Progressive Snapshot

[Slapshot]

I recently tried Progressive's Snapshot device in my 10 2ss. I thought I'd write a review of it for anyone who thinks they may benefit from something of this sort.

I've had Progressive for a few years now, though I just bought my Camaro last April. Their original rate quote was pretty good, beating most all other companies by a few hundred dollars every 6 months.

In May I had an accident involving a dog. Didn't hit him, but in avoiding him I clipped a curb drain and did some damage to my front right suspension and destroyed both passenger side wheels. This happened literally 3 days after I was caught in a hailstorm. Absolutely horrid week to say the least. These were the first two insurance claims I'd filed since I was 19, I'm 30 now.

Progressive was quick to fix my car in both instances. Of course in my mind, I was waiting for my premium to explode. It did go up a substantial amount for the renewal in August. Almost to the point that I'd contemplated parting ways with the car. After checking competitors rates with my recent bad luck, I still found they were cheaper than almost all quotes I got. The car has to go was my next thought. I'm sure everyone has seen the Snapshot commercials. After a little research, I decided to give it a shot.

I put the device in my car 12/23/13 and drove like I normally would. I don't drive all that many miles each week and there are weeks where my car spends every day in the garage and doesn't even get started. My renewal quote came to me a few weeks ago and to my surprise, it was already 15% lower than my last. This was before any data from the Snapshot was applied.

Yesterday to my absolute delight, I opened an email with a new renewal offer including the Snapshot discount. As of now I'm receiving a 28% discount using the little device. My premium is now lower than any car I've owned in the last 10 years.

I'm sure most of you know how it works. In case you don't, it monitors the following:
Mileage driven daily
Hours of the day driven
Hard brakes (decelerating 7mph or more per second)

In my thirty days of use, I had two hard brakes and averaged 60 miles a week. I never drive between the hours of midnight and 4am, which they determine to be high risk drive time.

Obviously, if you drive in a lot of stop and go traffic this thing probably isn't for you as hard brakes will be tough to avoid. I'm fortunate enough that I spend a lot of time on the road in company vehicles. I also live in a relatively low traffic city and avoid high traffic hours. I'm going to continue running the device for the six months required and see what happens. As of now I'm pretty happy with the results. I'll be the first to admit, I wasn't a fan of having anyone monitor my driving. I really thought I'd try it for thirty days and send it back, but so far so good.

[Squillo]

I'm glad it's working out for you so far. I'm interested in seeing the long term results.

[ka1]

So they don't monitor how fast you drive? That is why I never considered doing this.

[Slapshot]

Originally Posted by ka1

So they don't monitor how fast you drive? That is why I never considered doing this.

They do track your speed, though they say they don't use it for anything and don't know where you are when you're driving. As best I can tell my speed has had no impact on anything so far. That's exactly what I was curious about as well. If anyone wants more detailed info PM me. There are certain things I'm not willing to post here if you get my drift...

[ronss]

Dont want anyone monitoring what i do in my car or anywhere else for that matter, the nsa does enough of that,,

[Realist]

60 miles a week is way below the national average for driving. I'm not so sure your area is all that populated like a major city and it's suburbs like a NY, Chicago or LA where congestion really occurs. Would like to see a similar report with details in a area such as I mention where miles are racked up. You just don't drive much to be a big risk. With State Farm I can insure some of my other vehicles for less as long as I drive them less than 7000 miles a year, perhaps this is how progressive lowered your rates.

[SMN2011Z28]

Thanks for the review. I never thought this would benefit me based on my driving habbits and you helped confirm it. I'm sure a few people here at C5 will benefit from a review like this

Originally Posted by ronss

Dont want anyone monitoring what i do in my car or anywhere else for that matter, the nsa does enough of that,,

I kinda agree with this. I agree that I don't want any nannies but the second part regarding the NSA is not true.

[Slapshot]

Originally Posted by Realist

60 miles a week is way below the national average for driving. I'm not so sure your area is all that populated like a major city and it's suburbs like a NY, Chicago or LA where congestion really occurs. Would like to see a similar report with details in a area such as I mention where miles are racked up. You just don't drive much to be a big risk. With State Farm I can insure some of my other vehicles for less as long as I drive them less than 7000 miles a year, perhaps this is how progressive lowered your rates.

I couldn't agree more. I drive around 20k miles a year, just not in my car. Wichita is about 400k people, nothing like the big metro areas. There's very little stop and go here. This really benefits my personal situation with Progressive. Certainly not for everyone, but it's saving me a nice amount.

On that note, I have spent a lot of time driving in Texas (DFW, Austin, Houston, San Antonio), Chicago and some of the other large metro areas in the midwest. If I lived some place like that, I doubt I could avoid several hard brakes a week if not a day. Clearly this is great for customers who may live in less densely populated areas. It's probably not for everyone. The reality is if you live in a large metro area with large amounts of traffic, you're probably at higher risk for accidents.

