Fed Up With Progressive's Snapshot Device

[Mainia]

Guess they'd rather have a driver slam into someone instead of using their brakes appropriately or an evasive move when some bonehead cuts you off or pulls out in front of you.

I'd never install one of those Big Brother devices on any vehicle.

Have everyone smack into cars and say " but I was so scared I would get a braking offense" have millions of dollars of accidents happen because of the big brother units. Step and repeat till their utopian world of control actuarialy looks bad to them and they drop their BS.

 

[alarmguy]

Progressives device is a marketing tool, you can get a better price without it from another company.
Try https://www.esurance.com as a starting point and keep getting quotes all over the internet, the progressive device is mostly all scam meaning you have just as good a chance of getting better priced insurance with other companies.

Think about the marketing aspect. Progressive gets you to go through the trouble to plug in a device to track your driving, the people who do this know they are good drivers and are going to get a good rate.
So what happens? The device tells them they are not as good as they think and they dont get the big discount that they thought they would get. So what happens and why is this nothing more then a marketing device? Because Progressive still throws them a bone and gives them a little "discount" not as much as they thought they would get but human nature is to be lazy, more so after going through this whole driving tracking thing, so the lazy consumer accepts the Progressive "discount" price even if it isnt close to what they thought they would save and Progressive has a new customer at a better then industry profit on that customer.

Your better off shutting down BITOG for one or two hours and scour the internet for a better price, odds are you will save big money over anything Progressive offers.
You should be checking ALL your insurance against all companies once a year and ANYTIME a policy increases in price.
Its just insurance, just like oil is oil, cant figure out why anyone is loyal to any of them, its business to extract as much money as they can from you. Are you loyal to the brand of gas you put in your car? Then why be loyal on insurance?

 

[Quattro Pete]

got 2 hard braking incidents in the first 4 weeks.

There is a difference between having to hard brake because you weren't paying attention and having to hard brake because someone cut you off. But it sounds like Progressive doesn't see a difference and will ding you for both. Nice.

 

[Zaedock]

...hard braking or fast acceleration....

LOL!!! My wife drives a Stinger.

Bring on the penalties.

 

[Duffyjr]

I imagine someday all cars will have dash cams so it won't be hard for these little devices to tap into the cam good or bad.

When I signed up with Progressive through my broker he never mentioned the snapshot, it wasn't until I'd been with them for a few months did they send me an email offering it but I came here and create a post and the consensus was "don't do it"

 

[drtyler]

I'm using it again, and was doing great on it, they graded me a "B" so far because I slipped and got 2 hard braking incidents in the first 4 weeks. You have to be thinking about the device every second you're driving, because if you don't and if you step on the brake harder than the device allows, it racks up a hard braking incident for you. And if you turn too abruptly, it racks up a fast acceleration incident for you. I have not had an insurance claim in so many years I've lost count, yet they're going to not give me the discount I deserve because of this plugin device. And each time I notice an incident on my Snapshot report, I feel bad about it. I'm really looking forward to the day when I send it back to them. IMHO it's not worth the stress you feel when you get a hard braking or fast acceleration. I drive a Toyota Prius. I just feel like I'd rather pay a higher premium and just knot bother with the Snapshot device anymore. I just do not like that thing. I don't know why they can't just give me a good discount based on the number of years I've been with no claims. Greed, I guess.

I've used these before and it did provide a savings when the term was over. While they consider hard brakes, etc., I think a large part of it is how often you use the car, how many miles you drive, and at what hours. The hard braking is just part of driving. You can be ultra defensive and still have folks cut you off, and Progressive knows that. I believe the last snoopshot device recorded one hard brake a week for three months and we still got a good discount.

Rates keep going up because of general inflation and affects on costs to obtain parts and repair cars. Wishful thinking, but hopefully the rates may go down once the supply of body parts on newer cars is more stable.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Ford wanted to sell me Ford insurance and monitor my driving, as the car has a satellite uplink.

I ripped that up and tossed it into the recycle bin as fast as my fat hands would allow.

My car insurance is is about $425/ year - Not a major cost

Now, if someone can tell me how to convince Comcast to lower my triple play cable bill from
just a hair under $3000.00 a year, I'll listen !

