Not sure if you have been following the latest corporate shitshow fail parade, but Progressive insurance has apparently taken PR notes from the Komen Foundation:
My favorite things about this are the sociopath in the CBS video explaining this is what insurance companies have to do to keep their shareholders happy, and the fact that Progressive is completely lying about supplying a lawyer for this woman’s killer.
Southern Beale
Schadenfreude. Cuz I fucking hate those “Flo” ads with a PASSION. Give me that stupid Geico lizard with the Cockney/Aussie/HellWhoKnows accent a thousand times over.
Jay in Oregon
Life imitates art, kinda.
Nathan Ford, the ex-insurance-guy-turned-thief in Leverage, burned out and quit his job when the insurance company he worked for denied coverage for medical treatment for his son, who later dies of cancer.
The show isn’t “ripped from the headlines” kind of timely, but their stories draw from real events.
jharp
I used to think Progressive was a fairly hip company. They used to insure those that no one else would and made money at it.
I used them in Detroit in the 80’s when my driving record sucked.
And wasn’t their C.E.O. a dope head and a world wide sailor?
HEY YOU
I’m not eating at Chick-Fil-A. Now I’m moving from Progressive
I think I can vote with my dollar.
Maude
@jharp:
I had them a long time ago and they were a good company. The ins. place next door used to be Progressive and now it’s Travelers.
the Conster
Oh fuck me in half. It’s a full time job keeping track of all the companies with asshole CEOs. Maybe it’s the CEOs.
In b4 Villago Delenda Est.
Bobby Thomson
I’m sure it looks the same way to the dead woman’s brother, but it doesn’t look as though Progressive represented the other driver, who had his own lawyer through Nationwide. Progressive’s interests were aligned with the other driver because they both wanted to point the finger at the insured dead woman, and both for the same reason: to avoid paying money. But that’s not the same thing as the Progressive lawyer representing the other driver.
All insurance companies make a cost-benefit calculation when they have an arguable defense to coverage, and have to weigh the litigation costs and reputational risks of so doing. Some companies have chosen to brand themselves as people who won’t always try to screw you on the back end. The brother is doing his best to change the calculus by going public.
Southern Beale
@Jay in Oregon:
I love “Leverage.” Didn’t know his backstory tho, came into the show late …
Villago Delenda Est
@Bobby Thomson:
The cost-benefit analysis is purely one of spreadsheets.
There are some things that money can’t buy. Like a reputation.
Progressive has pissed theirs away on the altar of Mammon.
Ron
Part of the problem is with Maryland law that a)doesn’t allow the victim to sue the insurance company and b)apparently says that if you are even 1% at fault you are entitled to nothing.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bobby Thomson:
The cost-benefit analysis is purely one of spreadsheets.
There are some things that money can’t buy. Like a reputation.
Progressive has pissed theirs away on the altar of Mammon.
Southern Beale
@Bobby Thomson:
Oh fer fuck’s sake. Utter bullshit. You sign a policy, you pay your premium, you have a claim and they’re supposed to PAY UP.
They’re not supposed to make a cost-benefit calculation as to which side of an accident reaps greater rewards to their bottom line. If that’s how it works then they should be PUT OUT OF BUSINESS.
JGabriel
__
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the Conster:
Might be easier to keep track of the ones without them.
Here’s a list to get you started:
.
BobS
@Bobby Thomson:I understand what you’re saying, but it seems somewhat of a distinction without a difference.
And they did seem to miscalculate on a grand scale the relative costs and benefits of trying to weasel out of their responsibility.
TS
Whatever the result – why do these companies prefer to spend money in court than pay out on a policy. This happened in 2010 – so 2 years and who knows what costs later – the court rules the same way as the initial witnesses at the scene.
BobS
@Bobby Thomson:I understand what you’re saying, but it seems somewhat of a distinction without a difference.
And they did seem to miscalculate on a grand scale the relative costs and benefits of trying to weasel out of their responsibility.
Carl Nyberg
I had a lawyer defend Progressive’s action in this matter.
He was also the attorney that got a multi-million dollar judgment for a cable company against a guy who was basically a loser who stole cable signals for himself and others.
Corporations justify bad behavior b/c it’s profitable.
