USAA SafePilot

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.

Update after training: Have to keep changing settings to reflect me being the driver. It's not recording all trips. But now even after finishing the training portion come to find out YOU DON'T EVEN GET THE DISCOUNT IF YOU DRIVE UNDER 400 MILES DURING THE 20 DAYS??!! SO THAT'S SCORED AGAINST YOU😤 I had no marks perfect driving but they scored against me I got 94 out of 100 🧐I never use my phone when I'm driving I'm a careful driver but it was scored against me for not driving over something like 390 miles so you have to at least get almost 400 miles to qualify for the discount in 20 days that's a scam😢I thought that USAA was better than the others apparently not🥺 (First impression:The first few days I had the app it was working fine it recorded when I left the house and when I returned it recorded just fine and then the other day it stopped working it didn't record when I left the house it only recorded my trip back and I thought well that's odd and I tried to see if there was a setting or something I know in advertently turned off or done some thing I couldn't find anything it's pretty straightforward and simple but it seems that maybe it's been hacked or something it's really odd it's doing it again it's not recording when I leave the house only on my return trip and when I open the app it starts flashing and glitching a whole bunch so something definitely wrong with it and I hope this doesn't affect my rating because

Update: I now have 7 harsh braking. How???? There has been no harsh braking in weeks. This app cheats and lies! I’m giving this a two star only. I like the concept, however, it doesn’t take into account when someone pulls in front of me and forces me to put on my brakes. Nor does does it take into account that my cruise control sometimes will break because someone pulls in front of me. My cruise control is the advanced kind that senses when a car is ahead of me. I have it set up to allow at least three car lanes ahead of me if any car moves in between that or if I get close to another car, it slows down to keep that three car length minimum in between. however some people are stupid and just jump in that distance and wind up cutting me off/or causing the cruise control to break harshly. I’m not complaining about the cruise control. It does a good job sensing other cars, but the app thinks that I am being careless when I’m not. I also noticed something else. I got 10 points taken off one day when I had zero infractions, no harsh breaking, no phone use, etc., so I called USAA to find out what’s going on. Turns out, distance can be a problem. The further I drive, the more I get points taken off. Now anybody who lives in Texas, like I do, knows that we’re spread out & nothing is close by. So I’m being penalized for driving the distance that is normal in Texas. I’m not sure this app is worth it.

I’ve used this app for the past 2 years. While I like that it helps me achieve a discount on my auto insurance, there are a few things I don’t like about the app. Once your score takes a hit, I feel like it takes awhile to build it back up. The app doesn’t decipher if you’re the driver or the passenger either. Often times when I’m the passenger, I forget to change the settings in the app to reflect that. So when I do go in, my score is already lower and even though it states “this drive won’t count towards your score” I feel like it does. There are a lot of times I will sit in my car after I get off work and make the necessary phone calls I need to make before I start driving. Yet, even with my phone turned over and locked, the app often states I had “hands free calling” from the moment I leave the parking lot till about half a mile up the road even though I wasn’t on it while driving. Another feature I don’t like is the harsh breaking. I don’t think the creators took into account that even though there are people who leave distance between cars while driving, there are still the jerks who think they can squeeze their vehicle between you and the person in front of you. Which then causes you to break harshly sometimes. Thus going against your score and lowering it.

This app tracks my wife flying 600 mph on commercial flights as driving. Airplane runways as drives. That is just the blatantly bad part. Rarely gets who is driving the car correct and counts multiple family members as driving at the same time. It tracks the person watching a video in the back seat as driver with phone handling while the phone that is never picked up as passenger. It says you phone handle when you never touch your phone or take it out of your purse while driving. It becomes another thing businesses are tasking their customers with being their free employees to reduce their costs instead of doing the job for the customer. If it were not for the potential of a 30 percent discount there is no reason to subject yourself to this waist of time. The metro area we live in has short duration yellow lights that are well documented to limit red light running. Harsh braking faults are the worst with this app. What is a typical stop in our region is considered a harsh brake. The result is now we are forced to run red lights or get a harsh brake default against our insurance discount. This app encourages red light running and makes me feel more likely to get in a collision based on how it is changing our driving behavior. Never been in an accident that I was at fault in over 30 years of driving. This app makes me think I will be at fault based on it encouraging red light running. TOTAL GARBAGE!

It takes a point deduction when your phone is utilized while driving. For example if your phone moves for ANY reason such as bumped or falling in floor or if a passenger uses it. It will determine that the driver touched the phone and is distracted. I contacted USAA and proposed this issue and their work around was have someone else use their phone instead of the drivers. I explained various scenarios such as the driver phone is GPS or music and the passenger touches the phone to adjust said items, while the driver is focusing on the road…still point deductions. I also tried explaining that I was getting deductions even though I, the driver was not touching my phone and they said once again to have my passenger use my phone and to leave mine alone. Overall, I don’t know if it’s a great app yet or not. I do know that other drivers affect my score such as if something happens and I have to hit my brakes..deduction. You could honestly be the safest driver ever and still get deductions which is wild to me. Anyways give it a try but play the long game. They say the discount applies to your next premium so prepare for a possible discount maybe for months away.

