ReadabilityProgressive's Flo vs Dead woman's brother with a blog, No Contest
Gilbert Huph: Complaints I can handle. What I can’t handle is your customers’ inexplicable knowledge of Insuricare’s inner workings. They’re experts! Experts, Bob! Exploiting every loophole! Dodging every obstacle! They’re penetrating the bureaucracy!
The Incredibles 2004
You can’t miss the ads for Progressive insurance they are all over TV all the time, some are pretty good and some are eh. But throughout you have Flo (Stephanie Courtney) pitching insurance and saving money. Everyone knows the name of the company. Their Alexa Rank is 4162 nationally and in the US it is ranked #814.
Matt Fischer according to his web site is a comic in NY. He is not well known, I’ve certainly never heard of him until today. His site on Tumbler has no web rank and everything I know about him comes from a single blog post. The one thing I know for sure is his sister was killed in a car accident (my condolences to his family).
He however has access to the internet and that makes all the difference because when his sister (insured by Progressive) was killed in a car accident with an underinsured driver, Progressive didn’t pay on the claim and he used the internet to tell his story:
Now, because the other driver was underinsured, that payment didn’t amount to much, but my sister carried a policy with Progressive against the possibility of an accident with an underinsured driver. So Progressive was now on the hook for the difference between the other guy’s insurance and the value of Katie’s policy.
According to his account Instead of Flo & a clean white store, his family got Gilbert Hugh from the Incredibles
At which point we learned the first surprising thing about Progressive: Carrying Progressive insurance and getting into an accident does not entitle you to the value of your insurance policy. It just pisses off Progressive’s lawyers. Here I address you, Prospective Progressive Insurance Customer: someday when you have your accident, I promise that there will be enough wiggle room for Progressive’s bottomless stack of in-house attorneys to make a court case out of it and to hammer at that court case until you or your surviving loved ones run out of money.
Which is what Progressive decided to do to my family. In hopes that a jury would hang or decide that the accident was her fault, they refused to pay the policy to my sister’s estate.
Due to Maryland Law they could not sue progressive so they had to sue the fellow who ran the light in the accident. According to Mark Progressive offed to pay 1⁄3 of the claim, (I presume his sister paid 3⁄3 of the preimums regularly) when that was turned down it went to court and what did Mark see at the table of the fellow who drove the car that killed his sister.…
At the trial, the guy who killed my sister was defended by Progressive’s legal team.
If you are insured by Progressive, and they owe you money, they will defend your killer in court in order to not pay you your policy.
Strangely enough Peter Lewis the Chairman of the Board, biggest stock holder and former CEO has no problem making big payouts to other causes such as $2.5 million to Move On.com and 3 Million to Americans Coming Together (both matched by George Soros) according to Snoops.com
You would think a guy that and a company running ads everywhere like Progressive could ignore some guy with a blog…
…you’d be wrong.
Blogs all over picked up the story, it was all over Twitter, progressive put out a statement denying defending the driver and Matt counted with a 2nd post.
Progressive released a statement saying that ”Progressive did not serve as the attorney for the defendant” in my sister’s case. I am not a lawyer, but this is what I observed in the courtroom during my sister’s trial:
At the beginning of the trial on Monday, August 6th, an attorney identified himself as Jeffrey R. Moffat and stated that he worked for Progressive Advanced Insurance Company. He then sat next to the defendant. During the trial, both in and out of the courtroom, he conferred with the defendant. He gave an opening statement to the jury, in which he proposed the idea that the defendant should not be found negligent in the case. He cross-examined the plaintiff’s witnesses. On direct examination, he questioned all of the defense’s witnesses. He made objections on behalf of the defendant, and he was a party to the argument of all of the objections heard in the case. After all of the witnesses had been called, he stood before the jury and gave a closing argument, in which he argued that my sister was responsible for the accident that killed her, and that the jury should not decide that the defendant was negligent.
I am comfortable characterizing this as a legal defense.
and today CNBC wrote this:
A blog post from comedian Matt Fisher entitled “My Sister Paid Progressive insurance to defend her killer in court” — has gone viral. There were nearly 16,000 negative tweets about Progressive just yesterday — that’s up nearly 50,000 percent from a week earlier, according to General Sentiment, a firm which tracks social media chatter.
And the sentiment, the company said, is decidedly negative, with people throwing around terms like “horrific, despicable, and evil” when talking about the insurance firm.
