Esurance DriveSense Review
Drivers can save money on their car insurance by signing up for DriveSense and practicing safe driving habits. But it’s only available to current customers.
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Esurance DriveSense is a usage-based program that tracks your driving behavior and lowers your car insurance rates if you drive safely.
It offers some great features, including the ability to delete trips. But the discount you get from using DriveSense probably won't be enough to offset Esurance's expensive rates.
Update: Esurance stopped selling insurance policies to new customers in March 2023. The Esurance website now sends potential customers to Allstate, its parent company, to get a quote for a new policy.
However, Esurance isn't canceling the policies of its current customers. So if you already have an Esurance policy, you may still be able to sign up for DriveSense.
Pros and cons
Pros
Current customers can keep the discount
Doesn’t count phone use against you
Cons
Can’t get a new Esurance policy
Night driving counts against you
What is Esurance DriveSense?
DriveSense by Esurance uses a mobile app to reward safe drivers with discounts on their car insurance.
The DriveSense app tracks your driving habits, and Esurance uses the data to determine your “driving wellness” rating. The better your driving wellness rating, the larger the discount you get.
Anyone can download the Esurance DriveSense app and use it to get feedback on their driving. Most other usage-based programs are only available to customers of the insurance company that offers the program.
When you start the DriveSense program, you get a sign-up discount while Esurance collects info about your driving. After that, it uses your driving wellness rating to determine your discount. In addition, you can get a bigger discount if more than one driver on your policy signs up for the program.
Esurance does not list the maximum discount that you can earn with DriveSense on its website. However, when the program was first released in 2016, Esurance offered a 5% discount for signing up. The performance discount ranged from 5% to 35% in certain states.
No matter what state you live in, your discount will vary based on your driving wellness rating and the number of drivers who participate in the program.
Is Esurance DriveSense worth it?
Bottom line: Unless you already have a great rate from Esurance, you should look into another usage-based program.
Esurance isn’t selling policies to new customers. You can only get a DriveSense discount if you already have an Esurance policy. In addition, auto insurance from Esurance is typically more expensive than average.
Current Esurance customers will likely find a cheaper rate from another company, even without a usage-based discount.
On the plus side, DriveSense only considers a few factors when determining your driving wellness rating. That means you might have a greater chance of scoring well than you do with other programs.
For example, State Farm Drive Safe & Save penalizes you for using your phone while driving. And Nationwide SmartRide penalizes you for idle time while you’re stuck in heavy traffic.
DriveSense doesn’t use either of these factors to determine your discount. Instead, it focuses on things that are largely within your control.
Another benefit is that DriveSense gives you control over what trips count toward your final discount. If you have to brake to avoid an animal or drive late at night to the hospital, you can go back and delete these trips. If you know you’ll be taking a bus and don’t want that trip to show up, you can put the app on “standby.” As long as you hit 50 trips within a policy term, you’ll get a discount of some kind.
Not all telematics programs give you this kind of control. Progressive Snapshot not only prevents you from editing your history, but it also raises rates if you drive poorly — no matter the reason. Even if you brake to avoid an accident, your score will go down and your discount will decrease. By allowing you to delete trips, DriveSense gives you more control over your score.
DriveSense vs. competitors
Program | Max. savings | Can rates go up? | Tracks phone usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Esurance DriveSense | Not stated | No | No |
| Allstate Drivewise | 40% | Yes | No |
| Geico DriveEasy | 10% | Yes | Yes |
| Liberty Mutual RightTrack | 30% | Sometimes | Yes |
| Nationwide SmartRide | 40% | No | No |
| Progressive Snapshot | Avg. $231/yr | Yes | Sometimes |
| State Farm Drive Safe & Save | 30% | No | Yes |
| USAA SafePilot | 30% | No | Yes |
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However, users have a lot of complaints about the app. Reviews cite several problems, including difficulty recording trips and being penalized for hard braking, which can affect your final car insurance discount.
DriveSense requires ongoing monitoring, and your discount will change each policy period based on your most recent score. If you prefer to have your auto insurance rate stay the same, DriveSense is not a good fit. A program like Liberty Mutual RightTrack, which only monitors your driving for a short time and then applies a permanent discount, would be a better choice for you.
How does the DriveSense app work?
The DriveSense app uses your cellphone to monitor your driving behavior.
You don’t need to open the app each time you drive. It runs in the background and automatically collects data on your trips.
However, not every trip is monitored. A trip starts when you hit a certain speed and ends 20 minutes after the app stops detecting motion.
You must log at least 50 trips that meet these criteria over the course of your policy term to get a discount.
You must also keep the app installed. Deleting it will erase all the trips you’ve logged and get rid of your discount. If the DriveSense app is not working, don’t delete the app — contact Esurance for help instead.
At the end of the policy term, Esurance will use your driving wellness rating to calculate your discount. Your discount may change from one policy period to the next. That’s because your driving wellness rating will likely go up and down.
Esurance DriveSense stands out because you can delete trips afterward or put the app on “standby” so it doesn’t track a trip.
Esurance includes this feature because it allows you to delete trips or pause the app when you’re a passenger or taking public transportation. However, it ultimately works in your favor. So long as you allow the app to record at least 50 trips during your policy term, you can delete any trips that could negatively affect your driving wellness rating.
However, you must select a reason you’re deleting a trip, and your driving wellness rating may not reflect the deletion for up to a week.
What does the DriveSense app track?
Esurance only takes a few factors into account when scoring your driving performance, compared to other telematics tracking programs.
Factors that affect your driving wellness rating include:
- Speed. If you drive at a speed of 80 miles per hour or higher, the app will penalize you.
- Hard braking. Your score is affected by hard braking and extreme braking.
- Time of day. Esurance considers certain hours to be high risk and penalizes you if you drive during them.
The app also collects data that doesn’t affect your driving wellness rating.
- GPS trail
- The time your trip starts, ends and is uploaded
- Time on your phone when the trip is uploaded
- Start and end location
- Average and maximum speed
- Distance and duration of trip
- Idle time during trip
- Number of miles driven at 80 miles per hour or above
- Number and location of braking, accelerating and cornering events in a trip
- Number of successive acceleration and deceleration changes
- Number of extreme speed changes
- Reason a trip ends (low battery, app closed or motion no longer occurring)
- Operating system, mobile device and app version
- Reason a trip is deleted
Esurance partners with Arity to collect and study user driving data. Few other companies name the third-party partners they work with to administer their telematics programs, so Esurance also stands out in this respect.
Where is Esurance DriveSense available?
DriveSense is available in 35 states. However, since Esurance isn’t selling policies to new customers, you can only get the DriveSense discount if you already have an Esurance policy.
- Alabama
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
Frequently asked questions
What does DriveSense do?
Esurance DriveSense is a usage-based discount program that helps safe drivers save money on car insurance. To determine your discount, it tracks driving behaviors like speeding and late-night driving using an app.
Do I have to use DriveSense with Esurance?
No, Esurance customers don’
What does DriveSense track?
Esurance DriveSense uses three factors to determine your discount: speed, hard braking and the time of day you drive. However, it also tracks a lot of other things that aren’
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