Hastings Direct app for iPhone and iPad

HASTINGS DIRECT

AT A GLANCE
• Access to your Hastings Direct account and documents on your phone
• Quick access to insurance contacts
• Analyse your driving without any impact on your insurance premium, now or in the future
• Full range of stats and telematics data
• Compare journeys and analyse your driving performance in a number of ways
• Doesn’t expire

WHAT IS IT?
The Hastings Direct app offers two new functions: direct access to manage your insurance account (if you’re already a Hastings Direct customer) and personal telematics (data on your driving).

MANAGE YOUR INSURANCE – Were developing an insurance portal to make it quicker and easier to amend or renew your policy and make claims. The portal already gives you digital access to all your insurance documentation and quick access to all our important phone numbers; and if you have ideas for how we can improve it, we’re all ears.

PERSONAL TELEMATICS – This part of the app allows you to record and analyse your driving, giving you real information on how you drive. It might highlight areas you could improve, or simply show how great you are already! Not sure about linking the app to your insurance policy? No problem. We won’t use any of your data (regardless of score) to adjust your insurance premium. What were interested in is finding out more about how people drive, to help us set our overall premiums – giving everyone a better deal.

HOW OUR TELEMATICS WORKS
If you opt to use the telematics section then well use your smartphone’s built-in functions, such as global positioning system (GPS), accelerometer and compass, to work out where you are and how you’re driving relative to the road you’re on. When you finish a journey and upload it to our server (which you can do via wi-fi or mobile data), we add in standard data about the environment, such as speed limits and then analyse all of this using our good driving algorithm. We then calculate scores based on speed, acceleration, braking and time of day, as well as an overall score. Finally, we present this data back to you in easy-to-understand graphs and maps.
Please note: telematics can be heavy on your battery, so you may want to charge your device before recording a journey.

SAFETY
Safety is our top priority when it comes to using our app so please make sure you use your device responsibly when travelling. We strongly recommend that when driving you:
• Secure your smartphone in a cradle
• Don’t touch or otherwise interact with your smartphone, even when at traffic lights or in a queue.
Please remember that it’s illegal to drive a vehicle or ride a motorcycle while using a hand-held mobile phone. It also dramatically increases your chances of being involved in an accident, so please use this app within the bounds of the law.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH ALL THIS DATA?
We want to provide the best car insurance at the best price. To do this we need to fully understand the risk involved in driving in the UK on a daily basis. We already have focus groups, research, test drivers, government statistics, masses of back data on crashes, accident blackspots and driver ability... but you can’t beat real data, from real people, in real situations. All data in the app is anonymised when we look at the scores or performance.
The only people who know your identity are the people dealing with your insurance policy.

Please note: Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life.