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http://mattfisher.tumblr.com/post/29338478278/my-sister-paid-progressive-insurance-to-defend-her


this is not my sister


My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court

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 gak 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.






this is absolutely disgusting

Insurance, just when you think it is uselful... wooops... fine print.

My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court

This threw me off a bit

Jihadin wrote:

My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court

This threw me off a bit

she paid for progressive insurance, and in the end, Progressive's lawyers defended her killer, not her, so they wouldn't have to pay out her full amount to the estate

And yet people think that for-profit insurance companies should be making decisions like this regarding their health care, too.

/hijacking

Well, it's an insurance company. Every last decision they make is inherently a cost-risk ratio. Obviously they thought the risk of bad press and cost of legal defense for the other guy was worth the risk of trying to not pay out a moment before they had to. Obviously, since we're reading about this on angry guy's blog and not a 24 hour news site, it did.

Frankly, if (as a company) I may have to pay out money based upon what a jury decides of someone I have nothing to do with, I'm probably going to do everything I can to make sure said person is properly represented. It 'makes sense'.


This still doesn't change the fact that it's an incredibly gakky position to be trapped in. I'd probably be pissed also.

For what it's worth, I have Progressive, and they've always been as good to me as one could expect an insurance company to be.


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Jihadin wrote:

My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court

This threw me off a bit

That kind of rhetoric always gets on my nerves. She did NOT pay an insurance company to defend her killer. She paid them for auto insurance.

daedalus wrote:Well, it's an insurance company. Every last decision they make is inherently a cost-risk ratio. Obviously they thought the risk of bad press and cost of legal defense for the other guy was worth the risk of trying to not pay out a moment before they had to. Obviously, since we're reading about this on angry guy's blog and not a 24 hour news site, it did.

Frankly, if (as a company) I may have to pay out money based upon what a jury decides of someone I have nothing to do with, I'm probably going to do everything I can to make sure said person is properly represented. It 'makes sense'.


This still doesn't change the fact that it's an incredibly gakky position to be trapped in. I'd probably be pissed also.

For what it's worth, I have Progressive, and they've always been as good to me as one could expect an insurance company to be.

well right now almost every forum I go to has a story about it up, and lots of people are disgusted. Even if 100 people drop them today and switch companies something will have been done.

Imagine if 100,000 people dropped them today and stated why they were. Change doesn't just happen, you have to make it happen

I just think about any other insurance company would likely do the same thing in the same situation. I mean, I really want to be more disgusted, but I'm just not surprised.

Corporate entities are self-serving by nature; they will always act in their own best interests to the fullest extent allowable by law.

fething awful story that mate.

What a bunch of mother fethers eh?

If the story is true (and there is no reason to doubt it), its pretty bad press for Progressive.

I know that when my policy with them expires, I will consider dropping them.

daedalus wrote:I just think about any other insurance company would likely do the same thing in the same situation. I mean, I really want to be more disgusted, but I'm just not surprised.

Corporate entities are self-serving by nature; they will always act in their own best interests to the fullest extent allowable by law.

I'm inclined to agree. As I understand it this was the series of events:

*Woman gets in car crash with dude.
*Dude's insurance pays out, but he isn't conclusively negligent.
*Woman has insurance that will pay out if the dude was negligent.
*Insurance doens't pay out because he hasn't yet been found negligent.
*Woman's family wants to sue insurance company for money. They can't because they aren't yet required to pay out, as the dude hasn't yet be found neligent.
*Woman's family sues dude to prove negligence.
*Dude being find negligent now equals a large loss for the company.
*Company wishes to prevent loss.
*Only way to prevent loss is for dude to win out in court.
*Company wishes for dude to win out court.
*Company Comes to conclusion that (PRICE_TO_DEFEND_GUY_IN_COUT*CHANCE_OF_LOSS) < (PAYOUT_ON_INSURANCE)
*Company defends dude in court.
*Dude found negligent.
*Company will now have to pay up.

In addition to losing a few fine, valuable customers.

Chongara wrote:

daedalus wrote:I just think about any other insurance company would likely do the same thing in the same situation. I mean, I really want to be more disgusted, but I'm just not surprised.

Corporate entities are self-serving by nature; they will always act in their own best interests to the fullest extent allowable by law.