I’m not rating this 5 stars because there is a drawback to using this. It does provide a good discount for me with the exception of one issue. Let me explain. USAA, you should really consider adding another option rather than just I was the driver, I was the passenger, and this was not a drive. You should add something to be able to differentiate when your phone was used by someone else in the vehicle. My children use my phone all the time in the vehicle so I don’t have to answer my phone or text while driving. The only options I am able to use right now to avoid lowering my score also don’t help my score any. There should be some way to do this without it affecting my score while also being able to take care of things I need taken care of while driving (I.e. my children with my phone). I tell them things like make a note of this or text your dad this or something like that. I shouldn’t have to have my score reflect things like this or not have the drive count because of little things like above mentioned scenario.

Update: App updates sepárate hands free calling from phone usage. But it still requires constant attention marking whether you were passenger or driver. I do get good laughs out of rides where it says I have 80% phone use because I was the passenger and started Waze after the ride started. This is still not a install it and forget it app. App randomly marks whether I’m the passenger or driver whether there is one or both drivers on policy in car. My self-driving car uses the Bluetooth on the phone to pull addresses to GPS (all via voice commands), which gets dinged as a hands free call. If I answer a call hands free as a passenger, I get dinged. Counts random activities that aren’t driving like skiing and riding bike as driving. Can’t tell if you’re in your car on the road or doing laps at the race track in a track car. Doesn’t matter what car you’re in or who is driving, the app will blame you for bad driving. Basically, the app is too basic for its intended purpose. We used to have the little trackers from USAA in the actual car and that at least tracked the car and not the passenger, riding a bike, or being in someone else’s car. It gets three stars because using the app gets you a 10% minimum discount. Don’t expect more.

I downloaded this app because my insurance was raising $30 a month due to what they said was changes based off other insurance companies…now while I’ve like you guys for a while that seems a little ridiculous to me. I’m a safe driver, no accidents. So I decided to try this app out. While it has helped to lower my monthly I find it a little annoying. When I’m the passenger and on my phone constantly in that trip it still can’t tell I’m not driving. I’m having to continually update it even when I’ve changed settings and told it on the first part I’m the passenger. What I’d like to see fixed is the harsh breaking. I don’t think it’s fair to be dinged when I live in an area with horrible drivers and have to break to avoid being hit or hitting an idiot who doesn’t stop when they are supposed too (sadly this is often in Portland…). I understand the purpose is to be off our phones. But my job does require I use my hands free calling in my car at times and I again don’t like that I get dinged for that when I can’t just ignore the call always. I drive a lot for a living. I’m highly now considering just deleting this app and switching insurance companies all together. The concept of this app is good. The execution needs some modification.

This is a very frustrating app. I drive very safely in my Tesla, so safely that I recently scored 99 on teslas insurance rating system (I had to “qualify” to be allowed access to FSD beta). On this app, I’ve gotten a couple of hard braking hits, all at the same stop light that seems to have a 30mph yellow delay on a 45 mph highway. The yellow is ALWAYS too short to make it through at 45, and too quick to slowly stop. In fact, the local cops sit and wait for cars to run the light on the quick yellow. The choice is to stop quickly or run the light. The app seems to prefer that I run the red. Apparently that’s safer. When I’ve driven extended periods with no hits at all, my score drops. 100 to 87 to 82 to 64 in one week driving around town. No hits. My wife’s score stayed at 100 while I drove her around. As soon as she started driving around town with no hits, her score began to drop. So it appears the best way to keep your score up is to not drive at all. Safer that way. USAA should allow user feedback and allow users to explain hits, like the quick yellow lights. It should also offer a fuller explanation why the score drops simply from driving with no hits. Frankly, I’m very disappointed with this app. It feels as if USAA is simply teasing us with a fictitious discount to allow them to track us and mine our data.

This program has made both my wife and I much better drivers that are alert to situations that might become a harsh braking incident. We watch for situations that may cause sudden braking and apply our brakes earlier to prevent the incident. The one problem that we encounter is avoiding phone use when someone calls us and the built in phone answering system answers the call before we can hit the cancel button. If we don’t answer the system does and plays the caller’s voicemail message as it records the message. The Safe Driver program counts that none answer as a call. The other difficult situation is when you have been trying to reach someone like a doctor, nurse, or a family member and they finally return your call. Even if you pull over as fast as you can safely and take the call and turn off the car the system will record it as phone violation. However even with these situations the benefits of the program far outweigh any problem situations. The substantial discount you receive and the improvements in your skills make the program a valuable asset.

Horribly frustrating. You want to pull over to the side of the road, turn off your vehicle, in order to make a phone call? Too bad, you just got dinged for using your phone while driving. GIVE US THE ABILITY TO DISPUTE TRIPS, NOT JUST THE OPTION TO CHANGE IF YOU’RE THE DRIVER OR PASSENGER. Let us DISPUTE that “hand-held driving” mark we got. The “harsh breaking” “sensor” is probably the worse, though. I had a car the other day pull out in front of me so I had to slam the brakes. I’m talking tires screeching stop. Understandable, right? Well, it didn’t even notice that at all. I had zero “harsh breaks” during that trip. The VERY NEXT TIME I DROVE I was on an incline and came to a normal light stop. As soon as I started rolling backwards just slightly, I hit the breaks to stop from hitting the car behind me. It dinged me with “HaRsH bReAkInG.” I guess SOME discount is better than nothing, but don’t advertise that you can get a higher discount rate if you’re going to ding drivers for every sneeze to reduce the amount. The system you are using isn’t working correctly. Sure, no hands on phone usage is great, but everything else is worthless. Just advertise as an anti-hands-on App and give people 10% off for that. Even this isn’t perfect and provides many false positives. But at least that gives realistic expectations.