CNBC btw has an Alexa rank of #620 globally and 229 nationally.
Ya think paying off this policy might have been a better investment that 2 mil plus to Move On huh Mr. Lewis?
But they weren’t worried, they were Progressive Insurance and he was just some guy with access to the internet, what harm could he do? CNBC again.
But as people attacked Progressive on Twitter through Monday and Tuesday morning, Progressive simply tweeted out the same message to every inquiry, accompanied by a photo of its smiling spokeswoman: “This is a tragic case and our sympathies go out to Mr. Fisher and his family for the pain they’ve had to endure. We fully investigated this claim and relevant background, and feel we properly handled the claim within our contractual obligations.”
The problem: no matter what Progressive says now, those negative tweets are still out there, weighing on the company’s image. The fact that the company repeatedly tweeted out the same response seemed to draw even more frustration for what Gawker.com called a “robotic” approach.
Gawker. This was picked up by Gawker? Now THAT site has an Alexa Rank of 1409 globally and a US Rank of #412 and with almost 40,000 sites linking to it
All the Millions spent on new Flo ads and clean white sets are not going to undo the damage done to this company’s reputation by this story and their decision to contest this claim, particularly in a market where there are plenty of other choices for people to make.
All men may be equal before the eyes of God, but the power of the internet and social media gives any man with a keyboard or a smartphone a fighting chance against a company with assets over 22.7 Billion unwilling to keep the promise it made to his late sister and her family.
Sam Colt would be proud, I’m sure the Army of Davids is.
Update: DaTechGuy’s alexa rating is 231,702 as of today and 34,602, not too shabby for a one man blog, but this post has been Instalanched (thanks Glenn) and PJmedia has an Alexa rank of #5113 and #1198 in the US.
Still think Move on was a better investment than paying Ms. Fischer’s policy Mr. Lewis?
Gilbert Huph: Complaints I can handle. What I can’t handle is your customers’ inexplicable knowledge of Insuricare’s inner workings. They’re experts! Experts, Bob! Exploiting every loophole! Dodging every obstacle! They’re penetrating the bureaucracy!
The Incredibles 2004
You can’t miss the ads for Progressive insurance they are all over TV all the time, some are pretty good and some are eh. But throughout you have Flo (Stephanie Courtney) pitching insurance and saving money. Everyone knows the name of the company. Their Alexa Rank is 4162 nationally and in the US it is ranked #814.
Matt Fischer according to his web site is a comic in NY. He is not well known, I’ve certainly never heard of him until today. His site on Tumbler has no web rank and everything I know about him comes from a single blog post. The one thing I know for sure is his sister was killed in a car accident (my condolences to his family).
He however has access to the internet and that makes all the difference because when his sister (insured by Progressive) was killed in a car accident with an underinsured driver, Progressive didn’t pay on the claim and he used the internet to tell his story:
Now, because the other driver was underinsured, that payment didn’t amount to much, but my sister carried a policy with Progressive against the possibility of an accident with an underinsured driver. So Progressive was now on the hook for the difference between the other guy’s insurance and the value of Katie’s policy.
According to his account Instead of Flo & a clean white store, his family got Gilbert Hugh from the Incredibles
At which point we learned the first surprising thing about Progressive: Carrying Progressive insurance and getting into an accident does not entitle you to the value of your insurance policy. It just pisses off Progressive’s lawyers. Here I address you, Prospective Progressive Insurance Customer: someday when you have your accident, I promise that there will be enough wiggle room for Progressive’s bottomless stack of in-house attorneys to make a court case out of it and to hammer at that court case until you or your surviving loved ones run out of money.
Which is what Progressive decided to do to my family. In hopes that a jury would hang or decide that the accident was her fault, they refused to pay the policy to my sister’s estate.
Due to Maryland Law they could not sue progressive so they had to sue the fellow who ran the light in the accident. According to Mark Progressive offed to pay 1/3 of the claim, (I presume his sister paid 3/3 of the preimums regularly) when that was turned down it went to court and what did Mark see at the table of the fellow who drove the car that killed his sister….
At the trial, the guy who killed my sister was defended by Progressive’s legal team.
If you are insured by Progressive, and they owe you money, they will defend your killer in court in order to not pay you your policy.
