Personal Injury Law

Progressive Insurance Admits to Violating the Privacy of Its Insureds in Georgia

Here in Georgia, Progressive Insurance Company has admitted to spying on its own insureds in a confidential church group.
Progressive Insurance Company hired two private eyes to spy on Progressive's own insureds by infiltrating the couple's private, confidential church group, lying about their identities and their motives, so that they might be able to find out some kind of personal "dirt" on the insureds so Progressive could use it against them in an uninsured motorist lawsuit. Progressive's CEO has now "apologized." And Progressive has the unmitigated gall to claim "it's all about you" on their website!

It's absolutely appalling and disgusting, but should give you a real life glimpse into the way insurance companies work to do everything in their power, including outright deception and invasion of privacy, to avoid paying legitimate personal injury claims. It's sickening. The Progressive CEO said "What the investigators and Progressive people did was wrong - period," Renwick, head of the third-largest U.S. auto insurer, said in a statement. "I personally want to apologize to anyone who was affected by this." He apologized the day after the article exposing Progressive's deception was published in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Sounds like to me the Progressive CEO was sorry they got caught, not sorry they engaged in fraud. This is made clear by the fact that Progressive continues to deny liability in a lawsuit brought against Progressive by the two insureds for invasion of privacy. Seems to me if Progressive was truly contrite it would simply admit the allegations of that lawsuit and take responsibility for its actions. But, as usual, it refuses to do so.

I just want to let the public know that nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, is beneath an insurance company when it comes to their efforts to avoid parting with money, even when the claims are being made by their own insureds, who have paid premiums for years. Nothing is beneath insurers. Progressive got caught, but their exposure only begs the question of how many other insurers are doing the exact same thing but haven't been caught?

Full post as published by Atlanta Injury Lawyer Blog on September 30, 2007 (boomark / email).