State Farm Drive Safe & Save Review: Is it Worth it?
Jan 2022 Update: Article has been revised to reflect updated savings and State Farm enhancements
As an early technology adopter and one that likes to maximize savings, it was only natural for me to try out the State Farm Drive Safe & Save program. In this article, I will provide a Drive Safe & Save Review.
As part of this review, I will provide details how it works, the actual discounts received and my opinion whether it is worth it.
This article has been updated throughout the last 2 years to reflect the latest savings.
What is Drive Safe & Save?
This is a discount program by State Farm (read Drive Safe and Save). Depending on how safe you drive, you get rewarded discounts off your auto insurance.
As described by my insurance agent, at a minimum you should receive 5% off for being part of this program. This is even if you end up being a poorly-rated driver.
On the upside, you have the possibility of receiving up to 30% discount based upon meeting their ideal criteria.
Are there any downsides with the program?
My biggest concern prior to enrolling was understanding if there was any potential downside such as my auto rates going higher.
The only scenario is if you previously designated yourself as a low mileage driver (under 7500 miles driven per year) and you exceed this number through the program. Thus, this would cause you to lose the low mileage discounts you had been receiving before.
After confirming this did not pertain to me, I enrolled into the program.
How do you set this up?
This was a very painless and easy setup experience. The primary steps were:
- Your State Farm insurance agent will send you a Bluetooth beacon that you put in your vehicle
- Using your smartphone, you download the Drive Safe & Save app from the Apple or Android store
- You will need a State Farm account to use the app and provide basic information
- Pair the Bluetooth beacon with your smartphone
- Record the odometer reading in your vehicle with the app. This requires taking a picture of the Odometer and listing the mileage reading within the app
Both my wife and I have separate vehicles. Thus, we had to repeat this process for each of us. I would estimate the overall setup process took us 15 minutes total.
Once this setup is complete, trip information is automatically collected as you drive.
The only ongoing effort is updating the odometer reading every 6 months and logging into the app to view your trip scores.
How the Ratings Work
After the setup is complete, here comes the fun part. Every trip you make is automatically captured on the app. By logging into the app, you will see the overall driving score and the last two weeks of data.
The best part of the rating system is that it shows you exactly where you get dinged to help you adjust your driving behavior for the future.
The trip screen provides details such as your acceleration, braking, corning, speeding and phone use.
As one of the recent changes, State Farm replaced their star ratings for just recording when dings or ‘events’ occurred. In the above trip, 2 events occurred for abrupt braking.
In the old rating system, this would have related to a 3 or 4 star rating for the trip, now it is just simply logged as 2 events.
Personally, I believe this is a positive change from a psychological standpoint. I loved getting the 5 stars trips, but seeing those 3 and 4 star trips were demoralizing.
What is a good score?
The scores are an average of all trips within the last 2 weeks which comprise of both drivers and all your vehicles as part of the program. As a result, it constantly fluctuates and you will see changes if you log into the app on a daily basis.
I have seen our scores range as nearly flawless (97) to bottomed out in the low 80’s for our driving behavior.
As I will talk about in the discounts section, we have been achieving great savings staying within this range.
Driving Behavior Changes
During the first few weeks of use, I looked at the app quite frequently. Like a true technologist, I was interested in seeing the data and how accurate the system was. In particular, what driving variables would make a perfect score.
Since I have a sporty car built for speed and power (Infiniti G37), my concern was that my “normal” driving would need to change. In reality, this has happened to some degree and probably better for the long-term.
From a positive aspect, I have become more patient turning onto busy streets. This means waiting for the proper gap instead of needing to ‘gun’ the engine to squeeze in between cars.
From a negative aspect, I wish the system had more tolerance on the acceleration aspect especially if you are driving under the speed limit and needing to zip by a car.
After about 3-4 months of being in the program, I developed a good feel for the scoring system knowing what it takes to achieve the perfect trip. As a result, all of my trips generally normally fall into 0 events or at most 1 or 2 events per trip.
Regarding my wife’s ratings, she has not embraced this program like I have nor focused on improving her driving behavior. As a result, her trips generally result in 1-3 events per trip.
Grading System Flaw
I have found one flaw in the grading system.
For our smart phones, they are configured to be active for both of our cars. The logic is that sometimes I will need to drive my wife’s car while she is not there and vice versa.
When my wife and I are together, we are not able to easily control which smart phone is homed to the beacon since its done automatically.
As a result, we have had multiple negative trips due to phone use.
In reality, I was the primary driver with no phone use while my wife was surfing using her phone as a passenger.
The workaround is to force one phone to be active by turning off the bluetooth. We found that to be burdensome especially needing to remember to turn bluetooth back on at a later date.
In the end, I believe the impact has not been significant as I’ll explain our actual discount savings.
Actual Discount Savings
Per the FAQ section, State Farm takes into consideration a combination of factors such as annual mileage, Drive Safe & Save Mobile tracking your basic driving characteristics and other factors such as time of day when driving. This makes sense as there will be less risk of getting into accidents during low traffic periods.