Well, some bad behavior kinda loses you business.
What’s the fucking point of paying for an insurance policy, if the company isn’t going to pay?
And any company run by people who didn’t see this case as a PR problem…
Beyond having shitty ethics, they aren’t making good decisions.
GOM
@Ron:
I don’t think that is part of the problem, it is the problem. This is a pretty good example of what happens when tort reform in enacted.
This situation would never occur in California, for example.
Villago Delenda Est
I apologize for the multiple posts, got another hang and a gazillion damn posts show up. FYWP.
opie_jeanne
The guy in the suit who speaks for Progressive said, “This is allowed.”
Maybe so, but it’s still indecent.
Bobby Thomson
@Southern Beale: That was a positive statement about how the world works, not a normative statement about how it ought to.
jl
@Southern Beale:
I do not see how the insurance company has any business intervening in a trial on their own behalf, in opposition to their own client, in a proceeding that will make the finding of fact that determines whether or not their client has a valid claim.
It seems like a very clear conflict of interest to me. Why was Progressive’s lawyer not kicked out of the courtroom?
I guess, as the talking head expert says in the video, the law is an ass, and permits it.
I have a contract with an insurance company to pay me X bucks of event A happens. There is a dispute about whether A has happened. My insurance company injects itself in the trial to argue that event A did not in fact happen.
Do I understand that correctly?
I do not see how the insurance company has any business being involved in the trial, unless there is a good reason to believe that the insurance company has better information about whether event A happened than other parties in the case. I do not see how that could be the case here.
Is there anything I misunderstand?
Cheap Jim
Wow, an insurance company thought of profit over people. What a fucking surprise.
THAT’S THEIR BUSINESS, IDIOT!
TS
@opie_jeanne:
Rather like Mitt saying he’s paid all that he legally has to pay – indecent that the % of tax he pays is somewhere between 0 and 13.
Those business guys really like loopholes – R & R will never get rid of them.
cathyx
@Villago Delenda Est: Keep going, I think you may have the record. Just a couple more.
Ben Franklin
@Villago Delenda Est:
WTF is it with wordpress? Is it the software or the server….Christ!
The Republic of Stupidity
@efgoldman:
And proud owner of one of the ugliest toupees I’ve seen in quite a while…
cathyx
@jl: Pete Rose did something similar to this and now he’s not in the hall of fame for it.
sharl
PROGRESSIVE tried spinning this on their own blog a couple days ago; commenters weren’t buying it.
Follow-up posted today says they settled with Kaitlynn Fisher’s family; commenters still (mostly) ripping them.
[It appears that Flo has quite a fan base out there, although this sordid incident may thin out her fan club a bit…]
different-church-lady
I don’t trust insurance companies. But I’m not sure I trust CBS either.
Kolohe
Peter Lewis has contributed to ACLU, Move On, and the Democratic party, but burn the heretic. BURN HIM!!!!
Villago Delenda Est
@Ben Franklin:
I’ve been getting messages that indicate it’s the server, things about the database.
honus
@Ron: That 1% rule is known as contributory negligence and is a fairly recent thing in Maryland. (1997 I think) For years there were only two contributory negligence states, Virginia and Alabama, and they were considered aberrations. Now there are apparently 5: those two, DC, Maryland and North Carolina. Contributory negligence was the early common law until about 50 years ago, and then virtually every jurisdiction dropped it. Now it appears that the trend is reversing. The insurance companies of course love CN.
Bobby Thomson
@jl: If there’s a dispute over coverage, and big numbers are involved, there’s generally going to be a trial (or at least a threat of one) to determine whether Event A actually occurred; i.e., whether there is, in fact, a claim (and, if so, whether the policyholder did something that nonetheless allows the carrier to get out of coverage).
If that coverage trial was combined with the trial between the two drivers, it presumably was consolidated for perceived efficiency reasons.
Darkrose
@Southern Beale: Make sure you watch Season 1 in the intended order–not the aired order. The season finale is utterly brilliant.
Kolohe
The funniest part? This was Glenn Beck’s outrage du jour (because Lewis is a political ally of Soros) before the lefty blogosphere started to pick it up
http://www.glennbeck.com/2012/08/14/nightmare-b-s-of-a-s-matt-fisher-details-how-progressive-insurance-will-defend-your-killer-in-court-in-order-to-not-pay-you-your-policy/
Cheap Jim
@Kolohe: How much, and how much did he contribute to other entities?
