Auto insurance discount

[SecondCor521]

BTW, if driving 5 mph over speed limit or whatever gets you dinged, then *ANY* street around here you will be dinged if you keep up with traffic flow as part of normal driving.

The USAA Safe Pilot app does not track speeding.

 

[Dash man]

The USAA Safe Pilot app does not track speeding.

Yes, it does. It doesn’t give you infractions you can see, but if you read the fine print in all the documentation you agree to, it’s in there.

 

[SecondCor521]

Yes, it does. It doesn’t give you infractions you can see, but if you read the fine print in all the documentation you agree to, it’s in there.

Ah, OK. I didn't read the fine print.

The way the app UI works, it doesn't seem to count as infractions, and the UI therefore seems to imply that it doesn't impact the discount percentage.

I personally don't mind being tracked. YMMV, no pun intended.

 

[braumeister]

Yeah, more of the same. This makes the driver focus on avoiding penalties rather than safe driving. Not good!

The software or monitoring system is not nearly good enough to second guess the driver yet.

I completely agree. I may pay a bit more for insurance, but that's already quite low, and I definitely won't be putting one of these Big Brother apps on my phone or my car anytime soon. We have little enough privacy as it is (i.e., hardly any) so why add more. BTD, baby!

 

[Turbo29]

I'm also in the trial period with USAA and was hit with a "trip infraction" for harsh braking when someone pulled out in front of me from a side street. While I understand what USAA is measuring, I can't help wondering if the message it sends is mixed: "we're going to penalize you for avoiding an accident".

The CSAA app always dings me for harsh braking when I stop for a green light that turns yellow. I've started cruising through more yellow lights. Probably not what they wanted.

 

[PatrickA5]

Having used State Farms program for over 3 years now, I can say to not get too uptight about your "score".

Unless you "floor it" and stop on a dime every time out, it probably isn't going to make much of a difference in your actual discount. You get most of the discount by just having the program. I certainly wouldn't be running yellow/red lights just to keep from braking hard.

 

[PatrickA5]

Comparing prices means nothing without apples to apples coverage. Coverage limits, make/model of cars, state of residence, types of coverage and other factors play a large part in determining premiums for an individual, couple or family.

+1

The only reason our discounts are so high is because we have high coverage on two new (2021/2022) relatively high dollar cars.

Having said that, I don't mind "Big Brother" tracking me for a grand a year. If I was only going to save $50 because I have old cars with minimal coverage, I wouldn't bother.

 

[audreyh1]

I completely agree. I may pay a bit more for insurance, but that's already quite low, and I definitely won't be putting one of these Big Brother apps on my phone or my car anytime soon. We have little enough privacy as it is (i.e., hardly any) so why add more. BTD, baby!

Well, my Tesla already knows everything as long as I’m in it, ha ha. But at least it’s not scoring my driving.

If you buy the Tesla insurance it does score your driving and your rates can change every month based on your score. But the car has way more information about what happened and your surroundings than any beacon or phone app would. I still didn’t want the distraction of a driver scoring system plus I found a better insurance deal anyway.

 

[REWahoo]

We’ve been using the USAA Safe Pilot app for the past six months. It tracks our driving and phone distractions and provides a discount of up to 30% for using it.
We just got out semiannual renewal and it saved us 27% or $422 dollars off of our policy premium! I love it? DW not so much. She wants perfection at 30%. [emoji23]

I'm following up on this old thread with an update of our experience with the USAA Safe Pilot program. In short, for us it has been an exercise in delayed gratification.

DW and I joined the program mid September and the App worked fine for me, but not so for DW. It would record only a portion of her trips and then only occasionally. I had conversations with Safe Pilot "specialists" at USAA on two separate occasions and they could not determine why the App on her phone was not recording her driving. They did inform me, via an email, that her lack of participation/driving (!) would reduce the discount we would qualify for if her information was not available.

I decided to take a shot at a solution by getting her a new phone the first week of November. Problem solved, all her trips began to show up on the App. However, it was too late in the renewal cycle for her driving to be considered for the discount (looks like they "fix" the discount percentage about 6 weeks prior to the policy renewal date), so when our policy renewed on Jan 3, we only got 11%. Very disappointing.

However, with both phones now allowing USAA to act as Big Brother, we expected to start to see improved numbers for our next renewal, a discount more in line with what Dash Man reported above. But after two months of both of us recording our trips, the projected discount on my phone hovered between 10-12% and on hers the discount screen said "Not enough driving recorded to establish a discount. Keep driving."

I was beginning to get really miffed and had decided to give USAA one more call to provide them with a pointed critique of their Safe Pilot Program, hoping I could resist telling them where they should stick it. Then suddenly yesterday, after months of frustration, the App on her phone replaced the "Not enough information" message with a pending discount of 27%. The 10% discount on my App also now reads 27%.

Yes, we will have to wait until July 3 to get the new discount and it can certainly change based on how we drive over the next few months. At least it now appears we are both fully participating in the program via the App and can get the discount based on both of us.

 

[Dash man]

I'm following up on this old thread with an update of our experience with the USAA Safe Pilot program. In short, for us it has been an exercise in delayed gratification.

DW and I joined the program mid September and the App worked fine for me, but not so for DW. It would record only a portion of her trips and then only occasionally. I had conversations with Safe Pilot "specialists" at USAA on two separate occasions and they could not determine why the App on her phone was not recording her driving. They did inform me, via an email, that her lack of participation/driving (!) would reduce the discount we would qualify for if her information was not available.

I decided to take a shot at a solution by getting her a new phone the first week of November. Problem solved, all her trips began to show up on the App. However, it was too late in the renewal cycle for her driving to be considered for the discount (looks like they "fix" the discount percentage about 6 weeks prior to the policy renewal date), so when our policy renewed on Jan 3, we only got 11%. Very disappointing.

However, with both phones now allowing USAA to act as Big Brother, we expected to start to see improved numbers for our next renewal, a discount more in line with what Dash Man reported above. But after two months of both of us recording our trips, the projected discount on my phone hovered between 10-12% and on hers the discount screen said "Not enough driving recorded to establish a discount. Keep driving."

I was beginning to get really miffed and had decided to give USAA one more call to provide them with a pointed critique of their Safe Pilot Program, hoping I could resist telling them where they should stick it. Then suddenly yesterday, after months of frustration, the App on her phone replaced the "Not enough information" message with a pending discount of 27%. The 10% discount on my App also now reads 27%.

Yes, we will have to wait until July 3 to get the new discount and it can certainly change based on how we drive over the next few months. At least it now appears we are both fully participating in the program via the App and can get the discount based on both of us.

I’m glad you got it all worked out. Our insurance renews in April and we’re on track for another 27% discount. Over the course of a year, that’ll pay for a new phone!

 

[REWahoo]

I’m glad you got it all worked out. Our insurance renews in April and we’re on track for another 27% discount. Over the course of a year, that’ll pay for a new phone!

Since we buy cheap phones, even the 11% discount would have covered it. With 27% maybe I can afford one, too!