"My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court,"

Saw this on a friends FB also.
Let me tell you it is all insurance companies. Insurance needs a major reform just as the health care industry does.

I let my insurance lapse,ie,I did not renew my policy for about 5 weeks when I didn't have a car. I figured,why pay for it when I don't need it.
SO I recently got a car and of course I wanted to insure it. I went back to the same company I had ( After Allstate,who totally screwed my wife and I),which was Nationwide,which had handled my claim excellently.
Well, it turns out that even though I had a policy for a couple of years with them except for the last 5 weeks, I was now deemed an uninsured driver,and therefore my rate is twice as high as it would have been if I had continued paying the premium.
I thought this was BS,so I declined to get my new policy with them and called around other companies. It seems this is an industry wide practice.
In my opinion it is just another way the government lets corporations screw us.

5 weeks should not have resulted in that kind of status at all - it is a very Draconian system.

Many years ago in a downtime, I took a job to be an insurance (automobile) underwriter, and had to take courses etc. to qualify - simply put, it is a very elaborate scam - (as you probably can tell, I'm not a good candidate for this.) I was called to the carpet several times, because I would 'counsel' distressed (in some cases very) policy holders who could not, for one reason or another, afford their expensive policies any longer, and were going to another company. Some just had, or had gotten horrendous driving records, while others just never paid any attention to their policy, and just sent a check every month - for years.

I explained their options, what they needed, had, did not need, and did not have...most appreciated having someone spell it out to them in ways they could see, and no rules were broken (though some loopholes may have been discussed, it is nothing that could not be figured out by anyone if you knew the way the law worked :rolleyes

I had saved a client in my mind - the 'upper echelon' saw it as taking points away, and pointing out faults and mistakes (there were many) in the previous policy, and though a customer was saved - they still had it in their eyes that the policy was bringing in less...and I was 'advised' not to try to do that.

I admire any Insurance agents out there who there who treat clients with integrity - it must be hard sometimes...

I was hit by someone with State Farm insurance once. They sent someone out in just a few days - determined the car was totaled (it was parked in a parking lane in front of my house when hit) and paid up within the week - an amount probably worth more than the car, not much but a bit. I was pretty pleased with the whole thing other than riding a bike to work for a week while they got stuff done. That was back in 95. I'm sure that things have changed since then. Half of the rights we've lost have been lost because our gov let insurance companies violate our rights as citizens. It's digusting but we let it happen and have done not a damn thing to stop it.

Steve,
I have a strong distaste for lawyers, even though my father was one, my sister is one and my brother in law is one.
And after my wifes accident in January of 2011 and Allstate claimed our insurance only covered myself and my daughter since we were passengers in the vehicle,and not my wife,claiming she had changed the coverage ( which was a blatant lie) I called every ambulance chaser in our area that advertised on TV. Since the accident was "an act of God" ie,a real accident with no one at fault, hence no one to sue,none of them would take the case.
And Allstate wanted to settle with me for about $1300 over what they claimed my medical costs were and tried to deny a lot of the medical costs saying that they occurred because of my kidney failure and my heart attacks. That was total BS.
But one of the lawyers at the ambulance chasers told me to contact a lawyer referral service which I did. I had two consultations with two different lawyers.
The first wasn't interested.
The second took a lot of time with me, explained everything then made me an offer.
He even advised me to negotiate myself and see if I could get to a specific figure,and if not,then retain him. And that is what happened. I ended up retaining him. To make a long story short, it took a year and a half (I just got the settlement a couple of weeks ago) but I got enough to cover my real medical expenses plus the personal property I lost and enough to get an admittedly inexpensive,but decent used car. That is also the basic concept of the purpose of having insurance,which is to make a person "whole",but almost all insurance companies seem to forget that,especially,in the case of the OPs story, progressive.
But to finish this with where I started, I despise most lawyers,but I have nothing but respect for this one that handled my case. And on top of that, I have also retained him (I told him to keep a part of the settlement for this purpose) to demand Bank Of America produce papers that I owe some money that they claim I owe or otherwise stop harassing me. But most of that story has been covered in another thread.

Yeah kim, I should have said MOST lawyers are a joke, as well as the system. If you can find a good one, GREAT! As your post implies though, THEY ARE RARE! I know I at least have an uncle in law that is a lawyer. He is my father's sister's husband. My father doesn't like HIM either.

Steve

'Online firestorm' erupts after Progressive defends woman's killer | The Raw Story