On State Farm’s website, a higher personalized discount relates to when you “Drive Less, Drive Better, Drive Smarter”.
Initial period
As promised by my insurance agent, both of us received 5% discount for the first few months.
This equated to be about $20 each for both our vehicles.
1st Cycle
My car hit the first 6-month cycle earlier than my wife’s car. I was elated to be rewarded with a $105 discount over this 6-month time period. This equated to the 30% max discount. Woohoo!
My wife’s car was stuck on $20 discount (5% off) for a few additional months until we entered into her 6-month cycle.
2nd Cycle
As we entered into the 2nd full cycle, more pleasant surprises. For my car, the discount went to even higher levels with a $125 for the next 6 months. This was way past the 30% max discount and my wife’s went to $79 (24% off) for her 6 month cycle.
3rd Cycle
After about 9 months into COVID, I have driven my car very infrequently. Like my bike in the garage, I have to remember to check the air in my tires before heading out.
Due to the driving inactivity, my discount levels continues to rise and I hit the all-time best of $141 for the next 6-month cycle.
For my wife’s car, we drive this daily and take it on longer trips during the weekends. Her discount has gone up from $79 to $101. Hopefully this upward trend continues!
4th Cycle
There was one significant update our latest cycle. I ended up selling my Infiniti G37 to prepare for a new car – Tesla (Heck yes!). The Tesla Y was a super nice birthday gift to myself. If you are curious why I bought the Tesla, read this article (5 Reasons why I bought a Tesla Y).
Due to the super heated used car market, I was happy to get my full asking price for the Infiniti as well as selling it in one day (read tips on How to get the most money for your used car).
Prior to selling the Infiniti, the discount level rose to $151.
As we moved solely to my wife’s MDX while I waited for the new Tesla, her rating was 87% and rose to $135 for the savings.
Additional COVID Credit
Due to COVID, both of our car usage dropped dramatically. Typically I would need to refuel around 1.5 weeks, now it is more like once a month.
As I looked into the details, State Farm added temporary Policy Credit for the Good Neighbor Relief Program (COVID-19). This has bumped my discount even higher than the 30% max.
Adding in the temporary COVID relief along with all the discounts, both of our cars hit a whopping 58% off for one of the most recent months.
Holistic View of the State Farm Discounts
In addition to the Drive Safe & Save program, we have discounts for multiple line (Home & Auto with State Farm), Multicar, Antitheft, Vehicle Safety, and Accident Free.
A recommended best practice is to get in touch with your insurance agent on a yearly basis to review your policies and ensure you are taking advantage of all the discounts.
As an example, life insurance coverage is something that should periodically be assessed. For those interested in this topic, please read the article Everything to know about Life Insurance.
Other things to Consider – Data Privacy
Before jumping feet first into the Drive Safe & Save program, you should know that you are giving a wealth of personal data to State Farm.
Be sure to read State Farm’s Privacy Policy if you have any concerns. This goes into detail about what customer information is collected, how they can use and share customer information, and other important information.
Personal Data Privacy Example
Over recent years, technology has made it easy to collect massive amounts of personal data. In turn, this has brought along ethical, legal and moral dilemmas how companies can use this personal data.
Consumer DNA testing is a good example. One of the DNA test’s benefit is that it provides what future health risks you are prone to so you can make appropriate changes to your lifestyle. Stated in a Fast Company article, life insurance companies could potentially use this data to deny coverage as a negative ramification.
Keeping a close eye on Drive Safe & Save
The Drive Safe & Save has good intentions of making drivers safer. Through the program, both the insurer (cover less costly accidents) and driver (get discounts back) should benefit. However like the DNA test example, there could be additional ways for the data to be used.
Imagine if this data was shared after accidents or even for offenses like speeding tickets? This could raise potential legal and ethical issues.
This is a big concern for me and I will stay vigilant how my personal data is being used for this program.
Final Opinion – is it worth it?
By sticking with the program past the initial 5% period, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd cycle have definitely been worth it.
Prior to COVID, I have achieved the max 30% discount for my car which would equate to over $200 saved per year for just one car.
COVID has turbo-charged the discounts as we have slowed down our driving. Our discount savings have approached nearly $500/yearly prorated, which equates to over 40%.
Unfortunately, COVID still continues with the latest variant resulting in my wife and I to continue working primarily from home. This in turn has allowed us to continue to drive sparingly.
When things get back to normal, I am expecting $300-400 discount off for the full year for both our cars resulting in a 25-30% overall discount.
This is definitely a major win and 2 thumbs up from me about the actual savings.
Summary
In this Drive Safe & Save review, here are the summary highlights:
- Easy and fast setup process
- App provides valuable data that helps you adjust your driving behavior over time
- Potential to save a lot of money
As long as the program stays fundamentally the same and personal data is handled appropriately, my final opinion is go for it!
About DadMBA: Through his schooling (he does have a MBA) & more importantly being a Dad, he has provided practical advice to family & friends on finances & other life topics. He loves helping others thus the creation of DadMBA.