 

[Bud]

Won't uses those gadgets.

 

[Job]

Never heard of these things. I guess don’t go with the companies spending millions advertising on tv. Costco gives me the lowest rate by far. I would never have a monitor in the car. They have driving records and all the information they need already.

 

[WylieCoyote]

There's no way I would allow other peoples' bad driving impact my insurance rate. Sometimes, stuff happens on the roads ahead of you that you can't see, and the people ahead of you slam their brakes. Even if you were able to maximize your following distance without a line of jackwads moving into the space at the last second, you may still have to brake hard on occasion, or steer around a ladder in the road, or accelerate hard to keep a semi from taking out the right side of your car when they merge. The reasons for abrupt maneuvers are numerous, and you shouldn't be penalized for all of them.

Example: I was following a Camry up Central Expressway the other day, in the far left lane, nobody ahead of him, we were going about 75. I was at least 3 seconds behind him, because 75 was fast enough. He suddenly buried the brake pedal, with the intention of jumping the barrier to go into the HOV lane. He slowed from 75 to 5 with a buried brake pedal, and I had nowhere I could go to escape, so I buried mine.

Should I be penalized for that idiocy? No Big Brother for me, thanks.

 

[xBa380]

Would laugh, but I expect these things to become an “expected“ item in the next few years. Already heard Progessive plans to charge a “high risk fee” if you don’t……..

So I wonder what is worse... The "high risk fee" if you don't have the device, or having the device and showing them you drive like a complete maniac?

Myself, would never get one of these devices until mandatory... !

 

[dogememe]

For work in work vehicles we carry a glorified rugged Android smartphone to manage our deliveries. Recently they added a similar system. Thankfully I don't drive much for the company anymore, but it's so stupid. The first week we had it I drove the way I usually do and got the worst driving score in the company. The second week I drove absolutely perfectly like a grandma and still only got 70%. Makes me feel better all of our delivery drivers most of which are patient, older guys, can't manage any better of a score. Not sure what a 100% score would look like! And that's not even OBD-based, those are even worse... sorry I need the full RPM of this four cylinder Nissan Frontier to merge onto the highway.

 

[Jarlaxle]

People put these in their cars of their own free will knowing what they are. Get different insurance.

I might put it in my Challenger...

And drive my Caddy to work for a week.

 

[Doc8404]

We trialed them in our fleet cars. You are correct, it makes you think about the device at all times. To me, it actually made for unsafe driving.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Ford wanted to sell me Ford insurance and monitor my driving, as the car has a satellite uplink.

I ripped that up and tossed it into the recycle bin as fast as my fat hands would allow.

My car insurance is is about $425/ year - Not a major cost

Now, if someone can tell me how to convince Comcast to lower my triple play cable bill from
just a hair under $3000.00 a year, I'll listen !

Switch to Fairpoint.

 

[Hall]

I tried Erie's version just to see how it would work. I got dinged because I put new brakes on a car and went out on some country roads to "bed" them in. Their device saw 10-20 "hard braking" incidents !

Or multiple times, it has said I was speeding here:

I was driving 65-70 on I-75 but their dongle thought I was on Union Rd with a 45 mph speed limit.

 

[sasilverbullet]

USAA just bought a company that makes these things, I'm sure they'll be shoving that down my throat soon. I'll decline, or go elsewhere...

 

[Thermo1223]

I tried this once on Allstate years back, the radio chatter from the cell modem in the device was enough to drive me mad on day 1. Plus I drive late hours for work which is automatically a risk, so I trashed the idea. The savings is not worth the headache from always driving on eggshells and the potential breach in privacy.

 

[Mainia]

As I see a large handful of car companies advertising "performance". I think I remember Lexus was tearing up the roads with an advertized 425hp rating and Kia jumping cars in an autocross race course. Then the Ford Mustang doing full throttle pulls. Acura on a mountain canyon road course. Ect, ect,............

Actuarial wise, it is already built in per the cars accident rate....ok. NOW LEAVE US ALONE with your little toy tracker.

 

[Dave Hess]

Snap shot is a stupid idea to penalize you.