Maybe you’ve heard a lot about Progressive and probably decided to give it a try.
However, even though this could be a good step to make in the favour of your auto insurance rate, there’s also a risky aspect.
You could get hurt, or even get your rates increased, on the verge of getting little discounts from the insurance program.
So it’s more of a try-and-error thing but could get better when you know the number of hard brakes the company allows or that could result in a penalty. Because, as you should know, hard brakes have a significant contribution to the score of most insurance tracking programs.
Does Hard Brake Affect Progressive? And How?
This question could point to two different things:
- The normal Progressive Insurance program
- The Progressive Snapshot Program
Now, if you’re referring to the normal Progressive insurance program, then you have nothing to worry about.
Your driving behavior which includes hard braking, fast acceleration, drifting skills, and sporty skills is kept to you, not until you get into an accident – which is typically when progressive gets involved.
The only exception to this would be when you’re on the Progressive snapshot program, the second option (Besides, this is most likely where your question is pointing to)
Progressive snapshot is a program that aims to provide a user-based insurance policy by studying a driver’s driving behavior for 6 months.
Apparently, you should expect it to take a record of all driving behavior that can be tracked via telematics.
Some of the information this program tracks includes what time you often drive, how much time you spend driving, whether you use a phone while driving, how fast you accelerate, and of course, your hard brakes.
So yes, Hard brakes does affect the progressive snapshot program.
How many hard brakes does progressive allow?
Generally, there’s no definitive number as to how many hard brakes Progressive allows. However, you might want to only make a maximum of 1 hard brake per month to avoid resulting in an overall poor score.
Just like in the previous section, this question could point to two different things as well:
- The normal Progressive Insurance program
- The Progressive Snapshot Program
If your question is coming from the “Normal Progressive Insurance program” angle, then the answer is simple.
The normal insurance program from Progressive doesn’t keep a record of the number of hard brakes you make, hence, there’s no limit to the number of brakes it allows.
On the other hand, on the Progressive Snapshot Program, the answer is “It depends”
Leaving the business of tracking Hard brakes is something no car tracking insurance program like Progressive Snapshot would want to do.
Because this is one of the determiners of driving scores for several car tracking insurance programs.
But why? Well, this is because Hard brakes could be likened to near accident experience (NAE) – a quick action taken to deviate a car from having an accident.
Knowing fully well that progressive snapshot accounts for hard brakes, how many does it allow?
To properly answer this question, we had to contact Progressive’s customer care.
So, we went on to message their respective pages on Facebook and Twitter.
On Facebook:
Although it took over 12 hours, we were able to get a response:
According to Progressive’s customer agent, while hard brakes could be a yardstick for your performance score on the snapshot program, it’s not worth thinking about.
This is because the aim of the program is to get a personalized auto insurance policy off your normal driving habits.
Read also: Can Progressive Insurance Cover Turo Rentals
As a result, if you’re trying to get the number of hard brakes permittable, you might be trying to game the system, which is not advisable.
We also went on to Twitter to ask the same question:
Fortunately, we were able to get a more presentable answer from the customer agent there.
According to him…
Progressive understands that everyone’s habits are different, hence it doesn’t try to give a be-all and end-all number for hard brakes.
In essence, there’s no number of hard brakes expected for a given term, nor are you limited to a specific number before you get penalized.
However, how many hard brakes are too many or bad for Progressive?
Even though we weren’t able to get a detailed interview about an ideal number of hard brakes that could be condoned by the company, from our experience, having more than one hard brake a month is bad.
Remember, hard brakes could be seen as a near-accident experience (NAE).
As a result, Hard brake, actual accident, alongside mileage, and driving time, are the major determinants of performance score across almost every car tracking insurance program including Progressive Snapshot.
If you’re passionate about getting a decent score from Progressive, then you would want to reduce the amount of hard brake you have per month as much as possible. A good target should be a maximum of 1 per month.
How does Progressive Snapshot Define Hard Brake?
For brakes on the Progressive snapshot, anything above 7mph is seen as a Hard Brake. At this point, you will notice the beep from your snapshot sensor.
The progressive snapshot works based on telematics provided by the insurance company’s sensor or mobile app. As a result, it is prone to follow a pattern.
If you go above 7mph when decelerating, the sensor or app would instantly beep, detecting that you’ve made a hard brake.
Final Thoughts
Based on our research, there’s no definitive amount of hard brake that you should be targeting or be limited to. However, it’s best you maintain a maximum of 1 hard brake per month.