Not that it matters. He’s in insurance, which is a business based on taking small amounts regularly from folks and fighting like a wolverine against ever paying out. It’s how the damn thing is done.
Oh, and buying enough regulators that they go easy on you in a pinch.
jl
The morality and ethics of this case are very bad.
But, in case anyone cares about the economics of it, unless there is nearly a slam dunk case that the insurance company has better evidence about who was responsible for the accident that anyone else, this kind of corporate interference in the trial will end up just a tool to avoid paying claims, and is exactly the kind of corrupt rent seeking in the financial sector that has harmed out economy.
As for cost benefit analysis, the insurance company is supposed to do that correctly when the insurance contract is signed, BEFORE the accident happens.
If the insurance company cannot do that cost benefit analysis correctly, then the shareholders will get lower returns, and they should make changes in the management to get the problem fixed.
So the cost benefit analysis angle is not good economics.
Funny how the ‘expert’ in the clip is all worried about various stakeholders versus the sacred holy contract between the company and the policy holder when the corporation has to pay out some dough.
This experts first comment in the clip was OK, but I think he went way off base and was making BS excuses for corrupt corporate behavior in his second comment.
Todd
There was a case locally that is the perfect example of the mendacity of large corporations and their insurers. Basically, a 13 year old went to spend the day at a Six Flags amusement park. She went on one of the “big” rides, a tower contraption that raised at least 20 passengers 177 feet before dropping them to the ground; their feet dangled. Due to a failure of the park to perform the daily check on the cable for a lengthy period, a micro fracture expanded and the cable snapped during operation; the result was a whip snap of the cable, severing both of the girl’s feet due to her placement on the ride.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-22-ride-accident_N.htm
She had done nothing wrong.
Over the intervening years, they stonewalled paying the girl. With each new denial, each new attempt to slough liability off to the innocent manufacturer, new stories came out. Oddly enough, with each new story, attendance flattened, and then plummeted. I refused to let my kids go, and my peers were similarly disposed. Eventually, the place folded.
jl
@Bobby Thomson: Thanks for that clarification. In this case I think there may be a conflict between efficiency in terms of court costs and economic efficiency, if the insurance company lawyer was allowed to participate in finding of fact regarding who what to blame for the accident.
scav
Kolohe’s principles seems to hover between a) do the opposite of what the right does, updated daily; and b) support mindlessly anyone that contributes to a blue list of approved causes. I’m more along the lines of, if the tinder is sufficiently dry . . . . bring matches.
Jay in Oregon
@Southern Beale:
Yeah, the first season sets that up and pays it off when he goes after his former employer.
Smiling Mortician
@opie_jeanne: The guy
in the suitwith the dancing horse who speaksfor Progressiveutter bullshit about his taxes said, “This is allowed.”Maybe so, but it’s still indecent.
FTFY
Chyron HR
@Kolohe:
He contributed to the Democratic party, so he must be a holy man! Burn the heretics who dared to criticize him! BURN THEM!
Kolohe
@Cheap Jim:
Here’s the list, make of it what you will.
@scav:
I just think it’s hi-larious and the breaking of either the fifth or sixth seal to see Glenn Beck and Mr. Cole on the same side of an issue. Probably hasn’t happened since 2003 or so.
scav
the lace gloves and passive aggressive petunia stage.
sigh.
Keith G
So I take it that not many people here have been involved in a civil trial where multiple lawyers from multiple insurance companies work to decide/shirk liability.
Fun times.
This episode seems tame.
honus
@jl: It’s odd to me that the insurance company was even allowed to appear at the trial. I’ve never practiced in Maryland, but the five other states where I’ve practiced refuse to allow any mention of insurance; it can be grounds for a mistrial. The courts maintain the fiction that the insurance companies don’t exist.
In addition to having contributory negligence, Virginia has no insurance bad faith. This differs from most states in that bad faith allows the policy holder to collect the difference between the policy limits and a jury award if the insurance company refused to settle for policy limits and the jury awards more than the policy limit (an “excess verdict”). It sounds like that is what is going on in this case since the jury awarded 700k and the policy was for 100k and Progressive is now trying to “settle” the claim. Of course in my experience it would be king hell bad faith if the insurance company hired a lawyer to go after its own insured.
