Oregon Progressive Claims for Personal Injury

Progressive Insurance will be celebrating 75 years in business in 2012. They are a Fortune 500 listed company, with assets totaling more than $14.7 dollars, and in 2011, they have provided insurance cover to 11 million Americans. The name Progressive is particularly apt, as they are the largest online/internet seller of car insurance in America. It’s obvious they’re very good at making money. When it comes to paying out Progressive Insurance Oregon claims, however, are they as good at spending money as they are at making it?

In a comparison of auto insurance providers, Progressive Insurance is shown to have high financial ratings. In other words, they have the ability to pay claims. Unfortunately, they are in the same league as other large auto insurers when it comes to customer satisfaction. In the most recent J.D. Power report on auto insurance companies, Progressive ratings were something of a damp squib. The findings, based on a survey of more than 11,000 customers of 25 insurance companies concluded:

• Progressive received a rank of only 3 out of 5 in the Power Circle Ratings, which, according to J.D. Power criteria, makes the company’s performance “about average.”
• Their overall rating score was 836 points out of a possible 1,000. That mark puts them 10 points below the industry average.
• Progressive came in exactly middle of the insurance league table, at 13th of the 25 companies included in the survey.
• J.D. Power found that “making the claimant aware of how quickly they’ll receive the settlement and providing a thorough explanation of how the settlement amount was calculated are crucial to improving the overall (customer) experience…”

Sometimes You Get What You Pay For

Progressive Insurance Oregon claims suffer the same fate as those of other large insurance companies, to the continuing frustration of its customers. Some of the findings about Progressive’s handling of claims include:

• Their settlement offers are “simply below the offer you would expect from the car insurance company in an accident case.” These low offers frequently lead to the filing of a lawsuit to get a fairer settlement.
• Progressive has a tendency to write liability policies that are much smaller than average; just enough to meet Oregon requirements. But policies with cover of $20,000, $50,000 or $100,000 per victim of personal injuries are frequently inadequate, forcing those injured by someone with a Progressive policy to utilize their own policy to make an under insured claim, which of course will lead to an increase in their own premiums. A husband and carer was hit and severely injured by a DUI driver insured by Progressive. The driver was only covered for $25,000 personal injury, and the man was forced to sit through a four-hour deposition. His wife said three of those four hours were nothing to do with the case and amounted to nothing more than character assassination of her husband.
• Progressive have a habit of suddenly seeing reason when a good personal injury attorney comes into the picture. Settlement offers suddenly go up and waiting times go down.

Oregon Progressive Gets Consumer Affairs Complaints 

As recently as November 14, 2011, Oregon drivers were sending complaints to Consumer Affairs regarding Progressive Insurance. A McMinnville man was upset with Progressive’s online system and lack of response from customer service. On November 8, a Klamath Falls body shop owner warned of Progressive’s tendency to try to bully drivers into using their approved body shops for repairs. He recommends “If an insurance company demands that you have your car repaired at a shop they recommend and pretends they can force you, remind them that federal and Oregon laws prohibit insurance company steering. They can only make a recommendation, not a demand.”

On November 1st, a Hillsboro lady driver with an impeccable driving record wrote that her family car had been stolen and set on fire during the summer, but Progressive have still not settled the claim. Instead, they have delayed and insisted on a deposition. The lady in question said Progressive are trying to make it feel like the loss is her fault, and in the meantime, she has had to continue to make car payments.

A Clackamas customer had a similar story. His daughter’s 1997 Honda Civic coupe was firebombed in 2010, along with several other vehicles in the neighborhood (the story made the TV news bulletin), but Progressive offered almost $5,000 less than had been paid for the car less than six months earlier. The daughter offered to take a loss of $3,500, and Progressive refused, and has since refused to answer e-mails or phone calls from the distraught father.

Clearly, Progressive Insurance Oregon claims are nothing less than a minefield for the people who need and deserve help, not questions and recriminations. Equally as clear is the fact that if you need to make a personal injury claim involving Progressive, your chances of receiving a fair and fast settlement increase dramatically if you acquire the services of a good personal injury lawyer.