The app is not good at keeping track of the driver from one six month period to the next one It would nice to know how much driving one must do to get a discount. The app is not very good It should let know how many drivers are in the home. When someone like myself who doesn’t drive a whole lots should be taken into account Let the driver know when the discount . Start and stop period and when the vehicle is at stop and the phone is being hooked up to charge and not being counted again the driver. The sudden stop violations I have gotten penalized for someone changing lanes to make a turn that you can’t help with slam on your brakes. Also, the person passed if there is only one driver it should assume that person is the driver and not having to go through the information and make changes. driving history using auto pilot should come in to play also about things that are being penalized in the last two or three driving periods there was none of these violations, so the first 1 or 2 should not be counted against the driver. How much driving does it take before you get a discount that would be helpful also, I think I’ve mentioned that before because that really bothers me when I don’t know how much driving I need to do or what every!

I have several griefs with this app & the way USAA’s process works with it. When you first start the program you automatically get 10% off for participation. This is great & at least provides a minimum discount at first & should be at least that at all times. In reality After your initial enrollment 6 month premium is over however you can get anywhere from 0%-30%. That’s ridiculous how can you get a 0% discount!? there should be a minimum participation discount. Furthermore, the app literally penalizes following the law cause it counts hands free calling against you. That’s literally one of the biggest complaints amongst all reviews. Hard braking is finicky, I live in Atlanta & there’s constant stop & go traffic & it’s counted breaks that really weren’t harsh at all. There also needs to be more transparency to the scoring system and how what scores relate to what discount %. Cause in my mind if the lowest score you can get is 0/100 on the app than even someone above 50% should at least be able to get 5-10% discount on their insurance. Instead I’ve heard of other military families in the 70 range getting only 8% off I myself only received 2% in the high 60 range. It’s ridiculous especially when you get charged an arm and a leg for insurance in the first place.

Update: April 2024, still no ability to enable “motion & fitness” for the app, which is required for it to work and deductions for safe driving to be made. How are we getting penalized for poor app development and the developers not keeping up with iOS updates? Poor management of the app. If USAA doesn’t want to utilize the app, they should just have it removed. Update: 06 Aug 2023 There STILL isn’t an option to enable “motion & fitness” for this app, which prohibits the actual use of the app. So I’ll be losing my “safe driver” discount because the app wasn’t developed properly. Awesome. If there isn’t the functionality to utilize the app, either remove that functionality requirement (motion & fitness), or don’t punish the users for lack of proper app development. 17 April 2023: Update, it’s not been almost 5month without being able to use this app due to the developers not making sure the features they need to function are even an option in the settings. Poor rollout without resolution. This app worked great, until it required access to “motion & fitness” data, which isn’t an option in the settings anywhere for the Safe Pilot app. Jan 2023: So I’ve been stuck for 2mo without being able to view/review my data, because it won’t let me past the “settings update” screen.

Both me and my husband have been using this app for the past few months and have found it to be highly inaccurate. It it registers harsh breaking when there was none on the trip and records trips when my husband is driving as if I am the driver. I sometimes use the navigation feature on my phone if I am driving somewhere I am not familiar with and set this up before I even start the car, yet it dings me for phone handling when I have not touched the phone at all while I am driving. When we signed up for USAA, we agreed to use this app because we are great drivers with no accidents or tickets on our driving record, yet this app seems to indicate that we are terrible drivers. This app does not function as stated and should be fixed. It seems as if USAA has intentionally made this app super sensitive so they are not obligated to give their customers a discount on their insurance. Furthermore, they are gathering intel on your driving habits, which makes me wonder what they are doing with this valuable information. Frankly, I think this is a scam. Not worth the hassle.

This app is a great idea. I have worked hard to comply with the guidelines to ensure a safer driving experience. HOWEVER, it definitely needs tweaking to make it effective and usable for more drivers. People, including me, buy safety conveniences on their vehicles to have a safer driving experience. ( Hands free no phone touch calling.) The app penalizes you for using. This should be reconsidered in the programming. I have on a number of occasions, pulled into a parking lot, parked and then picked up my phone to find an address or make a call. The app almost always penalizes me thus making my effort to stop and be safe as wasted time. Clean this feature up. There are several places on my routine drive that are fairly steeply down hill to a turn. Sometimes, and not near always, the app will penalize for harsh braking. This may need tweaking. My truck has the systems where it protects against getting too close to an object front and back. Sometimes, the sensors designed to protect are inadvertently tripped by a steep (but not dangerous) grade, a curb or even a tall weed. It applies the brakes immediately and triggers the app to harsh breaking. Again, a safety feature causes a penalization. This could be harder to fix.

I’ve been a USAA policy holder for over 30 years, and this app might be the final straw that causes me to look elsewhere. Others have noted the app’s shortcoming before, i.e., recording harsh braking and hands free phone usage as infractions, while somehow allowing fast acceleration, speeding, and erratic driving as AOK. The AARP app appears to be by the same developer but considers these aspects into the driving score. I don’t know if USAA is using an older beta version or what. I have now been using the USAA-branded version for about two weeks, and it still tells me I haven’t driven enough to project my discount. I had a score of 100 until yesterday, when someone ran a red light in front of me and I needed to brake suddenly. No biggie…no one behind me and no risk of an accident. However, my score dropped to 90. Then today, I drive to lunch with NO infractions at all and my score dropped to 70?!? WTH USAA…are you somehow guessing that my burrito will give me a heart attack and I’ll wreck on the way home? That wasn’t part of the deal. At the end of the day, I’m not sure this app’s frustrations will be worth whatever discount they offer. I’m tired of being run over by speeding SUVs with drivers chatting away on their phones and being told I’M the bad driver.