Kolohe
@scav:
Well, Obama killed another half dozen people in Afghanistan today, but nobody hates him. But your company denies one insurance claim, suddenly you’re public enemy number one.
Shalimar
Nowhere near as bad as this, but my sister had Progressive insurance around 8 years ago when an uninsured motorist hit her. The guy didn’t have ID, so they took him to jail, but the computer was down and they let him go before finding out the name he gave them was false and there were warrants for his arrest under his real name.
The accident was completely his fault, no doubt at all, and the police report reflected that. But Progressive refused to pay for her injuries (2 nights in a hospital and back-related trauma which added up to roughly $15k). Not only that, but they did pay for a lawyer for the guy who hit her, and paid for him to leave the country for his native Panama so he could avoid appearing in court.
Just an incredibly underhanded company, I would never get insurance from them after her experience. They chose to help an uninsured felon because it was cheaper than doing the right thing for the person who had been paying them premiums for years.
honus
@GOM:
“I don’t think that is part of the problem, it is the problem. This is a pretty good example of what happens when tort reform in enacted.”
Bingo. See my comment about bad faith law at #48. Part of tort reform is doing away with bad faith law.
Martin
Was fortunate enough to have a grandmother who was an officer in the Army during WWII. Have never had insurance with anyone other than USAA. Love USAA.
replicnt6
As perverse as this seems, and I hate it, I don’t really see how it could play out much differently given the interests of the parties involved.
The woman had coverage for an un- or under-insured driver. That means if she has an accident and as a result, has a claim claim against the other driver, Progressive will cover the shortfall of the claim after what the other driver’s insurance (together with the other driver?) pays out. If it were a simple property claim, the amount of the claim would generally be clear, but in this case, how much is Progressive on the hook for at the outset? I don’t think there’s a standard for how much a human life is worth.
So part of the point of the trial is not just to determine culpability, but to determine the damages. So you sue the other driver (and his insurance co), and what they can’t pay, Progressive will pay. Well, now Progressive’s interests are squarely aligned with the other driver and his insurance company. In particular, they have a _lot_ more at stake than the other insurance co, who were only on the hook for $20K. So does Progressive stand by, and let a trial go forward with possibly shitty representation of the defendant (presumably the other insurance co didn’t even provide counsel)? Are they responsible if the defendant settles? Represents himself?
The point is: how much should they have paid out? Whatever the family wanted? Less? As soon as you’re asking that question, Progressive and the family are effectively in an adversarial relationship.
I suspect that this is not all that unusual. I look forward to hearing from burnsie about this.
I will also point out that Progressive have been complete and utter assholes in dealing with the fallout.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Southern Beale: I am a fan of AllState’s Mayhem myself.
Cheap Jim
@Kolohe: Like I said, not that it fucking matters. And no, I didn’t tread whatever it is you linked to. It’s insurance. The business model is parasitic.
Popeye
There’s nothing shittier than realizing that someone’s financial incentives are directly aligned with your misery. I get pissed when I go to the vet and realize that my pet’s illness is an opportunity for him to rake in some cash.
And it can’t be fun to watch lawyers fight over how much money your family should get after your sister gets killed by a negligent driver.
But:
1. An insurance company offering legal representation to a negligent driver who killed someone: this is actually required by law. Drivers are required to buy auto liability insurance and their insurers are required to provide them with legal representation. And of course the killer’s insurer is not just legally responsible for providing a zealous legal defense; the insurer has a financial incentive to argue that the killer was not liable.
2. In this case the killer’s insurance policy was fairly small, and the killer was not a rich man. However, the victim had purchased underinsured motorist coverage, which basically amounts to her buying an additional insurance policy for her killer. This increases the potential recovery for damages, but it also means that her own insurance company had a legal and financial interest in her killer being found not liable.
3. A similar conflict of interest could have arisen in a number of other ways. For example, the killer may also have been a Progressive customer, in which case Progressive would have actually paid for the killer’s entire legal defense. The way the system works is that lawyers handle each side’s interests and either a settlement is reached or a case goes to trial and a jury decides.