[ronh]

Originally Posted by Slapshot

They do track your speed, though they say they don't use it for anything and don't know where you are when you're driving. As best I can tell my speed has had no impact on anything so far. That's exactly what I was curious about as well. If anyone wants more detailed info PM me. There are certain things I'm not willing to post here if you get my drift...

I've got some experience with these programs…..

I didn't use the Progressive Snapshot but I did agree to allow Safco to use their plug-in to monitor my driving for 4 months to earn a discount. It sounds very similiar to the snapshot. I'm my case I installed it in a Dakota pickup [my daily driver]. For the 1st couple of weeks I drove my normal style and was thinking I was doing just fine. After 2 weeks I logged onto the Safco website with my user id only to find that I was constantly being tagged for excessive braking. But not once was my braking due to a sudden stop for traffic. Mind you, I've been driving 40 years and have never had a collision accident, speeding tickets yes, collisions no.

So for the next 3 1/2 months I changed my driving style to apply my brakes well before an anticipated stop BUT I also changed my approach to stop lights. I quickly found out that making sudden stops at lights because the light turned yellow was registaring as an excessive braking. So that plug-in caused me to start running yellow lights just avoid an excessive braking [seems to be counter productive].

And since I had it installed in my truck I quickly realized that normal wheel spin on wet pavement due to a lack of weight over the rear tires was recording as an excessive acceleration incident. So again I altered my driving to limit wheel spin.

Lastly, whenever I logged on the website to review my score I noticed that whenever it recorded an incident the built in GPS logged the location. Safco was able to quickly build a profile on my driving patterns. Makes me wonder if the NSA has approached the insurance company for any of this meta-data?

Like you I was able to earn a discount on my insurance [the issues I was trying to get beyond was the accidents my daughter encountered while driving a vehicle titled in my name while she was in college]. These programs can be effective in earning a discount but it's at the expense of losing a slice of your privacy. I just feel everyone needs to be aware of the trade-offs of using such a program.

[2012-1822]

Wow. Good review. I'm with Progressive right now.

I had jokingly suggested to the guys in my local car group that do drag racing that they, the ones without Progressive, all get one and see who gets the highest quote while actually still getting a quote just for fun. I wasn't going to participate so Progressive didn't drop me.

But after your review I might just call them and try it. I don't drive typically during the rush hours, at least for the next year. And I don't drive that many daily miles. My car is a DD, but most of the miles I've put on it are from road trips visiting family.

[Evil-Bee-NH]

heh i do about 70mi a day at the minimum. I havent bothered plugging mine in yet i think just because of the drive times and distance i'm screwed.

[derklug]

I was tempted to steal my friend's and put it on my car when I went to Gingerman last summer. He probably would have gotten a nasty note from Flo.

[ratfinkharley]

I installed a CarChip. The device pretty much tracks all the data points mentioned. You can also program alerts for excessive acceleration, hard braking and speed.

I am "sharing" my '11 LT with my 17 year old son. We just bought the car on Saturday. I am traveling this week do he picked it up this morning. He called to tell me the alerts were annoying. WTF? He only drove it for 2 miles! I drove it normally this weekend and didn't register a sound.

I also put the registration and insurance card in a sealed envelope. On the outside I wrote "driving privileges revoked if seal is broken". Hey I used to be a 17 year old.

[Slapshot]

Originally Posted by ratfinkharley

I installed a CarChip. The device pretty much tracks all the data points mentioned. You can also program alerts for excessive acceleration, hard braking and speed.

I am "sharing" my '11 LT with my 17 year old son. We just bought the car on Saturday. I am traveling this week do he picked it up this morning. He called to tell me the alerts were annoying. WTF? He only drove it for 2 miles! I drove it normally this weekend and didn't register a sound.

I also put the registration and insurance card in a sealed envelope. On the outside I wrote "driving privileges revoked if seal is broken". Hey I used to be a 17 year old.

That's pretty good! I leave my car in our shop at work when I'm out of town. I've always been a little nervous about it, but now I can see what my car does every day I'm not home. It's really nice in that respect. No one I work with would ever take my car for a joy ride because they know there'd be hell to pay, but it is nice to actually know.

I think this program is perfect for my particular circumstances. Why should I have to pay a higher rate for a vehicle that averages such low miles and isn't driven hard? I've had a few tickets over the last few years and with the recent claims, I understand a higher premium.

I will be completely honest and say that I love hard braking into a corner. Obviously I'm not doing any of that now. It's taken the fun out of my driving a bit, but having a premium that is now $458 cheaper is well worth it for the time being.

What I'm really curious to find out is what happens at the end of my 6 months. You have to leave the device plugged in for 6 months to complete the program, if I take it out tomorrow I'll only get a discount for one months premium. If I understand this right, I'll receive some form of discount for the time the device is in the car and then at the end of the 6 months my next premium will receive my average discount for the whole 6 month premium. This is why I started using it a month prior to my renewal, hopefully I'll get a full year of a nice discount for 6 months of monitoring. I'll be interested in what my premium does after the Snapshot discount is over.