USAA SafePilot 12+

I still get a discount on my policy but I have to frequently go into the app to manually change the settings to state that I was not a driver during certain trips. If I use my phone while being in an Uber I get dinged for that. But the most surprising thing is that I get dinged for using my phone while flying a plane. I fly single engine small aircraft and the app interprets that as drives. It’s fun to watch the tracker to see where I was flying, but it’s quite surprising that the app thinks I’m driving over fields at 150mph lol. It’s a quick fix to adjust the trip as “not a drive” but sometimes I forget to do so and I’m worried that it would count against me for my auto policy discount. Overall not a bad concept or app, but there are certain instances where I clearly was not driving and the app continues to think I am. I used to work as a paramedic, and I can also see issues for people who MUST use their phones will driving for work. Such as police or EMS. For jobs like that, of course you are going to have some harsh braking or acceleration. It would be nice to see a “work mode” for first responders so how they drive while on the job doesn’t affect their personal auto insurance.

Overall, the app is great with a few significant issues. Other than harsh braking, phone handling, and phone use, the score is arbitrary to the driver as there is no apparent or disclosed reasons for point deductions. The algorithm is not provided. For example, if I take a short drive at or just under the speed limit, take turns at moderate normal safe speed, and drive otherwise perfectly, don’t touch my phone, etc the app will deduct one or two points for undisclosed reasons, so there is no way for a driver to improve without reasonable feedback. Often, when I drive to get gas or stop to drop off something or pull over to
make a call in a parking lot (engine off, Apple ios driver focus off), the app counts going to and returning from the gas station or parking lot as a single drive even though I was stopped for about 5 minutes with the engine off - just using my phone attached wallet seems to trigger point deductions when stopped. After almost two months of driving, I’m still waiting for a discount, again without specific feedback of when the discount is awarded (how many miles, hours, days, etc). As a result, the app is frustrating due to lack of accurate scoring and limited feedback. I wrote the review hopeful that USAA will pay attention and fix the issues. It’s a great app, just needs maturity and more disclosure and feedback regarding scoring.

As with many of the reviews already here I’m not happy with how the app rates good vs bad driving. I don’t feel like hands free calling should be held against me. But it is so I mostly ignore phone calls while driving. On the rare occasions I do pick up, I pull over but am still dinged for a hands free call even though I stopped driving. My harsh braking incidents are few and far between. Usually when a traffic signal turns yellow right at the decision point but even then I’m not screeching to a halt, it’s just a more aggressive stop than normal. Or when someone pulls out in front of me so I have to break hard or have a wreck. In both cases I brake harder than normal for safety reasons but I get dinged. Then I get dinged when my wife or one of my kids picks up my phone to look at something or text someone while I’m driving. It seems like all the dings I get are pretty questionable. But the worst part is that the example on the App Store has so many dings… I mean, a lot of them… yet still has a score in the 80s. I literally have 2 phone handling, 0 hand held calling, 5 hands free calling, and 4 harsh breaking with an overall score of 74. And I can argue that every one of the dings I’ve gotten is suspect. How can double-digits in each of those in the example have a score in the 80s? It seems like they’re saying if I drive worse, I’ll be rewarded. But I’m sure that’s not true.