Cheap Jim
@replicnt6: Interests of the parties involved?
How about we start with the dead woman? The one who wisely provided for having an incident with an underinsured driver? Hah? She paid the goddam bills; why did the company balk? And who the devil at Progressive is dead that they have a moral leg to stand on for heming and hawing for years?
(I should probably add that I have never myself filed an insurance claim of any sort; I just don’t trust the bastards.)
Bulbous O'Flaherty
As an attorney who’s been doing personal injury cases for 23 years, and who is sick to fucking death of right wing assholes and reptilian slime-ball defense lawyers getting away with characterizing injured people as “just out to get money,” it warms my dark and shriveled little heart to see a news story characterizing these soulless thrice-damned pricks who’d fuck their own mothers in the ass to save a few bucks for their companies as the sociopathic assholes they are.
honus
@replicnt6: Actually, it sounds highly unusual, and violates the bad faith and unfair claims settlement practices law of most states. If the facts as described are accurate, it sounds like tort reform has run amok in the Free State.
Jay in Oregon
@Darkrose:
The S1 season finale had a very Thomas Crown Affair vibe to it. Very fun.
I’m a fan of show creator John Rogers for many reasons (the 27% “Crazification Factor” and the astute observation about Atlas Shrugged and Lord of the Rings being two minor ones) but I’ve seen them filming around Portland and the Willamette Valley for the better part of the year.
This season’s premiere “The (Very) Big Bird Job” was mostly filmed about 15 minutes from where I live, and “The First Contact Job” was filmed about 10 minutes from where I work, on the PSU campus.
There was part of an episode filmed on the waterfront last season, where I actually caught sight of one of the actors. Sadly, Christian Kane was too far away for me to say hi or anything…
danah gaz (fka gaz)
Arg. I’m insured with Pemco, but we signed for broad-form coverage, which gives us coverage when we drive any vehicle. We need it, for various reasons, but few agencies offer it. Pemco does not, but contracts with Progressive in order to provide it.
I’m conflicted. Anyone that knows how Pemco operates knows why it would be a terrible idea to switch after being with them for years. The only option we have, is to either abandon our broad-form coverage (taking Progressive out of the loop) or go with a different agency, if there even is one we can afford that offers this type of coverage – as I said, not many provide that.
meh.
Popeye
@Cheap Jim: How much money should Progressive have paid the woman’s family? She paid the goddam bills, so what exactly did that entitle her to? Who decides if there is a disagreement?
The answer in this particular case turned out to be a jury that listened to various lawyers and determined that the appropriate amount was about $760,000 plus legal fees.
What’s the better way to handle this?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Popeye: The family got what it was due, IMO.
Progressive could have handled things better. Obviously it was a PR disaster for them, and they will hopefully reconsider how they handle situations like this in the future.
replicnt6
@Cheap Jim: Why did the company balk at doing _what_ exactly? What do you think they should have paid out? Hemming and hawing for years? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you are ever involved in a civil suit, be really, really, thrilled if it’s done in two years.
I have no sympathy for insurance co’s. I think they’re generally scumbags. But in this particular case, as perverse as it seems, just doesn’t seem like egregious behavior.
As for the dead woman’s interests: well, I don’t think she has any. But that premium she paid is paying off. Without it, they’d have gotten virtually nothing for their claim.
replicnt6
@honus: So how would this case work in most states?
ETA: IANAL, in case that’s not obvious.
dmbeaster
Cannot join the rant on this one. If there was a legitimate dispute about fault for the accident, then the insurance company had every right to dispute at a trial that fault question. That is, after all, what decides whether it owes $100,000. How should that question be decided?
I am going to assume that the real outrage here was that there was a threadbare basis for disputing coverage in the first instance. Some states (dont know about this one) allow a punitive damage case against insurance companies that frivolously deny coverage of claims by their own policyholders. I suspect that might be true here, since fault in red light cases is usually clear. If there were witnesses, they tend to know the color of the light (since they are sitting there watching it) and are stunned by a collision of this force when someone blows through the red light.
E.