Strangely enough Peter Lewis the Chairman of the Board, biggest stock holder and former CEO has no problem making big payouts to other causes such as $2.5 million to Move On.com and 3 Million to Americans Coming Together (both matched by George Soros) according to Snoops.com
You would think a guy that and a company running ads everywhere like Progressive could ignore some guy with a blog…
…you’d be wrong.
Blogs all over picked up the story, it was all over Twitter, progressive put out a statement denying defending the driver and Matt counted with a 2nd post.
Progressive released a statement saying that ”Progressive did not serve as the attorney for the defendant” in my sister’s case. I am not a lawyer, but this is what I observed in the courtroom during my sister’s trial:
At the beginning of the trial on Monday, August 6th, an attorney identified himself as Jeffrey R. Moffat and stated that he worked for Progressive Advanced Insurance Company. He then sat next to the defendant. During the trial, both in and out of the courtroom, he conferred with the defendant. He gave an opening statement to the jury, in which he proposed the idea that the defendant should not be found negligent in the case. He cross-examined the plaintiff’s witnesses. On direct examination, he questioned all of the defense’s witnesses. He made objections on behalf of the defendant, and he was a party to the argument of all of the objections heard in the case. After all of the witnesses had been called, he stood before the jury and gave a closing argument, in which he argued that my sister was responsible for the accident that killed her, and that the jury should not decide that the defendant was negligent.
I am comfortable characterizing this as a legal defense.
and today CNBC wrote this:
A blog post from comedian Matt Fisher entitled “My Sister Paid Progressive insurance to defend her killer in court” — has gone viral. There were nearly 16,000 negative tweets about Progressive just yesterday — that’s up nearly 50,000 percent from a week earlier, according to General Sentiment, a firm which tracks social media chatter.
And the sentiment, the company said, is decidedly negative, with people throwing around terms like “horrific, despicable, and evil” when talking about the insurance firm.
CNBC btw has an Alexa rank of #620 globally and 229 nationally.
Ya think paying off this policy might have been a better investment that 2 mil plus to Move On huh Mr. Lewis?
But they weren’t worried, they were Progressive Insurance and he was just some guy with access to the internet, what harm could he do? CNBC again.
But as people attacked Progressive on Twitter through Monday and Tuesday morning, Progressive simply tweeted out the same message to every inquiry, accompanied by a photo of its smiling spokeswoman: “This is a tragic case and our sympathies go out to Mr. Fisher and his family for the pain they’ve had to endure. We fully investigated this claim and relevant background, and feel we properly handled the claim within our contractual obligations.”
The problem: no matter what Progressive says now, those negative tweets are still out there, weighing on the company’s image. The fact that the company repeatedly tweeted out the same response seemed to draw even more frustration for what Gawker.com called a “robotic” approach.
Gawker. This was picked up by Gawker? Now THAT site has an Alexa Rank of 1409 globally and a US Rank of #412 and with almost 40,000 sites linking to it
All the Millions spent on new Flo ads and clean white sets are not going to undo the damage done to this company’s reputation by this story and their decision to contest this claim, particularly in a market where there are plenty of other choices for people to make.
All men may be equal before the eyes of God, but the power of the internet and social media gives any man with a keyboard or a smartphone a fighting chance against a company with assets over 22.7 Billion unwilling to keep the promise it made to his late sister and her family.
Sam Colt would be proud, I’m sure the Army of Davids is.
Update: DaTechGuy’s alexa rating is 231,702 as of today and 34,602, not too shabby for a one man blog, but this post has been Instalanched (thanks Glenn) and PJmedia has an Alexa rank of #5113 and #1198 in the US.
Still think Move on was a better investment than paying Ms. Fischer’s policy Mr. Lewis?
You hope the Universe is faithful; Progressive IS evil, I’m finding too
sincere sympathy for the family.
For those looking for insurance – I know it’s not the cheapest, but I’ve had Allstate for years and years and I’ve never had a problem with them paying homeowner or auto claims, and a couple years ago, both my cars were involved in accidents (I wasn’t driving either time) and they didn’t raise my rates. In my case it seems that paying more premium has paid off – your mileage may vary…
I was insured by Progressive and was hit by a drunk driver who had a prior DUI conviction and $1million policy also with Progressive. . Foolishly, I expected to be “taken care of” with a fair settlement, NOT!!! Progrssive fought me with a great attorney Important lesson!!! Insurance companies are in the business of making $$ not caring for people. Privatize Medicare, for profit hospitals, for profit insurance companies? NOT!!! I’m far more trusting of non-profits such as AAA and Kaiser. Mr. Fischer and family, I’m sorry for your pain and loss.