The concept and idea behind this app is awesome, however! It does a crappy job at distinguishing if you are driving or a passenger. So if you use your phone as a passenger 9/10, you’ll get dinged for it. I get the point is to possibly earn a sweet discount on our insurance and that in the end your score doesn't impact your insurance rate/policy, but when you follow all the rules and still get dinged for doing things right, what’s the point? Also, getting dinged for hands free calling is lame. My car automatically connects to my speakers so I can take a call without ever taking my eyes off the road. I find that less dangerous than having a conversation with a person who’s IN your car where your more likely to take your eyes off the road and look at who your talking to. (Kids are a great example of this!) Why get penalized for utilizing tools that help you be a safe driver? I wish there was a way to input feedback about your drive. For a competitive person like myself this app is more frustrating to use than it’s worth. On top of that, your score gets averaged between all the drivers using the app in your home. Sooo … yeah. At this rate we’ll barely earn any kind of discount with how this app operates.

Overall, rewarding good drivers with discounts and incentives is a fantastic idea and I applaud USAA for trying to incorporate this. First, not always accurate in deciphering whether I am driving or not. Pretty good for the most part. However, when you are a passenger and get dinged for being on your phone there is no way to correct this. My biggest gripe with this app and why I gave it two stars is due to how much it counts against your score for Hands free calling. I understand talking on the phone is seen as distracting, but hands free should not be that big of a ding to someone’s score. Honestly, hands free should be rewarded. I don’t touch my phone. I use a button on my steering wheel or answer using my voice. The amount of time on hands free should be tracked and if a person uses hands free over a certain percent of driving time over days or weeks then the score should be affected. Not for one off calls to tell my wife I’m on the way home, etc. If the goal is to not allow people to get a discount for being overall good drivers with the exception of using hands free then that goal has been met. I would hope it is to reward overall good drivers though and I feel that goal has been missed.

Generally the app is a good idea. But the app doesn’t tell you what exactly is phone handling. I’ve set my maps and music while parked in a parking lot before driving at all, and yet it dings me randomly throughout the drive as phone handling. The phone call measure is strange to me. If I answer via the steering wheel, I sometimes get dinged or sometimes not. Same goes for me asking Siri to call XYZ — sometimes dinged, sometimes not. It seems unreasonable to think people will never call anyone during any drive, so I’m quite confused what that feature helps. Plus answering via Siri or steering wheel is just as much of a minor multi-task as skipping a song or turning up the volume via Siri or steering wheel. The harsh breaking is probably more useful and accurate. But sometimes you have to brake because someone cuts in front of you in traffic or a fast light that goes from yellow to red quickly. Those situations are not safer to brake, but you’re incentivized to avoid harsh braking. Also, I wish there was an option besides just driver or passenger. Sometimes a passenger texts someone for you or calls someone for you, and there’s no way to select something like: someone else used my phone.

This app is great in theory, the reason for my review is that it’s not a very forgiving app the fact that have hands free in your and you or your wife are in the same car and you answer it it’s considered a infraction ?? In Florida you must use hands free! Also, when you have kids and they you need to answer the phone you receive another infraction?? Stupid!! Also, during the trial period. We were driving to go home and the traffic light turned yellow with no one behind nor in front of me, rather than run it I opted to stop and I received a infraction for using my break a little harder to stop that was the infraction? Stupid! I don’t run yellow traffic lights ever, and I don’t speed I do the speed limit and use my directional light for turns always. I’m a very, very safe driver. The app is great however, it’s a Tattle Tail and it makes me very nervous as if big brother is watching my every move! I’m going to try it for a month or so and if I’m continuing to get these petty infractions for the sake of driving safe I’ll discontinue using it. I take great pride in my driving skills and my driving record of 63 years. I’m glad to be a part of the USAA family. I was with GEICO for over fifty two years. Thank you Lyle Lindberg

This program is very poor. It has said that I have handled my phone when I have not. It has said it is harsh breaking when your harsh breaking saves a wreck fir yourself and others due to another driver doing unsafe maneuvers. I use Dexcom that tells me when I have an urgent low blood sugar. To read what it is telling me I have to stop my car put it in park before I pick the phone up. If the phone slides even a little you get dinged for using it. I’ve been told to set it up in my car better or and others things like you need a holder for it. I’m not going to participate after all it causes me a great deal of anxiety. Also when they say the learning two weeks is just that and you start over at 100. That isn’t true. Mine started at 80. Oh and don’t listen to a book unless you have Apple Play cause that counts as phone usage also. In short their program has lots of flaws that takes us from being good drivers with a discount to basically crappy drivers all based on the flawed program. Am considering going to different insurance but they are starting to do this also. The only way to have a good driving record is drive in an empty parking lot and not drive often.

