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

[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.