Mondays or Fridays that fall on long weekends (such as Good Friday tomorrow, April 14) are classified as WEEKDAYS for risk assessment.
I see a holiday Friday or Monday to be more like a weekend day rather than a work day because there is no morning or afternoon rush.
Allstate does not see it this way.
Why?
Probably because they have an American company running the "test" for them and they do not know Canadian holidays and are too lazy to program the holidays into the system. Heaven forbid that they modify the holiday schedule every year.
Yet more proof that this "test" is not really what it should be.
Thursday, April 13, 2017
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Weekend-Weekday Problem
There appears to have been a problem on April 1-2
with Saturday and Sunday being seen as weekdays and not weekend days
thereby registering trips as medium of low risk trips rather than very low risk trips
On Saturday I made two trips between 5 and 7 pm.
These trips are registering and being calculated as LOW risk period trips
when they should be registering as VERY LOW period trips.
On Sunday my father made one trip between 9 and 10 am.
This trip is registering and being calculated as MEDIUM risk period trip
when it should be registering as a VERY LOW period trip
My father's driving should be
Odd thing
At the same time my father's estimated discount dropped from 25% to 22.5%
On March 17 his daily driving average was 9.30 km per day with discount 25%
Today, April his daily driving average is 8.83 km per day but discount is 22.5%
If there are calculation errors in the data that is visible by customers then how can we trust the integrity of the calculations being made to determine the discount? For some strange reason it feels like Allstate might be moving the goalposts to getting a good discount - making it more and more difficult.
Less driving but lower discount
On March 17
On April 8
Update: It has now been 2 weeks since the April 1-2 system screw-up. I asked Allstate for an update and this is what they told us:
Do they even care?
What worries me is that if there are errors like this that are visible to customers then how many errors are there that we can;t see but affect our rating and discount? I have seen my estimated discount drop twice for no apparent reason.
May 14 - Allstate knows there is a problem but they still have not fixed it!
with Saturday and Sunday being seen as weekdays and not weekend days
thereby registering trips as medium of low risk trips rather than very low risk trips
On Saturday I made two trips between 5 and 7 pm.
These trips are registering and being calculated as LOW risk period trips
when they should be registering as VERY LOW period trips.
On Sunday my father made one trip between 9 and 10 am.
This trip is registering and being calculated as MEDIUM risk period trip
when it should be registering as a VERY LOW period trip
My father's driving should be
| Should be | Is | |
| Very Low | 39.49% | 37.51% |
| Low | 52.43% | 52.45% |
| Medium | 8.08% | 10.04% |
Odd thing
At the same time my father's estimated discount dropped from 25% to 22.5%
On March 17 his daily driving average was 9.30 km per day with discount 25%
Today, April his daily driving average is 8.83 km per day but discount is 22.5%
If there are calculation errors in the data that is visible by customers then how can we trust the integrity of the calculations being made to determine the discount? For some strange reason it feels like Allstate might be moving the goalposts to getting a good discount - making it more and more difficult.
Less driving but lower discount
On March 17
On April 8
Update: It has now been 2 weeks since the April 1-2 system screw-up. I asked Allstate for an update and this is what they told us:
Thank you for your email. As we have advised, this is being investigated now. It may take us a few weeks to hear back as our vendor requires time to investigate to determine what is happening. We will be in touch as soon as we have an update for you. We appreciate your patience.
Thank you, Drivewise Support Team.How can it take potentially a MONTH to figure out what happened?
Do they even care?
What worries me is that if there are errors like this that are visible to customers then how many errors are there that we can;t see but affect our rating and discount? I have seen my estimated discount drop twice for no apparent reason.
May 14 - Allstate knows there is a problem but they still have not fixed it!
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Website problem
Since March 29 to April 2 (so far) driving information is not being loaded into the system I have driven a few times but that is not showing up. Allstate knows there is a problem and they say data will be uploaded when the problem is fixed.
Also over the weekend the customer facing website was not working.
Fixed today - the website loads but data is not loaded to it.
Website April 1
Website April 2
Also over the weekend the customer facing website was not working.
Fixed today - the website loads but data is not loaded to it.
Website April 1
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Estimated discount drops for no apprent reason
This morning (March 2) my father's estimated discount dropped from 25% to 22.5% for no apparent reason.
My father's driving stats are still better than mine but he has the lower discount now.
Why?
He has less daily driving
He has fewer braking incidents
He has less driving in the medium and high risk times
He has lower high speed
yet his discount dropped
For comparison, here are my stats.
The only place where mine are better is that I have more driving in the very low time period
Update March 3
This morning my estimate discount also dropped even though my stats have improved
My km per day dropped from 9.25 to 9.21.
My percentage driving in the medium risk times dropped from 10.26% to 10.2%.
There have been no speeding or braking events.
This makes no sense
My father's driving stats are still better than mine but he has the lower discount now.
Why?
He has less daily driving
He has fewer braking incidents
He has less driving in the medium and high risk times
He has lower high speed
yet his discount dropped
For comparison, here are my stats.
The only place where mine are better is that I have more driving in the very low time period
Update March 3
This morning my estimate discount also dropped even though my stats have improved
My km per day dropped from 9.25 to 9.21.
My percentage driving in the medium risk times dropped from 10.26% to 10.2%.
There have been no speeding or braking events.
This makes no sense
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
I finally received 25% estimated discount
So that you know what is required to get an estimated 25% discount
Drive less than 3,500 km per year
Drive less than 3,500 km per year
Monday, February 6, 2017
Time of Day driving stats are not accurate
The Time of Day statistics have been confusing me.