No consistency in detecting handheld vs. speaking via the vehicle auto speaker. It appears the app counts even the very few hands free speaking as handheld. The app also automatically deactivates itself from the app detection process. Then when I return home it tells me I failed to have the app in tracking mode or whatever it may say at the time and when I search the status in my phone - the app is actually on correct settings or it changes settings automatically. I then have to re-set or republicans the app. It appears this app is very sensitive to the phone moving about as one drives - when the phone is sitting in the passenger seat. This needs addressing by USAA If they’re interested in gaining positive consumer feedback. Unless, this is how they intended to have it so they can justify increasing rates? Not sure but it appears this is the case. Also, they did not warn of the constant background battery usage wears down one’s phone’s battery life which can be very costly if one has to them replace the battery or the phone. There seams to be always a catch with these companies not being completely transparent with something that is mostly beneficial to them rather than the consumer. Not good.

I have had this app and enrolled in the program for several weeks now and I am about to delete it and disenroll myself! Getting dinged for “hands free”, which is the safer alternative to handling your phone, is total garbage! My biggest complaint is the “hair trigger sensitivity” for what the determine to be “harsh braking”!! Case in point, this morning, I left my house and approached a stoplight with no cars in front of me as I gradually came to a stop. I turned, then drove a short distance to get on the interstate to head to work, driving carefully the whole time. After getting to work and parking, I glanced at the app and was annoyed to find I had been dinged for “harsh braking” when I stopped at the light I mentioned!!! What the heck?? If I had slammed on my brakes, sure, ding me, but not a gradual stop! This happens too much due to being overly sensitive!! The example pic in the App Store shows someone with 12 phone handling, 26 hand held calls, 13 hands free, and 21 harsh braking, with a score of 92??? I have 8 phone handling, 0 hand held calls, 7 hands free, and 37 harsh braking, and my score is a pathetic 66??? My discount has hovered around 2 or 3%!! This app should only track “phone handling” and “hand held calls”. App needs serious overhaul!! Not worth all this trouble!!

I typically don’t take the time to write reviews but for this app I felt inclined to do so so maybe the creators of it could make some changes. First off, I find it absurd that you get a trip infraction for using hands-free calling. You can’t answer a single call via bluetooth even if it’s an emergency without receiving a trip infraction. The entire point of hands-free calling is so that you’re not messing with your phone while driving. They fact they count this as an infraction is completely ridiculous. Second, the app can not tell if you’re driving or sitting passenger in a vehicle. You can overwrite an infraction by telling the app you’re the passenger but you have to remember to do so and it still seems to count harsh braking towards your overall score even if you’re not the one driving. Harsh braking is another infraction that should be removed because you shouldn’t be penalized for braking hard to prevent hitting someone in front of you. You can’t control how other people drive so taking precautions to drive safely shouldn’t count negatively toward your overall score. The only good thing about the app is that it does give you a discount from your insurance and I’m less likely to pick up my phone while driving.

Points were subtracted too often for touching my dashboard screen to IGNORE an incoming call or text, or promptly deal with and then END an incoming call - also on the touchscreen. In a few instances my SPOUSE operated the touchscreen for calls with no intervention at all by me while I was driving. These actions are not indicative of unsafe driving. I could have spent multiple minutes changing radio stations, on the same center dashboard device, looking for the station identifier while searching, with great distraction and yet no “penalty” whatsoever for distracted driving. You haven’t thought through the nuances of todays phone technology coupled with my record of responsible driving - it is far less complicated to communicate promptly with one touch than to adjust the radio, initiate and follow mapping directions, operate the heating and air conditioning controls, or adjust mirrors and seats. I am not impressed with your prioritizations as you make these arbitrary determinations without a full assessment of the facts.

Oh now this isn’t showing what I’m typing. Your system is beyond flawed. I pulled over to answer my daughter’s call and ended the call before pulling off. I recie phone handling even when I pull over and answer or make the call. I insure that I hang up before pulling off. I called in the beginning of this policy to speak to some o Corning this exact matter and was transferred from one person to another. In addition, I make sure that my phone is secure and I receive phone handling often which is so frustrating because I make every effort to wait till I can pull over and then answer usually the person hangs up before I can get to an area I can answer. I call back end the call pull off and then get dinged with phone handling. 37% is rediculous. I was on the phone for approximately 10 minutes. Hung up and pulled off. Literally my mother was my witness and I called my daughter back and again ended the call. Flawed. I requested information on removing the app and how much more would my insurance be because I don’t feel that it is necessary to get dinged for something I didn’t do which will lead to me always not receiving the total discount. Then why bother. I understand you want to offer it but it’s not accurate.

The concept of this app is great, but the execution needs help! No account is taken of speed (although it says it is). It misses entire trips, dings you for harsh braking even if crawling along in traffic and someone pulls in front of you. The app makes you wonder if you had let the other car hit you would it be ok since you didn’t slam on the brakes to avoid an accident. I was sitting at a dead stop at a light and turned off maps since I knew how from that point how to get home. I got marked for phone handling. I never touched my phone. I turned it off from the dashboard screen. I called to dispute and was told I indeed was handling my phone since I touched the vehicle’s dashboard. Ok. So why don’t I get dinged for changing the temp in the cab, or changing the radio station? It totally misses voice texts. I couldn’t answer my phone if it rang, but I could carry on lengthy text fests and never get flagged. The last straw was rolling up to a red light and barely braking because the road was empty and I could see the light far in the distance. I got dinged. All told, I had 4 infractions (two of which were in the learning period) over two months and my score was in the low seventies. This is so not worth the stress or the discount.