IAAL. What happened here is the victim’s family sought recovery in two places: the driver, and the sister’s policy. In a normal world a normal insurance company would have recognized the value of her 25 year old life vastly exceeded the 100k limits and paid it immediately. But some shitskull bean counter decided maybe it was sort of her fault and maybe it would be worth paying an attorney to duke that out. If there had been no other driver, say she hit a falling meteorite, the family would have sued the insurance company for not paying up — a bad faith claim. But as there was another driver, there was nowhere else for Progressive to be than on his side of the courtroom.
The thing is, Progressive should have figured out waaaay early on what a loser this was for them. 100k is peanuts for a dead 20-something creamed by an SUV with witnesses. Christ. They are getting what they deserve and I hope this story sticks, because as far as I am concerned Progressive’s rotting corpse can swing away in the wind to serve as a warning for the others.
Good job blogger brother. Your sister would be proud.
Popeye
@E.:
I’m not a lawyer, but can you explain how a falling meteorite would have triggered an underinsured motorist policy?
Progressive was obligated to pay the victim’s family hundreds of thousands of dollars because she had purchased the underinsured motorist coverage and the killer was underinsured. If she gets hit by a meteor, why does Progressive have to pay her anything?
Mike
It’s a shame. The majority owner of Progressive Insurance is actually a progressive and is a huge donor to progressive causes and politicians… hence the name of the company. They are well known to be excellent employers and treat their employees well. Then they pull this shit… terrible.
Popeye
Actually, it’s a shame that a Glenn Beck acolyte was able to whip progressives into a frenzy simply because they don’t understand how car insurance works. Oh well.
Triassic Sands
Jack Ford, just another vulture in good standing in our vulture capitalistic system. Carrion (aka just plain old people) beware.
scav
@Kolohe: and the shifting goal post stage. GSD this one’s phoning it in.
Cheap Jim
@replicnt6: The dead woman has no interests? Man, that’s hardcore cold-blooded and I would want nothing to do with anyone claiming to be a human being who thought that was just.
And, again, I have never, God help me, ever been in the position where I felt I had to make a claim to an insurance company. All the stuff here makes me feel more and more blessed that I have never been in that hideously in-advantageous position. Pettifogging leaches, they seem to me, the lot of them.
E.
@Popeye, UM/UIM policies can be pretty broad — they cover you even if you aren’t in a car — but yeah, okay, it’s most likely a different policy that would protect you from an act of God that happened while you were driving. Whatever. In either case, the insurance company could refuse to pay and fight you, and when that happened in this case, that put them on the side of the driver. Progressive was not as you say obligated to pay her family hundreds of thousands of dollars, they were obligated to pay her family up to the limits of her policy – 100k. As another commenter said, when it’s a red-light issue with good witnesses, fighting such a case is idiotic because there is no doubt her life was worth more than the policy limits and when it hits the press it sours everyone on the whole industry. Another commenter said they should do the math when they write the policy, and I agree. What’s the possibility that a given insured will get run down and killed? That’s how you set the price. Then when it happens you pay the eff up.
Cheap Jim
@Kolohe: What the fuck does that have to do with the Progressive insurance company, shitheel?
Matthew Reid Krell
@jl: This. Why are the only people ever allowed to suffer consumers/workers/the little people in all their forms?
Marc
@Cheap Jim:
The witless one apparently thinks that sneering at Obama is a ritual requirement. Or that there is no such thing as a war, or that presidents are never in the position where any decision that they make will cost some people their lives.
kc
That’s SOP for an auto insurance company on an uninsured or underinsured claim. Not saying it’s right, just saying that’s how it is.
chuck butcher
Insurance policies vary from state to state, in mine the uninsured/under-insured covers the difference up to my policy limit. Thanks to being in business I’ve had huge policies – $1M liability and other assorted crap. Any policy I’ve ever had covered me as an incidental driver of a vehicle that was not mine or under my direct control – ie, I borrow your car to go to the grocery store because mine is in the shop today.
Progressive covers my 50COE dump bed because at 24K GVW it won’t go on my car insurance. Horrid expensive and soon to be gone along with the truck so I won’t ditch Progressive just yet.
