Do you know anyone who has used Progressive auto insurance?

[thewayne]

I have a friend who had a DUI two years ago, and now his insurance has canceled him. He's a bit of a Luddite to shop online and is also too emotionally distraught over this to call around and find another policy, so I went to help him today. I found a screaming deal at Progressive. His old insurance was charging him $540/six months for insurance: if paid in advance, Progressive wants $660 for six months! Allstate, on the other hand, wanted double that. Geico was slightly cheaper than Allstate, but only slightly. I also didn't like the fact that the Geico salesman was trying to do a hard sale when I clearly stated more than once that we were only price shopping at this time and that we have until the end of next week to get more insurance, so there was no time pressure for us. He kept pushing me to sign up right now, the only thing that shut him up was when I told the agent that though he was slightly less than Allstate, Progressive undercut him by half.

I doubt I'm going to be able to beat that price, but I'm going to be doing some online pricing Sunday and calling some local agents Monday to make sure. Problem is, off-hand, I don't know anyone who has used Progressive. So I'm looking for some user experience stories.

Which boils down to: have you, or anyone you know, used Progressive? I'm looking for any stories about them, good or bad.

Comments

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I've had progressive for at least 4 years now.

my policy was going *down* for a while (a '92 cavalier, no accidents or anything was running me $375/6mo. After a speeding ticket (marc 05) and a newer car (added in July 06, a 97 cavy) my insurance is now $460/6mo. (i changed car mid-policy, and they never even charged me a difference. just changd the car over to the new one, an then when i was up for renewal applied new rates)

I really like them, and they're also great to talk to if ou have a question or problem - when I get my policy renewal if I see anything odd on it, I can call them and get an easy to understand explanation right away.

Plus, they'll let you pay monthly, which a lot of places won't.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I have Statefarm, and they prefer to charge by six months, but they also have a 50/50 program. You pay half of the policy plus $2 and the second half 50 days later. It's not bad.

Thanks for the reply, that's the sort of stuff that I want to hear!

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

i used to have state farm, and I can tell you switching lowered my insurance by quite a bit. right now I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure I was paying $80/mo plus a $3 fee each month to pay it monthly on the old car. State farm also is NOT forgiving IMHO when you forget to make a payment right away. I forgot to send it the payment one month, and they booted me. Hence, my switch to progresssive.

But really, IMHO, the commercials don't like about how great they are.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Have you ever made a claim on Progressive? If so, did they handle it to your satisfaction?

I think the leniency of an insurance company regarding late payments depends partly on the state. The parents of someone on my flist were a day late sending their payment in, and their state law was "no grace period". They were dropped, and on that day they had an accident and totaled their car. No insurance coverage. Fortunately I don't think the accident was their fault.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I've never had to make a claim, other than callin them when my car was broken into and a window broke, but the cost of replacing the window was less than my deductable, so it was pointless for them to help me.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I had the same thing happen to me. My windshield broke in Phoenix when I was there last July(?) and somehow when I changed my policy from Arizona to New Mexico they changed my comprehensive from no deductible to $250. The windshield replacement was $261!

I WAS NOT a happy camper! When I got back into town, actually when I was still in Phoenix discussing this with my agent, I changed my deductible back to zero. You go through a lot of windshields in Phoenix.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Heh. My deductable is $250, and the window that was smashed was the little triangle one in the back. Cindy Rowe (one of the local places) wanted $150 to fix it. My mechanic went to a junk yard and purchased the window there and charged me $20.

As for the stuff that was stolen, apparently I had to go through the homeowner's insurance for where the car was registered to - the address was my mom's house, my car got broken into downtown....yeah, they didn't help either. Apparently while the homeowner's insurance covers the cars, it does not cover the cars when they are broken into away from your home*. I'm *still* missing a lot of CDs.

*I didn't really understand that, because I know college student's stuff in their dorms are covered under their parents homeowner's insurance, since that's their permanent address. So I'm not sure why a car gets excluded like that.

[kylejcrb.livejournal.com]

I currently pay $1200/6 months... I think it's because I'm more likely to get smashed and try to jump my car across a canyon, because I'm 21.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

LOL! Could be... They really screw young unmarried males. The odd thing was that after I got married, it didn't do a thing to my car insurance! Apparently that discount is only if you're something 21-25.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I think it's sort of silly to penalize young men, when women can be just as aggressive asmen drivers. I knoe several men who I probably drive more aggressively than.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

My sister, in here late teen years, made an illegal left and wiped out two cars trying to beat the light. One was a 'Vette. We had to get specific exclusions on mine and my parent's policies saying that she was not allowed to drive our cars, and if she did and had an accident, the policy would not pay.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Wow.

Now, did you have the same insurance company? I wonder if you had different insurance if you would have still had to do that?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I believe it was in the last ten years that that specific exclusion was removed from my insurance. Yeah, I've been with State Farm since I started driving, so it's been 28 years or so.