I got this app being told by a USAA Agent that it would only be 21 days long. The "learning period" was great, and it seemed to be working well. I soon learned that the learning period didn't even count towards my score, and was never told how many days it would be. I've called and tried many different likes at the USAA department, and I can never contact someone who knows a thing about this app or how to fix something. Furthermore, I constantly find my score going down when I have 0 harsh braking, 0 phone use, 0 hand held calling, and 0 non hand help calling. Not sure why my score has gone down to 88 when I am driving really well. I would love to be able to contact someone who knows something about this app. Also noticed that when i'm the passenger, and put it in the app, it lowers my score by 1 each time??? Very frustrated. I also see some parts of the app saying I could get up to 30% off my premium but on the website it says only 10%. If someone could please contact me or give me an email or a phone number to contact I would appreciate it so much.

This application has many benefits once one accepts being monitored everywhere one’s phone goes. This means no more clandestine trips to bet on the horses!! (Kidding, but extrapolate!) Benefits include being more mindful of driving safely, using a cradle for the phone, (I plan to), having a record of trips with distances and times, being calmer in the midst of All the @/&”;:?!? ing NASCAR wannabes, providing safe distances for stopping ( although the person tailgating me is still a problem), having a good reason to ignore advertising calls and irritating relatives, and more, especially the potential discount. Drawbacks for older persons like me are led by the invasion of privacy this application implies. But, then it’s a rare time when we are off camera or possibly posted to one social media platform or another. Since I never use any social media, ( how do people have time for all that posting and personal sharing?….go walk with a friend without a phone!!), this monitoring may be more pronounced to me.

A couple of suggestions - 1) app support should open an active page; 2) May we have an explanation added to our trip data? So far (not long at all) I had accumulated a lot of zeros. Loving that, and the bragging rights that go with it. But - today I was driving, my sound was off on my phone, my Beloved Husband was holding my purse when the vibrations began - and continued. Since we have family, friends, and doctors, he opened my purse and phone to check. Nothing serious in texts, but there were several informative ones. He put it away, gave me a brief overview, we thought nothing of it - until we got home and I had a USAA notification of phone handling. I’f I had an option to say: loaned phone, or any other explanation that it wasn’t me, it would be helpful. I’d prefer that to: “Don’t ever touch my phone in the car again!!!” An overall look at my driving record will show over time, but I dislike that “1” hanging out there.

Update below Despite the ads for USAA on TV, this app does not track your speed or how much you use your signal lights. Ridiculously, it treats hands-free telephone use *as a distraction, not as a safety feature!* Futhrrmore, harsh braking does not take braking for someone cutting in front of you or a child or animal running into the street. Finally, at the end of my 30 days, it takes led me to see my discount. This is what I saw, after driving several hundred miles: “We don’t have enough data to calculate your projected discount…”. After 38 years with USAA, I’m considering the Navy Federal Credit Union. Update: After getting all these stupid comments about “Good job!” for no mistakes after almost every drive but seeing my score and discount *get lower* I deleted the app this afternoon. There must be hidden criteria they use to avoid having give you a discount. The app seems to start one’s driving score high then lowers it little by little. It’s as if they’re trying to find ways to gig us drivers. USAA must have had a sea change for the worse in management. I found out the Navy Federal Credit Union uses Geico. I’m looking around and I recommend everyone insured by USAA do the same.

It’s hard for me to discredit something that is supposed to benefit me. But sadly, when it comes to braking, I typically do not have a choice. I can drive as safely as possible (which means the speed limit or with traffic. Not under) but still have only so much control about defensive measures. If someone decides they’re just going to pull out from a turn lane without the right of way, I can only do so much. And if someone decides to suddenly slam on their brakes with no turn signal, I can only do so much. I can try and keep my distance and slow down to be safe. But I am going to great other unsafe situations in doing so. If this app could adapt to the fact that braking is a defensive measure (especially in specific towns with drivers who make their own rules) it would have five stars. But that is not the case. All in all I’m happy to have a discount but getting docked almost 30% while trying to avoid those who do not care about the people in vehicles around them. It’s just frustrating. Would only recommend if you happen to live in suburbia.

I received an email stating that there had been no activity for two weeks. So, I am going to lose a discount on my insurance because I don’t drive. Does that make any sense? I am less likely to be an accident. I am less likely to file a claim that would raise my insurance rates. There is a less likelihood of my vehicle being damaged. As a senior citizen, USAA doesn’t give discounts for a person of my age, but instead every six months my insurance rates continually go up. It’s looking like being insured with USAA is a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Here’s a thought for you upgrade your auto pilot app program so that it actually reflects the time that I drive and stop raising my insurance rates or I will go with another carrier. You have done this to me in the past and I am tired of this continual raising rates and you give no consideration for people who are retired and live on retirement pay. I searched my country for 39 years my and this is a company that was started by the military, and it is so sad that you would rip off the military, Military spouses and retirees.

First and foremost no matter what kind of driver you are you will get the bare minimum of 10% off. That doesn’t change. I was not aware till I called USAA. I’ve been thinking of using this for a while to save some money and saw all the reviews ranging from poor to atrocious. After using the app for a while now, don’t take too much stock in the scathing remarks. This app does exactly what’s it’s supposed to. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars because they definitely can fine tune some things, such as, I wish they had a feature to designate yourself as a passenger, what if I’m handling my wife’s phone when she’s driving, etc. However to that point it does well identifying between my wife and I so far. So maybe some people need to just accept the 10% or improve your driving skills. Lastly, it does appear based off earlier reviews USAA made some adjustments to improve functionality. Hope this helps in your decision. For me it was an easy 10% off. Anything more is a cherry on top.