The 'official' statistics on the Allstate website do not align with my calculations even though I am using the times and distances recorded by Allstate. I have double checked and triple checked my driving stats and then checked my father's stats and found the same problems (errors).
The error is not to my benefit as the error skews towards higher risk driving times.
The easiest check is the one driving event that I had during a "high risk" period between 11:00 pm and midnight. I drove 9.0 km and at present I have a total distance driven of 1,006.8 km.
Calculation: 9.0 divided by 1,006.8 = 0.0089 or 0.89%
The absolute difference is 0.04%
The percentage different is 0.04%/0.89% = 4.5% error (not to my benefit)
If the discount is based on calculations of all our driving statistics how can we trust the hidden proprietary calculations if simple errors such as this are clearly evident?
Another oddity is that sometimes updates are made in real time and other times changes happen after days of no driving.
The program makes no sense and is confusing.
Same problem on my father's stats
Update:
Either the DriveWise program updates the Time of Day stats only periodically (not all the time after each trip) or there was a problem with the calculations. I submitted an email to the DriveWise support team pointing out the errors and the next day the online numbers aligned with my own calculations but the anonymous support elf told me there are no problems with the system.
Update 2:
A DriveWise customer support elf told me that some of my calculations are off due to a problem in the FAQs. Supposedly the FAQs were wrong about what time the high, medium and low risk period start.
Old FAQ
Under this FAQ driving at 11:00 pm seems to fall under the LOW risk period but the system actually calculates it as HIGH risk.
The 'official' statistics on the Allstate website do not align with my calculations even though I am using the times and distances recorded by Allstate. I have double checked and triple checked my driving stats and then checked my father's stats and found the same problems (errors).
The error is not to my benefit as the error skews towards higher risk driving times.
The easiest check is the one driving event that I had during a "high risk" period between 11:00 pm and midnight. I drove 9.0 km and at present I have a total distance driven of 1,006.8 km.
Calculation: 9.0 divided by 1,006.8 = 0.0089 or 0.89%
The absolute difference is 0.04%
The percentage different is 0.04%/0.89% = 4.5% error (not to my benefit)
If the discount is based on calculations of all our driving statistics how can we trust the hidden proprietary calculations if simple errors such as this are clearly evident?
Another oddity is that sometimes updates are made in real time and other times changes happen after days of no driving.
The program makes no sense and is confusing.
Same problem on my father's stats
Update:
Either the DriveWise program updates the Time of Day stats only periodically (not all the time after each trip) or there was a problem with the calculations. I submitted an email to the DriveWise support team pointing out the errors and the next day the online numbers aligned with my own calculations but the anonymous support elf told me there are no problems with the system.
Update 2:
A DriveWise customer support elf told me that some of my calculations are off due to a problem in the FAQs. Supposedly the FAQs were wrong about what time the high, medium and low risk period start.
Old FAQ
Under this FAQ driving at 11:00 pm seems to fall under the LOW risk period but the system actually calculates it as HIGH risk.
New FAQ
The deleted the :01 from the start time of each risk time
High risk now starts at 11 pm
The deleted the :01 from the start time of each risk time
High risk now starts at 11 pm
Even these new FAQs are technically wrong because according to this schedule 11:00pm is now both low and high risk according to this FAQ.
If they wanted to be proper it would state that LOW risk is from 12:00:01 pm to 11:59:59 pm
If they wanted to be proper it would state that LOW risk is from 12:00:01 pm to 11:59:59 pm
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
DriveWise estimate discount drops for no apparent reason
Understanding the model used by DriveWise to determine how good a driver you are and the level of estimated discount is difficult because there seem to be wonky inconsistencies.
My father is on the program and his driving stats are better than mine.
On January 9 he had an estimated discount of 22.5% with 10.57 km/day
On January 13 his driving average went up to 11.37 km/day but the estimated discount rose to 25%
On January 23 he had an estimated discount of 25%
One week later, on January 30 his discount dropped to 22.5% even though he is driving on average only 9.4 km/day.
We were both confused by the decrease because my father had:
- lower average daily drive (drop from 9.85 to 9.4 km/day)
- better time of day (low and medium dropped and very low increased)
- no speeding events
- no braking events
My father asked DriveWise why this decrease happened and the following is their response:
Thank you for reaching out to the Drivewise Support Team.
The estimated discount will fluctuate as data is gathered.
At 2 months of the 6 month program there is still a lot of data to gather and the program is still understanding your normal driving habits. The Estimated Discount is an estimation of the discount you are tracking towards.
Once the program is completed the final and earned discount will be calculated and you will receive an email detailing the earned discount and a high level summary of the data collected.
On Jan 23 2017 the estimated discount of 25% was later updated to reflect vehicle use and on Jan 28 2017 the estimated discount adjusted to 22.5%.
As the Time of Day information is provided as a percentage even increased driving can maintain the same overall time of day statistics.
What kind of an answer is this?
They did not answer the question.
The same thing happened to me but unfortunately I did not take screenshots at the time to track my DriveWise discounts.
On December 2 I received my first estimate and it was 20%.
On December 8 my estimated discount dropped to 15%
- there was no apparent reason as I did not drive more per day, did not have a braking incident nor drive more at the "bad" times of day.
I asked DriveWise why this happened but they never gave a real answer. DriveWise is excellent at giving "non-answers" just repeating their marketing stuff.
After that, since I do not drive much, my estimated discount rose again slowly and has plateaued at 20%.
Update:
February 11, driving is at 8.7 km/day but the discount is still at 22.5%
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