Maybe I can say something nice about an industry that I, in general terms, loath – I backed the Harley into a pole and dented the rear fender and broke the tail light. Not so bad? Well, when it is a Screaming Eagle Springer Softail CVO bike, one of a handful, it is bad and completely my stupid ass fault. After the $500 deductible, I got $1200 check to Harley. One phone call, three email pics, and a call back from Safeco and the check was in the mail. Not a single quibble, color me surprised.
opie jeanne
@jl: It was a piddly amount, in the realm of insurance claims. $100 grand. Should have just paid it.
opie jeanne
@Smiling Mortician: That too.
arguingwithsignposts
Don’t most states require you to have uninsured/underinsured as part of your auto insurance?
chuck butcher
@arguingwithsignposts:
I’ve been in OR for 25yrs but over time: WI, MI, OH, CA, OR all did. Seems to me I got charged for it, too.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Kolohe:
And everyone who got ripped off by Bernie Madoff should have kept their damn mouths shut because he was donating some of his ill-gotten gains to Democrats and the ACLU.
JR in WV
@Bobby Thomson:
FU and your defence of immoral and depraved insurance companies. They have bought and paid for legislation that makes it illegal for policyholders to sue them… this is why the family of the victim was suing a guy completely unable to pay any damages.
They have bought and paid for legislation that keep regulation of global companies at the state level where they can buy insurance commissioners for pennies on the dollar.
When my father died, he had two (relative small) life insurance policies with his grandchildren as beneficiaries to help pay for their college educations. The company actually had the gall to tell my brother to provide DNA analysis to prove that his sons were his father’s grandsons and entitled to the insurance money.
Fortunately he had money and access to a lawyer to tell those MFers where to get off! But it took months, and cost a lot of money.
No morality, no ethics, do anything to keep YOUR money for their benefit.
So F**K your defence of totally amoral monsters keeping other peoples’ money when they most need it.
How about post-Katrina when they wouldn’t pay for damages from that hurricane, because, they said, it was obvious that the damage was from the flood, and those poor people didn’t have flood insurance, they just had hurricane insurance. Ethics of a rabid weasel!
We drove through the southern Mississippi delta years later, and the houses all had blue tarps for roofing, years later, because their insurance wouldn’t pay them a nickel.
Insurance companies are land sharks in $8,000 suits. There is no punishment sufficient for what they do to people who have suffered the loss of their homes, their parents, their loved ones, paid premiums for years, and told, well, paragraph c(14)e-FU says we don’t have to pay if you’re crying, so go away and stop bothering us while we have dinner with the Governor and the Chief Justice.
And it’s illegal to sue them. Thanks for all the justice, we will be sure to enjoy it.
edmund dantes
The reason why Progressive jumped in on this one was because they were trying to squeeze through the contributory negligence 1% loophole that exists in Maryland.
1. Accident happens.
2. Man ran redlight.
3. His insurance paid off to his limits.
4. Woman’s family goes to Progressive to have them pay off on their underinsured claim.
5. Progressive says “no”.
6. Means Woman’s family has to go after Redlight guy to prove he was at fault thus making Progressive have to kick in legally.
7. Progressive thinks Nationwide lawyer probably not going to mount the best defense since they’ve already paid their skin in the game.
8, Progressive, since Maryland has 1% loophole, says “we want to be associated defence” since we are the ones on the hook. Technically not the Redlight guys lawyers, but both trying to get at the same result.
9. Progressive then tries it’s darndest to get Jury to see even 1% fault of Woman that died.
Now maybe, if you wanted to be generous and were in a forgiving mood, you’d make a case Progressive was just doing it’s job arguing about something where it’s 50/50 negligence underinsured coverage.
But to jump into it and try to angle for even 1% fault so you get out of paying off?
Be a fucking human.
TenguPhule
No matter what Mitt Romney says, Corporations are not people, my friends.
Ruckus
@JR in WV:
Similar to CA after the Northridge earthquake. Had a friend whose house burned down, caused by the quake. His and everyone else in his position’s insurance companies decided not to pay because the cause of the fire was not covered by insurance. The CA insurance commissioner made them pay on the basis that they had fire insurance which would pay for any fire other than arson. They got an new house. Of course a few years later a wildfire burned down the second house as well. It doesn’t make me feel particularly good but I have figured that I’m not close to being the most unlucky person I know.