This has had me harsh breaking more times than I can remember. I do sometimes harsh break, but I’m not going to run into someone or run over a child or animal just because I don’t want a hit on my SafePilot. But the real one that gets me, is recording me handling/using my phone when I’m not even on it! I pull over to use my phone occasionally, but what really made me mad was when I phoned a friend from my driveway to tell her I’m on my way, hung up, and then texted here that I was there in her driveway and it recorded me on the phone the whole 20 miles I was driving as using my phone! It’s done that several times and yes I hung up, how could I have texted if it wasn’t disconnected from the previous call? And if you receive a robocall it records that even if you don’t answer it. ( which I seldom do). But now I’m in danger of losing my discount if I don’t reconnect. Wish there was a complaint department for this app.

I got rid of USAA’s version of Big Brother. You DON’T get to track my every move anymore cretins. VERY dissatisfied with this worthless app. I’m a 30 plus year member and based on this poor experience decided to move multiple polices - including homeowners and umbrella liability — to Amica. This app drained my phone rapidly even while not driving so that I ran out of power multiple times. Gave me infractions for searching an address while I was in the automatic car wash. Who was I gonna hit while being pulled by a chain?? Gave me infractions for listening to a audiobook app. You can’t ever use the hands free calling option to answer a call. Big Brother is ALWAYS watching you. Think they aren’t monitoring where you are at ALL times? Think they won’t use the tons of data collected on you to under write your homeowners and life policies too? You’re a fool if you think they won’t. I don’t want them giving me “infractions” for everything I do. Totally disgusted with what this company has done. Used to be military officers ONLY. Now they allow any E1 that bolo’s out of basic to join. I’ve fired USAA and now belong to Amica. Your Big Brother Bravo Sierra app is costing you big time.

Well I think that it’s great to get 10% off your premium for getting the app, this app requires a lot of fine-tuning. It’s true that the app will ding you for using hands-free phone use (something your car was designed to do) and also harsh breaking (whether you’re trying to stop from rear ending, hitting a dog or another wayward human being), the problem is that the app doesn’t clarify the fact that it will ding you if you’re using your phone camera or speech capabilities while your car is parked and the motor running. If you’re skiing and stop suddenly, you’re dinged. The app knows where you are at all times (Big Brother?) and can and will be used to provide metrics to USAA and other 3rd parties especially if you’re in an accident. This app is designed to avoid giving you the 30% at all costs. One of the things it did was to reduce my score even though there were no infractions. I tried for 2 1/2 hours to get clarification about these issues from USAA or any of their support people without avail. So, word to the wise: if you have this app turn your ignition off before utilizing your phone capabilities. Better yet, delete.

Listen, I really want to like and appreciate this app, but it’s incredibly frustrating when I commonly drive with passengers and I often want to allow them to pick songs and read/respond to texts for me while I’m driving and it counts it against me. I just wish there was a way for me to mark certain hits for phone usage as passenger uses, because it very strongly effects my score. The app just recommends not allowing passengers to use your phone but that to me is pretty unreasonable to ask when it’s the responsible thing to have the passenger be the one changing and adjusting music and responding to texts. It also counts hands-free calls against you which tell me the difference between a hands free call and talking to you passenger. Other than that, it allows you to pick if you were the driver or not and it’s generally a very user friendly app that works pretty well. I just wish they’d make that one change to make the app worth having, because the way it sits, I doubt I’ll get much for discounts.

I have been using this tedious and poorly designed app for over a year now, and so desperately waiting for the developers to fix it based on the massive complaints here. This is my third review over this period. Yes, It has made me follow less closely behind other cars, since to avoid losing points for the app’s calculation of “harsh braking”, I now stay about 75 feet behind the next car even in slow city areas. Also to avoid the harsh braking I have actually RUN RED LIGHTS because the app is conditioning me NOT to use my brakes—hoping that will give the actuaries a heart attack reading this—lots of other reviews also say that is the unintended consequence. My driving log recently reset, and I got a decent discount on my upcoming renewal, which is the only saving Grace for this app and is the only thing keeping me from leaving USAA after over 42 years because their car insurance rates are so high. At the moment, about a month after the score reset, I only have ONE point for Phone Handling, ONE after dozens of drives recorded and my score is only an 85 and the projected discount is only 6%. Makes a guy want to give up (on USAA)!

I have just started using this app and it has been working ok so far except for two flaws I have noticed. I live in an area were people change lanes without notice and without checking to see if someone is in the lane they want to move into, of course when this happens you have to hit the brakes hard or in modern cars it will do it for you. When the happens you get penalized for preventing an accident or would USAA rather we do not prevent accidents when another driver does something dumb and unsafe completely out our control. I think there should be someway to make it clear as to why these things happen. The other problem I have found is completely ridiculous, my phone rang while I was driving, of course a ringing phone is a distraction and of course purposely annoying, the problem comes with the fact that when I pressed the button on my steering wheel it silence/ignore the call I got penalized for a hand free call, for pressing a button on the steering wheel

I have experienced several misrepresentations in this application. First and most important is phone handling when I’m physically not driving. Example: I drive to a store, park my truck and turn it off, I remove phone from mount and it says I’m handling phone while I’m driving. I believe it could be the interface “Car Play” app that connects my Apple iPhone to my truck, that’s the only thing I can assume. Also the hard breaking is unrealistic, there are times when fast braking is necessary to avoid a mishap, example: I was driving in a residential neighborhood at 25 mph, a child darted out from between parked cars and I had to hard break to avoid hitting the child, no skidding no loss of control of truck, just heavy breaking to avoid a bad situation, my truck is equipped with antilock brakes and I am a very competent driver. The specs on the app needs to be updated to relate to the vechile year, make and model, otherwise it just general and non specific and doesn’t actually reflect the overall performance of a driver

