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.
Progressive Insurance is a disgrace and you MUST dump their insurance ASAP if you still have it.
Not only are they despicable in their business practices but they are huge Obama supporters and donors.
ping...
“Not only are they despicable in their business practices but they are huge Obama supporters and donors.”
That is correct. No one in their right mind should buy Progressive Insurance.
I'm sorry you guys had to go through all that.
I’m shocked!\s
same issues with United Health Care....
I’m sorry, but I would not buy, invest in, rent or associate with any business that had progressive in the title. For me the name “progressive” means cheat, rat,sneaky, leftist but, that’s just me.
Thank you for putting this out there.
Don’t most all insurance companies act like jerks.....
But this is progressive insurance....
Most libs are very generous with other people’s money, and extremely stingy with their own....
I’m sorry for your loss, surfer. I had a similar situation with my son. Geico piad in full on under our uninsured/underinsured coverage. It may have helped that we already had a lawyer.
Just the fact they want to place a driving monitor on your car is reason enough in my book to never, ever, consider them. And I have an excellent driving record, so that isn’t a consideration.
I tend to stay away from anything bearing the name “Progressive.” I’m sure that there might be an exception or two out there, but I’d bet that they are rare exceptions.
My son has this insurance, and I will suggest that he find another company,
I could point to any number of insurance companies (some of them very well known) that act the same way. I do not know what type of policy this person had but I am unfamiliar with an uninsured motorist coverage that pays the difference between what the other guy had and what the overall cost was. The uninsured motorist coverage (at least in my state) ONLY covers a specified amount for (usually 5 to 10 thous) property damage. Additional coverage can be purchased for medical costs and again that usually has a limit on it.
State Farm here. Over 30 years.
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
Once your sister's estate settled with the other guy's insurance - then all is said and done.
Either you mis-stated the facts or you were stupid.
Just to be perfectly clear this did NOT happen to my family. It happened to Matt Fisher’s family. I came across the blog entry and wanted to post it here for everyone to read.
Thanks for your comments I am sure Matt’s family would sincerely appreciate them.
If the other guy was not insured by Progressive, this act is probably an illegal breach of fiduciary duty by Progressive and an ethical violation by the attorneys involved.
Flo knows.....
And she’s just the stalking horse for the Fedgov.
Those with aggressive driving habits will have to be curbed for the good of the mother gaia....
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