I'm inclined to agree. As I understand it this was the series of events:

*Woman gets in car crash with dude.
*Dude's insurance pays out, but he isn't conclusively negligent.
*Woman has insurance that will pay out if the dude was negligent.
*Insurance doens't pay out because he hasn't yet been found negligent.
*Woman's family wants to sue insurance company for money. They can't because they aren't yet required to pay out, as the dude hasn't yet be found neligent.
*Woman's family sues dude to prove negligence.
*Dude being find negligent now equals a large loss for the company.
*Company wishes to prevent loss.
*Only way to prevent loss is for dude to win out in court.
*Company wishes for dude to win out court.
*Company Comes to conclusion that (PRICE_TO_DEFEND_GUY_IN_COUT*CHANCE_OF_LOSS) < (PAYOUT_ON_INSURANCE)
*Company defends dude in court.
*Dude found negligent.
*Company will now have to pay up.

no, the moral of the story is

even though you pay your insurance, it still doesn't matter. Why pay a company that is going to actually go against you in the end? Isn't insurance for when accidents happen? Well at least it used to be, now they are basically another big pharma. They want to collect and never pay.

now that is where the problem is. Everyone has insurance because they think if something happens they are covered. Well if you have Progressive you may want to look into it before something bad happens to you or your car.

that's all I wanted, I would hate for this to happen to anyone else

I knew it. I watched those Progressive TV ads, and I just thought "these guys probably screw somebody over on a regular basis."

Insurance companies being dishonest and trying to screw you over?


Naaaaahhhhhh.

They are such nice people.

DIDM wrote:
no, the moral of the story is

even though you pay your insurance, it still doesn't matter. Why pay a company that is going to actually go against you in the end? Isn't insurance for when accidents happen? Well at least it used to be, now they are basically another big pharma. They want to collect and never pay.

now that is where the problem is. Everyone has insurance because they think if something happens they are covered. Well if you have Progressive you may want to look into it before something bad happens to you or your car.

that's all I wanted, I would hate for this to happen to anyone else

I think it's generally understood that it's in any insurance companies best interest to pay as infrequently and as little as possible. This doesn't strike me as something that would be particularly unique to progressive. I mean insurance companies to exist to don't exist protect us, they exist to make money. They do that by defining the things they have to pay-out as narrowly as possible. You should go into insurance knowing you're going to have to fight tooth-and-nail for any sort of big payout. Assuming otherwise strikes me as kind of naive.

OK, seriously, explain me this


your insurance company defends the person who hit you and killed you.


I mean, are they the killers insurance or yours?


and as far as I can tell, they are not insured by the same company

Here's the explanation, put in form of a hypothetical situation:

Say you're "DIDM". Just a normal unassuming guy. For whatever reason, you have entered into a contract that if anything were to happen to someone, you had to owe their family a lot of money. The chances of this happening are infinitesimal, and it worked out well for you, cause, like, you only have to do it if the cause of what happened to the person was that someone else was being an absolute jackass.

Now the unthinkable happens! Something terrible befell your subject! And by a person who might be negligent too! Now there's two options you're faced with, do you:

A) Immediately pay out, regardless of what actually happened.
B) Get involved in the investigation.

If B, then how do you approach it from the means that protects your best interests while still looking for the end conclusion. Suppose that you have no faith in the offender to actually seek council. Suppose he can't actually afford it. Suppose then, in spite of this horrible thing that's happened, there was actually a chance that he WASN'T negligent after all. Suppose he insists on it, though he on a personal level is woefully under-prepared to defend himself as such. What do you do then?



Again, it sucks, but it's a legal matter, and all sense of morality becomes nonexistent when corporations and the legal system come into play, or rather, don't hate the player, hate the game.

Probably the result of too many laws that insurance companies have to follow.

We should try deregulating them, that will fix things.

daedalus wrote:Well, it's an insurance company. Every last decision they make is inherently a cost-risk ratio. Obviously they thought the risk of bad press and cost of legal defense for the other guy was worth the risk of trying to not pay out a moment before they had to. Obviously, since we're reading about this on angry guy's blog and not a 24 hour news site, it did.

Frankly, if (as a company) I may have to pay out money based upon what a jury decides of someone I have nothing to do with, I'm probably going to do everything I can to make sure said person is properly represented. It 'makes sense'.