I had a conversation yesterday with customer web support about problems with the app. Among which were unrecorded trips and hands free calling infraction. The web rep recommended that I delete and reinstall the app, which I did. Today, I have experienced the same problems. The hands free driving occurred as follows. I was driving home when I received a phone call from my daughter which was displayed on my enfotainment screen via Bluetooth. I did not answer it. When I reached a safe place I pulled off on another street and parked in a safe place. I shut my car off and exited the car to return the call. When call was completed I turned off my phone, got back in my car and completed my trip. As recorded in app, the remainder of the trip was recorded as an infraction for hands free calling. You have problems with this app which need to be corrected or do away with the app. It is a good concept, but it is mistakenly recording infractions which reflect badly on my driving record and will unfairly reduce my premium discount. Also, the last trip I made today was not recorded, a trip from the mall back home. Thanks for consideration of my complaints.

I echo what many of the other reviewers have said. You are unfairly dinged for false infractions or infractions that shouldn’t be happening. i.e. Pulling over to send a text/make a call, phone falls off the phone mount and thinks you did harsh braking, you’re using GPS when a notification comes in and you swipe up to get rid of it so you CAN be safe and know where you’re going, but instead it thinks you were handling your phone. These false infractions add up over time and end up giving you a poor score. Also, the number of these false infractions is minimal compared to the number of trips taken, so the math also doesn’t add up. Like one other reviewer commented, the algorithm for how they ding you is a mystery. Really, the only thing good about this app is that it has made me a better driver, which is the point. I’m not minimizing that fact and I’m thankful for the motivation to do so. But with the intent of the app being to reward you with insurance discounts for being a safe driver and minimize distractions, the app fails miserably. Great concept with poor execution!!!

I’ve been using this app for over a year and it has indeed helped me to limit my phone use while driving. HOWEVER, it annoys me when I get dinged for events that are beyond my control, particularly the “harsh braking” deduction. Am I supposed to hit the car that cut me off? Or the bicyclist who starts to veer into my lane? Or the pediatrician? It also registers as “harsh breaking” if my phone happens to fall onto the floor. Not right! It’s nice to have the option to toggle between “I was the driver,” and “I was a passenger,” if the drive registers on the wrong phone. I would like to propose that a third option be added: “The passenger was using the driver’s phone.” There are times when as a driver, I am using one of the map apps and I need to check on the directions or make a change. The safe action would be for my passenger to take my phone and do so. Currently, the driver gets a deduction when, in fact, this is the safest option to take. There needs to be an option to allow the passenger to use the driver’s phone in an event such as this.

I have been using the Sage Driving App for over a year. There is a significant benefit to this type of monitoring int THEORY. However, there are a couple of major flaws in the system. I am an alert, cautious and excellent driver. My car is over 24 years old, manufactured before hands free phone connection, ABS brakes. My radio hasn’t worked in years, so I listen to audible books on my earpiece when I drive. This app has noted my earpiece as “cell phone” talking and I get dinged for harsh braking often. You can’t brake “harsh”, the old car simply doesn’t respond like that. I do believe this is a false manipulation of data to reduce my discount. It only seems to happen when I’ve regularly gone weeks without any infraction. Out of the blue, without any road incident, the harsh braking will appear. If you’re going to create and base $$ on information gathered from a cell phone application - then you need to be receptive to areas that are reporting incorrectly and modify the data. USAA needs to learn and adapt this tool accordingly. Id like to believe that the reporting isn’t tainted, but my evidence gathering supports something very deceptive going on here!

Please do not take this the wrong way, any discount during these hard times is a bonus to any household. It is very difficult to understand your point system. I saw that for any infractions the point were deducted immediately, but for non-infraction driving the points were very hard to come by. My understanding is that you get dinged with an infraction when you use hands free calling and I get that, but what about hands-free calling while parked and the timing of it. I would like to have the app alert you that it is now monitoring your safe driving, so when you start to move you have the opportunity to hang up your call. That should hold true for getting stuck in traffic for a prolonged time. The app should determine that by learning the traffic/patterns colors that displayed under the maps app. Have to say one good thing about this app it has made me very conscience how I drive as I can see based on the score I earn. Thank your for giving your insureds this incentive to save more on their policy.

I am happy to receive a potential discount from USAA, and SafePilot has made me more aware of using my phone while driving. However, your standards penalize the customer unreasonably. I do not agree that a hands free phone call is in any way a driving hazard, any more than a conversation with a passenger would be. Additionally, USAA SafePilot seems to use a harsh algorithm when one rides as a passenger. On a 6 hour, out of state trip where my husband did all the driving, including many short trips to restaurants and stores, my score went down after I reported that my phone use was as a passenger. Do you not believe me? Why would you penalize a married couple for using their phones while the other drives? How is that unsafe or irresponsible? In our last out of state trip, I turned off my USAA SafePilot app, because I knew that I’d be penalized otherwise for being a passenger. I no longer check or interact with the app because as a very safe driver I believe that I can never achieve SafePilot’s illogical standards. Your app is unnecessarily restrictive. Thank you.