Ruckus
@TenguPhule:
Of course they aren’t human. They are way above humans on the how important a species are you scale.
/conservatard
Death Panel Truck
@different-church-lady: I trust neither the media nor the insurance companies, but this isn’t going to make me switch my motorcycle insurance from Progressive to another company. They’re all fucking crooks.
Someone above complained about the Flo commercials. They don’t annoy me half as much as Geico, State Farm or Farmers ads. Especially Geico. I wish somebody would run over that goddamned gecko already. At least they finally dropped the fucking Caveman shit.
texpope
I can already hear the song …
“Nationwide is on your side …
And Progressive is on theirs.”
sherparick
The guiding principal that all corporations hide behind is what Milton Friedman wrote in 1970, when that generation of CEOs, who had come of age during the Great Depression, New Deal, and WWII were into “corporate responsibility.”
“The CEO’s responsibility qua CEO is to conduct the business in accordance with the desires of the owners, “which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom.”
Of course, as any lawyer and sociologist could have told Milton, the both the boundaries of the law and ethical custom are very gray and change with time. Hence, it appears to be perfectly legal and ethical for the head of large financial institutions to run “control frauds,” which allows them to make money for themselves and shareholders in the short term. For the shareholders who are not quick enough to get in an out, well, Milton did not say “all” shareholders. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/no-criminal-case-is-likely-in-loss-at-mf-global/
So, Progressive is behaving an appropriate sociopathic corporation. For example, there is this bank run by our British cousins. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-15/standard-chartered-sued-by-victims-of-1983-barracks-bomb.html And our elite, which on CNBC and other business news outlets has been in vigourous defense of Standard Charter Bank and severe criticism of the New York Bank Regulator, Bernard Lawsky, who held them to account.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/16/us-standardchartered-lawsky-idINBRE87F05B20120816
It is also a sad fact that as long as President Obama has Tim Geithner as his Secretary of Treasury, banks can do no wrong and can never be to big. (That does not mean that the alternative would not be far worse, but it is still a choice between “bad” and “absolute evil” is not great.
bg
Unfortunately, what Progressive did is no different from what every insurance company does (I’ve seen worse, believe it or not), so you may as well keep your Progressive policy and have some of what they rip off from you go to progressive causes, rather than to Karl Rove’s super pac
PJ
People need to understand that the interests of an insurance company are rarely aligned with that of a policy holder. The purpose of an insurance company is to make money; every time it pays out on a claim, it is losing money. So the insurance company will do everything possibly legal to avoid paying when it believes it is in its interests to do so. Do not think that when you are buying a policy, you are paying for their prompt payment in the event of an accident; what you are paying for is the right to sue the insurance company.
John M
This seems like a dumb gamble on the part of Progressive. Rolling the dice in a wrongful death case, where the at-fault driver appears to have run a red light, with only a $100,000 policy at issue, is just dumb, and the result seems to have been fairly predictable. On the other hand, I think some of the criticisms of Progressive here seem to ignore the basic reality of how an insurance company must operate. The math is fairly simple. To remain solvent, the premiums collected must exceed the claims paid, and must also cover salaries, rent, expenses, litigation costs, and so on. Some of the posters here suggest it should be as simple as, “she paid her premiums, she was killed in an accident, her estate demanded X dollars, and so they should pay it, period.” I agree that is what Progressive should have done in this case, but an insurer that makes that approach a business practice quickly will become known as an easy mark. In other words, nobody thinks his or her insurance premiums are too low, but they would have to be quite a bit higher if insurers simply stopped scrutinizing claims. They would pay less in legal fees, but if it were a wash or better then someone would be trying it.
ThresherK
@Jay in Oregon: Don’t forget “The Incredibles”: Bob Parr’s last “cover job” was as a service rep for an insurance co. He was about to get fired for (yet again) giving advice to some little old lady about how to jump through its hoops and get her benefits.
You know, the kind of “helping mankind” stuff superheros can’t keep from doing.
Jamey
Said it before, will say it again: What Progressive is doing is called, “Hustle and Flo.”
Kim Johnson
Makes me grateful to be insured by AAA! In my experience, things are NOT done that way with AAA insurance!! No shareholders….no quarterly statementS!