Here's the thing, if you have a system in place where everyone does the thing that 'makes sense' and the end result is a really gak situation... then change the fething system.

Put a law in place that says 80% or 90% or whatever % is best of the premiums collected by insurance companies have to be paid out to customers in the next year. If not you send a refund out for whatever percentage you collected that you didn't actually need. Suddenly it won't 'make sense' for insurance companies to deny payment to people who clearly, rightfully deserve payment in the hope that they'll settle for a reduced amount to avoid being dragged through a trial.


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LordofHats wrote:I knew it. I watched those Progressive TV ads, and I just thought "these guys probably screw somebody over on a regular basis."

It was weird when I was in America and I saw those ads, because a couple of years ago progressive started up here. We have the exact same ads, like the same 'quirky' jokes and everything, except the girl in the ads here is this weird doppleganger Australian version of the girl in your ads. Like I thought it was the same girl at first. Hell, I thought it was the exact same ads for a second, 'til I realised in your versions had American accents.

They just reshot identical versions of the same ads, but with Australians in them.

LordofHats wrote:I knew it. I watched those Progressive TV ads, and I just thought "these guys probably screw somebody over on a regular basis."

I thought the same thing actually.

Yeah, Flo is way too cheerful for Progressive to not do stuff like this and murder kittens en masse as a corporate team building exercise every month.

I read about this before I went to work, and I'd like to hear more about Progressive's side of this. They claimed they didn't defend him in court. I suspect they would not have lied about something so easily shown to be a lie, which is why I am wondering if there is more to this story then what we have heard so far.

Ouze wrote:I read about this before I went to work, and I'd like to hear more about Progressive's side of this. They claimed they didn't defend him in court. I suspect they would not have lied about something so easily shown to be a lie, which is why I am wondering if there is more to this story then what we have heard so far.

http://mattfisher.tumblr.com/post/29432884849/today-in-response-to-my-blog-post-entitled-my

The follow up post from Mr. Fisher seems to make it pretty clear. I suppose a quick check of the court records would confirm/deny. I'd guess that Progressive is hiding behind a legal term here though.

http://www.progressive.com/understanding-insurance/entries/2012/8/14/statement_on_fisher.aspx

The statement from progressive doesn't say gak except it wasn't us. So unless someone has access to the minutes of the hearing or is more creative with public records searches then I am it's down to word of mouth here. That said I find it completely plausible that Nationwide furnished a lawyer, I'm not however sure why they would if they already payed out.

Yes, I read that earlier, and as I said, I doubt they would lie about something so blatant as so easily disproven. Maybe it's some "meaning of "is" is" type situation, sure. But I'm still going to withhold judgement on this for a little bit until more facts percolate.

Disclaimer: I am a Progressive customer, but feel no special loyalty - or aversion - to them, since my wife does all of that. My interactions with them are limited to simply letting her know the bill is due.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
edit: Looks like Progressive was certainly there, but not clear what their level of involvement was.

d-usa wrote:Probably the result of too many laws that insurance companies have to follow.

We should try deregulating them, that will fix things.

Wrong again.

Clearly, if this women had been packing a hand gun, she never would have been in an accident in the first place.





Also, we need a Troll Face Orkmoticon.

As an update,

Progressive has paid 100% of the claim, plus some. The exact amount is confidential though. Technically, they won a verdict against the driver, but it seems Progressive is paying their end and presumably will recover any funds actually recovered from the driver, if any, via subrogation.

Made the news did it?

After a few seconds research, this is apparently common practice and results from the inability to sue an insurance company directly, which also effectively means that any offer to pay out on a policy in an accident with an uninsured driver is necessarily at discretion. In essence, you may prove negligence on the part of the person being sued, but because you cannot directly challenge your contract with the insurance company they do not have to enforce it even if it is written into the contract.

So its a marketing ploy and nothing more.

The easy fix here would then seem to be allowing the direct suit of insurance companies.

 Ouze wrote:
I read about this before I went to work, and I'd like to hear more about Progressive's side of this. They claimed they didn't defend him in court. I suspect they would not have lied about something so easily shown to be a lie, which is why I am wondering if there is more to this story then what we have heard so far.

They didn't, their attournies did