Those ads may be entertaining but it’ll be a cold day in Hell before I ever buy anything from that company.
“Just what it says on the tin”: Progressives are evil. Never have any dealings – personal or business or anything else – with any person or entity to which that monicker applies.
Correct Link to Groubal Complaint American Family Insurance RAPES Small Business Entrepreneur http://www.groubal.com/american-family-insurance-rapes-small-business-entrepreneur/
Here U GI wrong link’
http://www.groubal.com/american-family-insurance-rapes-small-business-entrepreneur/
An authentic American case of rape of an entrepreneur who settled the Bad Faith with NO Confidentiality to any party! Let’s get the issue up on the table in this 2012 election as a citizenry acting in solidarity for human justice as a community good!
American Family Insurance Company and Harris, Karstedt, Jamison & Powers PC Breach of Contract, Bad faith and Civil Conspiracy RAPE small business entrepreneur who now wants to run both parties OUT OF BUSINESS!http://www.groubal.com/america…
Remember folks, Progressive is owned by Liberty Mutual!!!!
If you are going to boycott Progressive, don’t forget to boycot Liberty Mutual as well!
I have had both Progressive (when I was young) and Liberty Mutual (more recently) and I ditched them both. I am with a better company that I respect now.
After reading this article I am so glad I made that decision years ago. I hope the rest of you make the same choice.
Enough of us leave and take our $$$ elsewhere and they WILL see their bottom line affected.
I may even just break out the old billboard and write up some Progressive nastygrams and stand outside next Saturday with the other liberals who do that every week.
This is absolutely wrong. The two companies are not affiliated in any way. Progressive is a publicly held company that is owned by its shareholders.
Many readers have admonished Progressive as the result of this story, my mother included. I’m glad the Internet has the power to reach people world-wide, but this story appears, to me, intentionally short-sighted.
The problem is of course with the actions of Progressive Insurance and their decision to not provide the service paid for in the young lady’s policy. However, it is the litigation system carefully crafted by the insurance companies that is the root of this problem.
It doesn’t matter, now, which public policy option you subscribe to, or use to ridicule others who don’t share your beliefs. There exists a system where, in order to remain in business, all companies must play by a set of rules carefully crafted by the insurance companies to collect premiums and fight paying out claims.
Focus on Progressive is exactly what prevents the problem from being fixed for us. Focus, instead, your investigative journalism and insightful comments on the system that allows this reprehensible behavior to continue.
[...] [...]
Whatever, that little lizard is funny
The lizard is not Progressive’s mascot. It’s Geico’s. Geico needs a new ad agency, if people are remebering the mascot, but not identrifying it with the right company.
I think that was facetism, look at the name on the post.
[...] (Via Simberg and Ingemi) [...]
Interesting how much of this sounds like the movie, ‘Rainmaker’. Let’s all turn a cold shoulder to Progressive in the future.
Regardless of the requirements by any state’s law for Progressive to give the defendent legal assistance, there are no laws that require them to stiff their ACTUAL client.
With 22 billion in assets they may feel a pinch but for the most part Mr Lewis surely doesn’t give a rats ass about ONE customer,or this response to it.He voted for Obama so you know he’s a rat bag piece of cow dung already.
Slight problem with the narrative:
Under Maryland law, Progressive was compelled to do that.
Progressive were dicks about handling it on the internet, but “defending the killer” was forced on them by the State’s insurance structure.
(” The nutshell is this: if the at-fault driver either does not have insurance or has low levels of coverage, your own insurance company will step in and basically take the place of the insurance company for the at-fault driver, including paying any settlement or judgment but also defending the case against your personal injury claim.
Why does your insurance company pay you for your personal injuries when the at-fault driver is uninsured or underinsured? Your insurance company must pay on your personal injury claim because they have a contractual obligation to you to pay out the damages you would have recovered had the negligent driver had the same insurance policy that you have. So the claim is actually a breach of contract claim against your insurance company for the failure to pay what you and your accident lawyers believe is the fair value of your case. ”
… and they don’t “just pay” because then you could make a bullshit claim and soak them. Defending their interests in court helps keep rates low by making it hard to scam them.)
Slight problem with your excuse. Had Progressive paid the policy, there would be no court case because the decedent’s estate would not have been forced to sue the other driver to collect from Progressive. And there’s not much chance of fraud when the insured is dead from an accident in which the other driver ran a red light.
