Posted on 08/14/2012 9:57:45 AM PDT by surfer
Edited on 08/14/2012 10:00:28 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
I’ve been sending out some impertinent tweets about Progressive Insurance lately, but I haven’t explained how they pissed me off. So I will do that here as succinctly as possible. There’s a general understanding that says, “insurance companies— oh they’re awful,” but since Progressive turned their **** hose on my late sister and my parents, I’ve learned some things that really surprised me.
I’ll try to cleave to the facts. On June 19, 2010, my sister was driving in Baltimore when her car was struck by another car and she was killed. The other driver had run a red light and hit my sister as she crossed the intersection on the green light.
Now, I don’t discount the possibility that Katie was at fault in the accident, but it never really looked that way. The only witness who gave a statement on the day said that Katie had the light, etc. The totality of the evidence left some room for argument, but that will be the case any time there’s a catastrophic car accident that doesn’t happen underneath an array of video cameras.
One indication that the case was pretty open-and-shut was that the other guy’s insurance company looked at the situation and settled with my sister’s estate basically immediately. 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.
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.
Out of a sense of honor, and out of a sense of the cost of my sister’s outstanding student loans, my folks opted to try to go after the money through legal channels. At which point they learned another delightful thing. In Maryland, you may not sue an insurance company when they refuse to fork over your money. Instead, what they had to do was sue the guy who killed my sister, establish his negligence in court, and then leverage that decision to force Progressive to pay the policy.
Now my parents don’t harbor much venom for the guy who killed my sister. It was an accident, and kicking that guy around won’t bring Katie back. But kicking that guy around was the only way to get Progressive to pay. So they filed a civil suit against the other driver in hopes that, rather than going to court, Progressive would settle. Progressive did not. Progressive made a series of offers (never higher than 1/3 the amount they owe) and then let it go to a trial.
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.
The trial was a real shitshow for my parents, and I did not love it either. As it happens, the jury did find that the other driver was negligent, which, if justice or decency are priorities for Progressive, will result in them finally honoring Katie’s policy. At this point, I hope you’ll forgive me if I wait for it to actually happen.
Don’t buy insurance from Progressive. Not only will you be paying the salaries of people who put my family through the wringer (really a smaller wringer that Progressive attached to the main wringer of my sister’s death), but also when the chips are down, your money will have bought you nothing but a kick in the face.
A good moral here is that you never know if you’re getting a good “deal” on your insurance until it comes time to make a claim.
Actually my family has carried Arbella Insurance for decades. They are always there to answer any questions. Practically no wait time and they are swift with services/payment if an accident occurs. They’ve never disappointed us.
Note: We’ve never caused an accident, but they have handled a couple that were caused by others. Promptly, painlessly, and efficiently.
Progressive = Liberal
Always felt that way and I hate their commercials. Smug liberal talk.
Sorry for your loss!
They don’t call it Progressive for nothing. They’ll take your money, promise you the world, and when it comes time to collect its screw you.
My advice - make a video, stick to the facts on the video, use pictures of your sister, tell her story, show pictures of the process / documents procedings, etc.
Have it reviewed by your attorney prior to posting! You don’t want them coming back to you and taking you to court.
Post in on the Internet, put links to it out on every conservative blog you can contact. Try and get this to go viral.
You will also be putting money (via the Marxist billionaire owner and chairman Peter B. Lewis) into the hands of every left wing radical group in the country. I utter an obscenity with the initials FYF each and every time I see their commercials and that homely fake b***h in the white jump suit.
Guess you didn’t read the entire blog post. First of all it didn’t happen to my family. It happened to Matt Fisher (he was the author identified).
Second she contracted with Progressive for a policy that covered for under-insured motorists. Which means that Progressive has a contracted obligation to pay the estate the difference in amount to her covered value.
IMO you have an ax to grind with insurance companies, this blog post is specifically about Progressive insurance and obviously doesn’t apply to every insurance company since the other insurance company immediately paid their claim.
This is 100% about an insurance company using their lawyers to sleaze out of paying a contract obligation just because the cost of the in-house lawyers is cheaper than paying what they contracted to pay. Typical scumbag progressive, liberal thinking.
Too bad you didn’t take a little more time to understand this tragedy.
I want to put Obama under one of them with the caption:
“Do I look like I have a plan?”
Not all insurance. If you are in Columbus, OH, look up Phil Breakey with State Farm. He’s done right by my family for over 40 years. (I don’t get anything for this plug - he’s just been so good and honorable that he deserves the plug.)
Also been treated well by All State personally.
PS Yes, I’m sure they’ve made a healthy profit from me and mine. To which I say, GOOD!
It's an intrusion into your privacy. That's my basic reason for being against it. What you point out is addition reason to stay away from Progressive. Not to mention I turn the channel when Flo comes on...
Not all of them. Several years ago a motorist backed over my bicycle in a parking lot (it was locked to the side of a building), tried to leave the scene until a co-worker stopped him, then refused to provide me with his info until we called the police. He was insured by State farm. On my way home I purchased a new bike then called State Farm to tell them I would be submitting a claim. After I explained what happened they asked me to fax them the receipt for the replacement bike, and two days later a cheque was hand-delivered to my office.
If you’re in the position of qualifying for USAA and you haven’t taken advantage of that, you need to switch to them ASAP.
I believe you’re thinking of Hyatt Legal Services. Howard and his son in law Joel give shysters a bad name.
The Progressive data recorder is just a stalking horse.
Within 10 yrs you will need to have one just to get license plates or pass state inspection.
It’s far too good of an opportunity for govt to pass up.
Don’t most all insurance companies act like jerks.....
Not USAA. They are incredible. I had to use them three times in 2000 and they were professional and paid or got the car fixed quickly.
And that’s why we need to take this country back from the “Progressives” in both parties.
If this sad story doesn’t convince one to drop or give progressive a wide berth, consider the imagery....
Flo (enjoy her commercials) is talking to society.....all of society hawking “insurance.” This hawking is made possible by her announcement taking over every screen in every scene.
The “1984” and “Big Brother” imagery is not lost, and the little device they are pitching (hooks into the OBDC port) and shoots updates directly to the company servers is scary indeed. There is no privacy, acceleration, braking, speed, and a host of other data are all available to the company. like to brake late into and accelerate out of corners? Hard on the accelerator? Have a fender bender? a “bad” record of breaking overlaid onto a GPS map, and don’t expect much in the way of coverage....
Room 101
2 + 2 = 5!
We have USAA also. They were so wonderful as insurance agents that we now use their banking services as well.
They’ve got the best customer service in the world and have never let us down.
Too bad you didn’t take a little more time to understand this tragedy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Too bad the grief stricken family member was not writing concisely but with emotion. This story comes off very well as a bitter rant instead of providing factual details that support his complaints.
I only wish the family had retained an attorney BEFORE settling with the other guy’s insurance company. They still may have gotten ripped off - especially having a lawyer - but maybe the outcome would have been better.
I look out my work window and see the geico bldg. my co workers eat lunch there. their cafeteria is fox 24/7. progressive (hello?) is a liberal progressive org. never do business with them.
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