Progressive PR Crisis For Persistent Avoidance In Case of Death - Epic Failed

UPDATED

Matt Fisher, a comedian for the “BS of A”, had a tragic loss of his sister in an automobile accident. Her insurance policy was through Progressive Auto Insurance. The case was well handled by the man who was the cause of the accident and took the blame. Simple case of fault but just how did Progressive Auto Insurance handle the situation? They completely avoided the situation, avoided to pay the policy amount purchased by Fisher’s dead sister, and even gave the defendant representation in the courts (his insurance was Nationwide, not Progressive). The case was found to be in favor of the Fisher family this last week, but Matt was not having it.

Fisher was so enraged that he released his story on tumblr. The results? A persistent denial of Progressive and a major PR Crisis on hand because of revealing proof against the insurance giant.

The story by Fisher is titled, “My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court“. He started the story off of how his sister got into a car accident that killed her on June 19, 2010. He never ruled out that she also could have played a role in the accident but a witness was on site that said the other driver ran the red light.

Matt explained further of what happened:

One indication that the case was pretty open-and-shut was that the other guy’s insurance company looked at the situation and settled with my sister’s estate basically immediately. Now, because the other driver was underinsured, that payment didn’t amount to much, but my sister carried a policy with Progressive against the possibility of an accident with an underinsured driver. So Progressive was now on the hook for the difference between the other guy’s insurance and the value of Katie’s policy.

With Fisher’s parents now carrying crushing payments to his sister’s student loans, they attempted to collect the rightful amount from her insurance company, but they refused to pay. The Fisher’s attempted to take the insurance company to court but Maryland has a law that states the insurance company cannot be sued but only the person responsible for the case, it is after that the insurance company would have to pay.

Now my parents don’t harbor much venom for the guy who killed my sister. It was an accident, and kicking that guy around won’t bring Katie back. But kicking that guy around was the only way to get Progressive to pay. So they filed a civil suit against the other driver in hopes that, rather than going to court, Progressive would settle. Progressive did not. Progressive made a series of offers (never higher than 1/3 the amount they owe) and then let it go to a trial.

At the trial, the guy who killed my sister was defended by Progressive’s legal team.

The trial was a real shitshow for my parents, and I did not love it either. As it happens, the jury did find that the other driver was negligent, which, if justice or decency are priorities for Progressive, will result in them finally honoring Katie’s policy. At this point, I hope you’ll forgive me if I wait for it to actually happen.

Matt Fisher published his story on Monday, August 13, 2012–following the court ruling. He wanted to get the word out in the world about Progressive and how they handled the situation. As a result, the twitter account of Progressive was flooded with people angry at their responses.Progressive’s response didn’t help either as they were caught delivering an automatic response to the situation with a link to their response.

I’d like to take this opportunity to explain Progressive’s role in this complex case. First and foremost, our deepest sympathies go out to Kaitlynn Fisher’s family.

To be very clear, Progressive did not serve as the attorney for the defendant in this case. He was defended by his insurance company, Nationwide.

There was a question as to who was at fault, and a jury decided in the Fisher family’s favor just last week. We respect the verdict and now can continue to work with the Fisher family to reach a resolution.

Chris Wolf
Claims General Manager
Progressive

It didn’t take long for the people of the social media world to find court documents only to find this. The Blaze reported the documents to say:

It is this 19th day of May, 2011, by the Circuit Court For Baltimore City, hereby ORDERED

1. That Progressive Advance Insurance Company be and is hereby allowed to intervene as a party Defendant.

2. That Progressive Insurance Company is GRANTED all rights to participate in this proceeding as if it were an original party to this case.

First off, the story does not settle well, seeing how the man was at clear fault before any court hearing, Progressive should have kept their end of the deal. But their persistence to avoid payment, especially by providing the defendant with lawyers shows their lack of responsibility and greed.

Also their persistence to deny that they represented the case failed due to court document evidence stating that they were representing the defendants.

Progressive Auto Insurance needs to own up. They have a serious Public Relations case on their hands and the handling of it is proving to be hurtful to the business. Thousands have already pledged to drop their policy with the company and more are expect to come. What are the numbers exactly, it is still unclear but Progressive is going to feel this for years to come.

Updated:

Due to Progressive’s denying involvement of defending the opposite party, Matt Fisher released his response and a clip of the Maryland Courts public records proving Progressive’s involvement:

At the beginning of the trial on Monday, August 6th, an attorney identified himself as Jeffrey R. Moffat and stated that he worked for Progressive Advanced Insurance Company. He then sat next to the defendant. During the trial, both in and out of the courtroom, he conferred with the defendant. He gave an opening statement to the jury, in which he proposed the idea that the defendant should not be found negligent in the case. He cross-examined the plaintiff’s witnesses. On direct examination, he questioned all of the defense’s witnesses. He made objections on behalf of the defendant, and he was a party to the argument of all of the objections heard in the case. After all of the witnesses had been called, he stood before the jury and gave a closing argument, in which he argued that my sister was responsible for the accident that killed her, and that the jury should not decide that the defendant was negligent.

I am comfortable characterizing this as a legal defense.

So far, Progressive’s continuing handling this situation is a nightmare! Their responses seems heartless and the evidence countering their claims is building. This is effecting both their brand and business.

Source: Matt Fisher, The Blaze