Were I on the jury I’d award far more than $1M in hopes that Progressive’s intervention voided their own policy limits. Unlikely, but possible.
The lesson of this case: don’t depend on uninsured motorist coverage to make you whole! Even if your insurer winds up paying, it will only be after a lengthy liability determination and negotiation process.
Instead, carry sufficient life insurance — preferably with the same carrier as your auto insurance. That way, your dependents get paid immediately if you are killed, and all the legal wrangling is between divisions of the same insurance company, if that death was caused by an uninsured motorist. A large term life policy is also useful as a way to cover any gaps in health insurance coverage, since you have something you can sell to raise cash for uncovered medical treatments, in states that allow the sale of term life policies.
My condolences to Mr. Fischer and his family.
I have an interesting little story about my dealings with Progressive Insurance. I moved from Texas to N.Y. I needed to change my insurance because it did not transfer to this state after six months. I had no idea where/what to look for. I went out for quotes, got the “best” quotes from Progressive. I insured with them for 3 years.
I was leaving the parking lot of a supermarket, and backed into a parked car (totally my fault). I called them immediately to let them know the circumstances. When they called back they told me the car owner had already made the claim, and berated me for taking the action of telling the Officer, I had backed into a parked car. But then they told me that because the claim was less than $1000.00, they would pay it and I wouldn’t have to report it to the state police so I would not get any “points” on my driving record, and that my policy would not be raised.
Three months later, they sent me a remittance for my insurance double the amount. I called to inquire and was told the repair damages to the car I backed into (no damage at all to my car), was $1148.00 because the body shop couldn’t get the paint to match the fender to the car (Not a fancy color, just a plain grey) . Then they told me I should have not told the officer it was my fault.
Long story made short, I requested a supervisor and was berated again. I told the supervisor to get stuffed, and switched my insurance the next day.
That was my one and only accident, btw, and have never had any other tickets.
I don’t know about you all, but I’ve always hated Progressive for those abysmally annoying Flo ads. The radio ads are about 10 times worse than the TV ads, and I now have a Pavlovian response of switching the station whenever I hear one.
[...] to Progressive Insurance, and knew nothing about them except from the ads. Well, it turns out that they’re appropriately named (well, at least the limited degree that it is appropriate to call leftists [...]
Not only that, but Progressive is the king of after market car parts when repairing your vehicle. There is no reason in the world to choose such an awful insurance company. There are many reasons NOT to have after market parts in your car after an accident. Sometimes the collision shop literally forces an ill fitting part in because this is the part Progressive has demanded they use. This poor young woman is the best reason to leave Progressive, but as one can see, there are others. Cheap bastards!
About a decade ago, I decided to buy a motorcycle with the intent to use it a lot more than the truck, and Progressive was a well-known outfit that offered motorcycle policies. I ended up going somewhere else, mainly because of that name, and reading of the head guy being liked with lefty causes.
Disclosure: I’m a conservative Christian and I’ve been with Progressive for 10 years. I should have first expressed my condolences to Mr. Fischer and his family for their tragic loss. That is foremost and should have been given priority in my prior post. I don’t mean to diminish that loss by my explanation of the lawyer’s role in a UM trial.
You might research and consider the activities and associations of the companies to whom you give your hard earned money. Just a thought.
Progressive Insurance = far Left. Support to the Tune of ‘Millions’ of dollars. Why bother being part of that?
.
Check out firms that insure churches and help them instead…
http://www.maxwholeness.com/ Insurance to match your values.
.
.
Think about it.
While I appreciate the explanation and insight into the lawyer’s role at trial, I would be a lot more excited if you followed up by writing to everyone that you switched to Geico. Fifteen minutes can send a powerful message!
Evidence of insurance is usually kept from a jury in an auto accident case. The rationale being that if the jury knows there’s insurance, they might be biased by that information in their decision whether to award damages and how much.
This presents a problem for the lawyer representing the insurance company (trying to keep the payout as minimal as possible). The lawyer can’t say who he/she represents and the insurance company’s interests (not just Progressive’s but all uninsured motorist (i.e., UM) carriers) are usually aligned with the defendants.
Therefore, it may appear to Mr. Fischer that Progressive’s lawyer is representing the defendant, but he is not. He is trying to keep Progressive’s costs down by making the legal argument that the defendant wasn’t at fault. This benefits Progressive insureds (I’m one of them) and allows it to keep policy premiums lower.
