Automobile insurance coverage firms have been placing clients by means of it these days. Ever growing prices of doing enterprise have prompted insurance coverage firms to enhance charges or outright make it arduous to get coated. Others are taking issues a bit additional to get more cash out of shoppers. Take Progressive, who added a driver to a person’s insurance coverage who he says doesn’t exist, which additionally elevated his premium.
CBS Information reported on the unusual state of affairs involving 31-year-old Ed Fan out of Denver, Colorado. Fan advised CBS he’s single, lives alone and is the one person who drives his 2019 Jeep Wrangler. But his insurance coverage provider Progressive just lately added one other, unknown driver to his coverage, which he says elevated his six-month premium by $312.
“I don’t know” who the supposed new driver was, stated Fan. “I’m the one driver on my car,” he stated.
He repeatedly known as and emailed Progressive, attempting to get them to take away the fees — and the unknown individual — from his auto insurance coverage coverage.
“It does seem the burden falls on me to show this individual doesn’t exist and isn’t associated to me or drives my car,” stated Fan, who stated he was caught off guard by Progressive’s assertions that he needed to pay for one more licensed driver in his house, driving his Jeep.
“I didn’t even know they might to that,” he stated.
Fan isn’t alone. CBS Information says on-line boards produce other Progressive clients complaining about the identical factor taking place to them: regardless of being the one driver on their insurance policies, Progressive added a random driver, growing their premium. CBS says one girl wrote that Progressive had added her “ex husband, my brother, my God daughter and son” to her coverage regardless of her not having had contact with any of them for over a yr. The corporate added a $1,700 price to her coverage because of this.
A Reddit publish from 2022 detailed one other Progressive insurance coverage buyer asking for recommendation after the corporate added two drivers to their coverage, one in all which was 16 and drove up their premium $300. One of many replies from a former USAA insurance coverage agent defined that what’s taking place is known as “driver discovery.” From Reddit:
So what Progressive did is known as “Driver discovery” Insurance coverage firms examine public data sometimes to see if there are a number of individuals (of driving age) at an tackle, and usually they ship you a letter stating that since they found a possible driver at your tackle, they could have so as to add them to your coverage, until you name and clarify why you haven’t added them.
Mainly, because the New York state insurance coverage dealer Bruce Swicker defined to CBS, insurance coverage firms are assuming issues till you clarify in any other case. “If they’re within the family, the belief is that sooner or later since they’ve entry to the car that they could very effectively drive it.” Folks transfer or info adjustments and plenty of typically neglect to replace their insurance coverage. This causes what’s identified within the trade as “premium leakage,” which is seemingly an enormous drawback for the trade, costing over $10 billion yearly.
As for Fan, it took weeks of backwards and forwards and a grievance filed with Colorado’s insurance coverage regulators, however Progressive lastly eliminated the unknown driver and the premium cost. Fan nonetheless needed to signal a doc saying that he didn’t know the one who they stated lived with him. And the corporate wasn’t precisely forthcoming with how they received the knowledge on this different “driver.” CBS Information says the corporate didn’t say the place they received the data from nor did they tackle different cases of this taking place.
…in a press release to CBS Information Colorado, Progressive didn’t specify the place their details about a ‘hidden driver’ in Fan’s home got here from or why that title was added to his coverage. The corporate didn’t tackle different, comparable complaints CBS Information Colorado shared with the corporate. Ron Davis, with Progressive Insurance coverage’s public relations division, as a substitute reiterated the businesses’ procedures for insurance coverage candidates.
“…We additionally commonly assessment info from third-party sources about people who probably stay within the family and needs to be added to energetic insurance policies,” wrote Davis. “When info is discovered, we contact the policyholder to confirm the knowledge. Figuring out potential lacking driving-age family members/drivers and dealing with the shopper is essential.”
