I see FoxHound's youthful enthusiasm finally ran out a month or two back and he stopped posting on MyBB. I wonder how he's going with Discovery's big brother watching his driving style?
Lol, on the contrary Colin, I just moved on with other things in my life ... however, I remembered this thread and I thought I've got enough data to post a useful 'real world' update (now after 9 months on the service).
Question 1: Do you actually get money back?
Answer: Yes, a fair whack: around R420 per month.
Proof:
Question: What's that money in the 'Excess Funder Account'?
Answer: I think I've already explained above, but you get two choices for your refund: either get a straight cash refund (i.e. the total reward is divided by two and paid into your account), OR you can nominate to have the full reward (i.e. not halved) go straight into your 'Excess Funder Account'. Should you lodge a claim that requires an excess to be paid (e.g. you crash into somebody who isn't insured), then the excess will be paid for out of this fund (and after two years you have the option of claiming 50% of it back as a lump sum cash payout - i.e. works out to the same as the first option). I ended up switching my cash refund into the excess funder account until it crossed the magic R3 000 mark (my excess on my policy), and then converted it back into cash into my account.
Question: How does that DQ driving dashboard look when you've actually got some driving history?
Answer: Like this -
Question: What does the actual refund calculation look like from Discovery?
Answer: Like this -
Question: How does that calculation work?
Answer: Firstly, depending on the package you're on, you qualify for a reward percentage (far left figure above). Mine is 50% (the highest), because I'm on the Classic Plan with R250 000 household insurance. Then (and this is the important part), you get rewarded with the LOWER figure between your DQ points scored (based on your driving style) and your qualifying BP fuel spend that month. In my example above, I spent R850 on petrol at BP and got 865 DQ driving points, so Discovery took the petrol spend and multiplied it by my reward percentage (50%) ... my cash back into my account (paid around the 10th of the month) is R425.
Question: So does that financial saving make it worth it for you?
Answer: Yes. If you go back to the start of this thread, you'll see that after two accidents Outsurance wanted to increase my premium to R1300/month (including household insurance), and I was paying R250/month separately to Tracker for my Skytrax vehicle tracking. With Discovery Insure, I pay R1333/month, but I get R425 back in cash each month; I've cancelled Tracker and save that R250/month (with Discovery you get full satellite tracking for free + I pay a negligible amount for a Stolen Vehicle Recovery service); and all my other options are better (e.g. better class of car rental selected, and double the household insurance cover - R250 000). Also, a sweetener for me was that you don't pay an excess to Discovery if the person involved in an accident with you is insured, and the accident is their fault (I had to pay my excess with Outsurance each time it was the other insured driver's fault, although I did get that back later through the claim process). One final benefit: because of my good driving, I also get VitalityDrive weekly rewards: either a free coffee from Vida e Cafe, or a free smoothie from Kauai. I've claimed stacks of the latter at R35/week value, so maybe chalk that up as another R120/month value if you want?
There you go, I think that about covers the main points for now
The bottom line for me is still:
1: I'm still driving more safely with Discovery than I was with Outsurance, because I know I'm being monitored and being incentivised financially to do better.
2: I haven't been in any vehicle accidents since switching to Discovery, so I can't comment on their claims/repair process (although a friend on Discovery assures me they're very good after he had to claim from them)
3: Discovery is a 'total package' deal, and I think it works better if you get a lot of things with them. I've already got my health insurance from them too, as well as my cellphone insurance (for which they gave me a far better deal than Vodacom's cellphone insurance - score!).
Hope all of that's interesting to anybody considering the switch
Your mileage may vary, etc etc.
which is great eg if for longer trips speeding for a tiny section like 0.5km counts little when compared to the entire length of trip so eg 50km.
which is great eg if for longer trips speeding for a tiny section like 0.5km counts little when compared to the entire length of trip so eg 50km.