I guarantee you the Progressive lawyer considered settlement in this case and felt it was better to proceed to trial. I wouldn’t doubt that offers of settlement were made on both sides. In hindsight, Progressive is hurt by this publicity. But such is the nature of UM coverage – your insurer is your legal adversary.
jsl: That may be entirely accurate but it’s also entirely irrelevant.
The company’s tagline is “Now that’s progressive!” The implication is that they’re not just another greedy corporation — indeed, they donate millions of your policy dollar to outfits that oppose greedy corporations!
Except, it turns out, they are.
What the brother of the deceased describes is how ALL underinsured coverage works. This would have happened no matter what insurance company the deceased had.
Progressive should be ashamed of themselves. I was actually going to look into switching my insurance to them, recently. No way, now. Pay this woman’s estate you pikers
Pardon me for acting as the Devil’s advocate here, but it is far from clear that thousands of negative tweets will translate into any meaningful impact on Progressive’s business. There have been any number of twitterstorms over the past couple of years that have gotten a lot of play amongst the digerati, but they have not always amounted to much outside of the twitterverse. Even the CNBC report feels like “Hey, look! The internet crazies have their knickers in a bunch over Progressive today? They’ll have a problem with someone else tomorrow, I’m sure. Oh, look! Kittens!!” Only time will tell if there is serious, lasting damage to the Progressive brand.
(I have no affiliation at all with Progressive, and I was an early adopter of twitter. I find twitter to be quite useful, but I also think that many internet savvy people vastly overestimate its real-world impact.)
I have sent this article to friends.
I now know that Progressive Insurance is a FUNDER of the FAR LEFT.
I now know that Progressive will ‘go to court’ to stop payment to me, if I am a beneficiary.
I now know; I should drop Progressive Insurance.
.
Pass it on.
I first saw this story on kottke.org, and read that it was linked to by Gawker – both sites on the political left. Now Instapundit has linked to DaTech guy, obviously on the right.
When you are getting punched by both sides of the internet, I have to guess it feels like you are in the middle of a sh!t storm. It may be a passing, but I am certain it is reaching the top management and causing the PR and branding folks a whole lot of stress for the week, anyway.
Hey — I noticed a lot of run-on sentences and grammatical errors in this post, which isn’t typical. Sure makes it hard to read! Can you do a quick clean-up so it’s more readable? I’m not the grammar police, but, dude…!
Margaret re-read the piece and you are right, cleaned it up and acknowledged you on it.
People who buy Progressive and expect something else are dim lights to start with. How do you think they keep premiums so low? Why are they among the cheapest insurance providers?
Oh, of course, I’m sure it’s because they efficiently and dutifully pay claims with little hassle. C’mon, wake up.
Finally got off my butt and joined AMAC (h/t Mark Levin) and used the AMAC discount to place my car insurance with Travelers, and CANCELLED MY PROGRESSIVE POLICY!
MAN it feels good to cross that off my to-do list!
HPD
Condolences to Mr. Fischer and the family for the terrible loss, made so much worse by Progressive’s callous, almost inhuman behavior.
I’m very grateful to Mr. Fischer’s bravery and persistence in getting the news out on the Internet and DaTechGuy for passing it along.
When my policy with Progressive expires, I WILL NOT renew and I have been a customer for several years.
I lived through the Clinton years. ”Progressive did not serve as the attorney for the defendant” can be both true and completely misleading. I’m pretty sure a corporation cannot be an attorney; only a natural person can. But a corporation could certainly assist in a case, and that seems to be what happened here.
To Mr. Fischer and his family: please accept my sincere condolences. I am very sorry for the sudden loss of your sister.
Thanks, Glenn, for posting a link to this story. My Wife and I are currently shopping for a new insurance carrier. Rest assured that Progressive is now permanently stricken from the list of vendors. My family and friends detest their commercials; now we have a couple of new reasons to detest the company and it’s management.
Oh, and by the way. If you have free time today you might want to connect to the progressive web site and request a bid. Don’t do business with them, but may them pay the up-front costs. If we all request bids at the same time (say, 12 noon Eastern time) every day, maybe we can crash their servers or get them to buy more servers. And then if they start mailing you material …
Thanks for the info. I was planning on shopping for insurance this week and now I know one company to avoid.
