Did Progressive auto insurance majorly screw over a Maryland family?
ProudProgressive
2012/08/16 11:41:13
For a change, a question that has nothing to do with politics or the 2012 Election. We hear stories all the time about the heartlessness of some insurance companies. But how about an insurance company defending the person responsible for the death of one of their insureds so they don't have to pay the policy amount?
Article excerpt follows:
Did Progressive auto insurance majorly screw over a Maryland family?
By Ned Hepburn
August 13, 2012
I'm not one to usually report on insurance matters but this caught my attention: in a blog post, a Maryland man accused Progressive Auto Insurance of screwing over his family after his sister was killed when someone ran a red light.
You can read the full text over at his blog, but we've excerpted the major stuff below:
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 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…
… 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.
Again, the blog is here,
http://mattfisher.tumblr.com/post/29338478278/my-sister-paid-...
but what do you readers think? Is this Progressive being an insurance company and following the rules or are they showing no heart?
Article excerpt follows:
Did Progressive auto insurance majorly screw over a Maryland family?
By Ned Hepburn
August 13, 2012
I'm not one to usually report on insurance matters but this caught my attention: in a blog post, a Maryland man accused Progressive Auto Insurance of screwing over his family after his sister was killed when someone ran a red light.
You can read the full text over at his blog, but we've excerpted the major stuff below:
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 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…
… 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.
Again, the blog is here,
http://mattfisher.tumblr.com/post/29338478278/my-sister-paid-...
but what do you readers think? Is this Progressive being an insurance company and following the rules or are they showing no heart?
Read More: http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/187109/did-progres...
Top Opinion
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tommyg - POTL- PWCM-JLA 2012/08/16 13:02:02
The family WILL sue over this.
Billionaires Peter Lewis and George Soros have each pledged $10 million to America Coming Together...A billionaire, Lewis is the chairman and chief executive officer of Progressive Corporation, the fourth-largest U.S. personal auto insurer, A leading U. S. business reference manual, Hoover's Handbook of American Business l999, actually described Lewis in print as "a functioning pot-head."... His house features an elaborate series of paintings of Chinese communist Mao Tse-tung by Andy Warhol. Lewis has contributed $5 million to the ACLU ...
You think that commercial where the girl Flo is on a big screen speaking to the masses is just a joke??? That's what they want...Big Brother communism
Certainly corporate avarice to the point of defending a killer just to save money is as non-communistic as you can get. I mean, this is even worse than Bain Capital driving businesses into bankruptcy and throwing thousands of people out of work just to increase a profit margin. Certainly no communism there.
Some of Lewis' other donations include:
Princeton University (A Gehry designed science library, $60 million; the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, $55 million; arts initiative, $101 million. Total $233 million to date.)
Case Western Reserve University (The Weatherhead School of Management Peter B. Lewis Building, another Gehry design, $36.9 million, out of $61.7 total building cost)
The Guggenheim Museum ($50 million)
Lewis is also a Trustee of Princeton University and the former Chairman of the Board of the Guggenheim Museum.
Second, I have never had an accident like this or known anyone that had. So, I don't know how insurance companies usually handle situations like this. But one thing I do know, insurance companies are in business to make money and part of that is doing everything they can legally do to avoid paying out huge amounts to the insured. So these companies do not have a heart AND they are, in all likelihood, following the rules or the court would have called them on it.
It is absolutely ludicrous that Progressive actually defended the person who appears to be at fault in this accident. I, and probably most people, would have thought they would be on the side of the person who's been paying them premiums all along but I guess that's not the case and it's apparently legal since Progressive was allowed to do it.
From what you say, it doesn't appear that Progressive did any thing illegal but they certainly may have done something immoral but that's not against the law. Unfortunately that isn't against the law and it probably happens more often than any of us realize.
as for me - I hope this thing goes viral and people flee Progressive in droves. that is the only thing these 'people' [aka corporations] understand: the bottom line.
and Progressive will not be the only corporation that will get the message. perhaps the next time a tragedy like this occurs, a company will weigh its options and opt for the human thing to do rather than the corporate thing to do because the alternative would be more expensive. as I say - - the only thing they understand . . . .
after all, my real name is Anne. and then there's Ann Romney . . . .