 3 times about the fact it must be faulty in some way and all I was told is " the system is very accurate and you need to change how you drive " the previous year with my old company I was marked as a top driver at about 95/100. Ended up cancelling as I was being threatened with emails saying if my score lowers they will just cancel my policy automatically. For a black box system with supposed "very accurate telematics "there seems to be many reviews saying otherwise !!!”

Posted 1 year ago

“Terrible customer service - in fact the worst I've received from any company for any product! They decided to cancel my car insurance on the basis that I wasn't driving the car enough. They warned us that this was going to happen (via email) and my son responded to that email. Hastings Direct now say that replying to that email was incorrect - because they don't monitor that mailbox. The issue is that there was nothing about their senders address, or anything in the email body that said they would ignore our emails. Worse still, they claim that we received an automated 'bounce' email. That is not true. I asked for a copy of the bounce email - and not surprisingly they can't. In short they are a bunch of liars - and I will never darken their door again.”

Posted 1 year ago

“Breaking because of hazards Infront of you gets you marked down. Accelerating on a roundabout gets you marked down. Breaking at a zebra crossing gets you marked down unless you brake 5 minutes before hand and come to a crawl before stopping. Utter nonsense. Hard breaking saves lives and this app wants you to think that you're doing something wrong. I'd rather hard break a hundred times and avoid a crash or a death but the app seems to not ever want you to break in a dangerous situation. The app seems to think that other people and cars don't exist on the road so even if another driver causes you to break it's still your fault. App hasn't been recording my data for days now and judging by the reviews this is going to be my problem very soon, regardless of whether their app or black box is in the wrong. Absolute con.”

Posted 2 years ago

“The most sensitive black box in the world. Put the brakes on at a red light or someone pulling out on you and you're screwed. Sometimes I can get a perfect score then the next trip has like 5 moments of acceleration and 3 heavy braking issues for the same journey driving exactly the same! I wish I NEVER went for this Policy but it was my cheapest option at half the price of other policys. Now I see why. Terrible company If i get any threats of cancelling my policy I will be going to the financial ombudsman!”

Posted 2 years ago

“Awful just had my driving policy cancelled , had the device fitted from the day it was sent out Recieved email saying that it has not been recieving data back to Hastings , I checked the app and resolved the issue 2 days later my policy has been cancelled”

Posted 2 years ago

“Appalling. Awful customer service and I had anxiety from the second I fitted it due to the emails threatening to cancel. Avoid!!”

Posted 2 years ago

“Awful. Recieved an email warning about not recording my driving data. Kept my bluetooth in constantly and still no data recorded. Wasnt aware of this. Cancelled my insurance via email. Phoned them to enquire, they said it was my fault even though it was there technology that was faulty. Kept all the money for the policy. Reporting to financial ombudsman.”

Posted 2 years ago

“Excellent The service was excellent I'm well satisfied”

Posted 2 years ago

“Amazing service and great customer service received from these guys.”

Posted 2 years ago

“A note for any driver who gets the letter of cancellation, call them and cancel the policy yourself this then shouldn't affect any new policy. insured my daughters car with these, after 2 weeks got a letter stating low score and policy will be cancelled. Very strange has she had a perfect 12 months with Direct Line. Even more strange I own a telematics company and have a separate telematics system fitted to her car to record everything that Hastings telematics box is supposed to. on the information i have it shows completely different to Hastings which is a poor quality product with a value of probably £5.00. If your phone is connected to your in vehicle handsfree for use of car Play or Android Auto and is being used for maybe music streaming or just handsfree connection this product marks you down. Anyway good luck to anyone who uses them, have cancelled the policy with them..and moved on....”

Posted 2 years ago

“Hastings you are one big con. My car has been off the road until today when I took it out for a short drive. Firstly I was stuck behind some muppet in a Audi A3 doing 20 everywhere secondly I drive how I always drive like the first day of using the app you were saying I was a excellent driver and now my score is low and you may cancel my policy. I emailed you in the beginning because the original quote on moneysupermarket.com did not state you have to have this black box and you have lied by photo shopping a picture to show you did advertise the black box in the quote. Bunch of crooks avoid all insurance companies are a rip off anyway welcome to the UK but these crooks are probably owned by the government con artists”

Posted 2 years ago

“Inaccurate reporting! First week or two, I was sat at a constant 85, despite getting all ‘perfect’ drives, it wouldn’t go above 85. Intermittent recording data. Apparently the car hasn’t moved all last week, yet I went to work and back for four shifts. I’ve rang up to enquire about supposed ‘phone use’ even tho the car has CarPlay on it so I can control a lot of functions with the touchscreen or my voice yet the system constantly marks me down for ‘phone use’ Now my overall Average has dropped to 67, yet the car has not moved all week due to having a puncture and not finding the locking wheel nut. It’s just making it up as it goes along. I think I will have a rethink and maybe pay a little more in the way of premium than to have this inaccurate spy in the car.”

Posted 2 years ago

“Pathetic how they score you down for hard braking, what if a child runs out ??? Don’t hard brake then you hit a child, absolutely pathetic I’ve only had the thing active for 5 days and currently on score 13, they said it started at 100 but I never saw it above 29, already had threats of it being cancelled, well go ahead because it’s pathetic it’s just a crafty way of them getting you to switch to them. It shouldn’t be allowed”

Posted 2 years ago

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Hastings Direct Smart Miles is rated 3.3 based on 1,958 reviews