Interesting that the right doesn’t talk about boycotting Progressive over the political views of chairman Peter Lewis the way the left does over the religious beliefs of Chick-fil-A’s chairman. Seems like a great cause to me.
OK Progressive is out, and Geico’s owner (Buffet) is not much better. Where do I buy politically neutral insurance?
Amica. I’ve been a satisfied customer for 23 years and counting.
May I suggest USAA? LOTS of Veterans involved with it and insured by it. When AAA dropped me like a hot potato just before I deployed to Iraq (because I was deploying, as I understood it), I was able to get better insurance for less money from USAA in about half an hour.
I’m still insured with them to this day and they’ve been GREAT from start to finish.
Orion
USAA…great auto insurance at a resonable price. Home insurance, they are okk…they do their best to minmize the financial impact on their end. After a home flooding incident, they were a bit of a pain to deal with.
If you are planning to try to insure a motorcycle or other leisure vehicle (i.e. ATV) , I suggest you look elsewhere. USAA is quite expensive in that regard.
Had an experience with USAA where my Harley Davidson CVO vechile was run off the road by a truck. Had statements, all the insurance and other data exchanged, ect. USAA failed to compensate me for the 2000 dollars plus damage done to my bike. After that experience, I dumped them as my motorcycle insurer.
To be honest… when it comes to paying out NO insurance company is going to make it easy on you. They do their best to protect their financial interests, whether it is USAA or Progressive. None of them are saints.
The claims settlement process, like other transactions that involve exchanges of value, brings out both the best and worst in human nature. What claimants believe is an “open and shut case” for their claim may be far less clear-cut when viewed by a neutral observer. The degree of scrutiny applied on the insurer’s side will depend on the financial and career incentives of claims processing staff (determined by the insurer’s staff management policies), previous experience with the insured, and the facts associated with the particular claim. How the insurer responds will also be driven by the applicable state law which may either encourage or discourage litigious behavior. You won’t run into many insurance companies that treat your every claim as an ‘open and shut case’ in your favor because if they exist at all, they are on their way to insolvency due to financial gang rape by fraudulent claim artists.
I live in the UK (although I have a right to live and work in the US, by marriage; after November, who knows?) and I know about this. Progressive Insurance, you are idiots.
Congratulations on the Instalanche. I’ve had to do my share of leg-wrestling with insurance companies in the past, but it was always human error or bureaucratic inertia that I was up against. This sounds downright evil, from an industry that traditionally has had state governments in its deep pockets.
While some of you “red-staters” are bemoaning what causes the company gives to (which, btw is factually unimportant to the story- just more MSM inflammation) you neglect to ask the important question: WHO PUSHED THE PAPERS THAT MADE THIS WHOLE SCENARIO LEGALLY POSSIBLE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
I am going on a hunch and betting it was republican backed.
And I am going on to say the Insurance lobby had a LOT to do with it.
But by all means, let’s NOT ask the important questions…and continue to blame progressives/lefties for something clearly not at all their fault.
I’ll take that bet. The insurance industry in the United States is state regulated. As the article clearly states, this happened as a result of Maryland state laws. Maryland, a red state? Not a chance. You don’t like the law that impacts the case, blame the Democrats.
Hate to tell you that insurance is mandated and regulated by state laws. And having lived in Maryland for 7 years I can guarantee you it is anything but a “red” state.
Sir – I take back what I just said. After clicking on the “Submit Comment” key, it totally cleared up. I can read it. Please accept my sincere apologies!
No prob Kirk, I get that every now and again, on some browsers it seems to hesitate but the design works well with what I needed
Sir – I’ve got to tell you, this is probably the worst look for a blog that I’ve seen in 3-4 yrs. What were you thinking? Shit Brown background under impossible to read text? I can’t read it, so I don’t really care what the topic is about. Sorry!! Try taking some graphic arts classes, or something.
I’ve always been put off by the name of the company myself. I mean c’mon, you don’t see a lot of people with the label ‘progressive’ distinguishing themselves in positive ways on the internetz.
My condolences to Matt Fischer and his family on their tragic loss. No amount of money can ever replace a loved one, but this is about contracts and legal responsibilities. Shame that the company couldn’t see clearly enough do the right thing, but hey that’s what I expect from a progressive . They (and their shareholders) will suffer in the long run.
My condolences to Mr. Fischer and his family.
How very progressive of the insurer. Why do I suspect that if a company whose owner professed Christian beliefs had behaved this way it would be the lead story on all the networks.
This is the best place for lefty-whackos to get insurance!
They can pay the big premiums (Progressive is expensive compared to non-advertising companies),
Not get paid for claims, fight, still not get paid.
And then BONUS, have their premiums skimmed to support lefty causes.
Perfect scenario. Leftys DESERVE to be with Progressive.
I previously had Progressive auto coverage (I believe from about ’93 thru 2006). No problems, but having learned a couple years ago that their name accurately reflects the political persuasion and agenda of their owners, I’m VERY happy I left.
Picking another insure won’t help. I don’t have time to look up the Maryland law, but in South Carolina this is how underinsured cases are litigated by every insurer. The statutory provision is as follows. The underinsured motorist insurer does not defend until the at fault parties insurer has gotten a release or covenant not to execute. Their actions to not inure to the benefit of the at fault party.
38-77-160
No action may be brought under the underinsured motorist provision unless copies of the pleadings in the action establishing liability are served in the manner provided by law upon the insurer writing the underinsured motorist provision. The insurer has the right to appear and defend in the name of the underinsured motorist in any action which may affect its liability and has thirty days after service of process on it in which to appear. The evidence of service upon the insurer may not be made a part of the record. In the event the automobile insurance insurer for the putative at-fault insured chooses to settle in part the claims against its insured by payment of its applicable liability limits on behalf of its insured, the underinsured motorist insurer may assume control of the defense of action for its own benefit. No underinsured motorist policy may contain a clause requiring the insurer’s consent to settlement with the at-fault party.
I don’t believe you are correct. Those statutes do not appear to allow Fischer’s insurer to craftily decide to defend the man that hit you, in order to prevent THEM from paying Fischer. Progressive was not the other driver’s insurers–they were Fischer’s! The law simply means-unless you have a case on point– they are not obligated to “step up” till there was been some resolution of fault, etc. Do you really think Progressive was entitled to jump out of the waiting crowd and into the ring to help the other party–to “tilt the scales of justice” –by defending the man that caused the accident and to avoid paying their own insured! And the other man’s own carrier–the one at fault–had reportedly paid their limits to Fischer. How was that not an implied finding of fault? The only people fighting the policy holder at trial according to the blog were the man at fault–and the victim’s insurance company–progressive! That’s appalling! I’ll stick with Farmers, Fidelity or State Farm.
Not a bad point George, in terms of the story, on a macro level the real story here is that the Internet gives that individual the power to contest this case against a major insurer that he would not otherwise have.
I would not be surprised if other companies have been less that accommodating (my own Auto is through the Hanover and they have been VERY good). This episode is shows however the empowering nature of the internet and is a warning that in the modern market you are one bad customer service decision away from a PR nightmare.
“on a macro level the real story here is that the Internet gives that individual the power to contest this case against a major insurer that he would not otherwise have.”
Not to take away from the fact that Fischer’s case isn’t deserving or that the Intertubes gives us all a chance to make an impact. However, the post does make one think that anyone with a wee billboard on the information super highway and nothing else can go viral and make an impact. What doesn’t come out of this telling of the story is that Fischer is part of the Brian Sacks’ show (carried by Glenn Beck’s GBTV) so it isn’t as though he has no connections with larger internet media. Whether that connection helped him in the long run or not, I don’t know. I hope it did. But that fact must change the way we gauge the power of the otherwise mighty blog post.
I’ve had several insurers and dealt with others of those who have hit me. I can tell you that I am always relieved when the insurers have “Farm” somewhere in the name. The two you mention are both top notch in my experience.
you write as if the uninsured motorist and the at fault party were two different people, while they are here the same person.
Thus your comments do not seem to make sense.
Sounds like Flobot handles the social media at Progressive.
Liberals, progressives always fight the little guys. Progressive Insurance believes paying off progressive thugs and politicians would insure them from playing fair with the little guys.
Did Progressive or its subsidiary get any earmarked funds or special treaments from Obamacare? Has it or its subsidiary anything to do with the so-called insurance exchanges?
A blogger needs to investigate.
I echo Linda…GREAT post.
I am very sad for Mr. Fischer’s loss of his sister, and I am glad that he is able to get some satisfaction from getting the news out to people. I loved his response to the denial that Progressive didn’t represent his sister’s killer.
Yes, nice to know that the CEO has so much money to give to liberal causes. Jerk.
great post.