Automobile insurance coverage corporations have been placing prospects via it currently. Ever rising prices of doing enterprise have prompted insurance coverage corporations to improve charges or outright make it exhausting to get lined. Others are taking issues a bit additional to get extra money out of consumers. 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 individual that drives his 2019 Jeep Wrangler. But his insurance coverage service Progressive 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, mentioned Fan. “I’m the one driver on my automobile,” he mentioned.
He repeatedly known as and emailed Progressive, attempting to get them to take away the fees — and the unknown particular person — from his auto insurance coverage coverage.
“It does seem the burden falls on me to show this particular person doesn’t exist and isn’t associated to me or drives my automobile,” mentioned Fan, who mentioned he was caught off guard by Progressive’s assertions that he needed to pay for an additional licensed driver in his dwelling, driving his Jeep.
“I didn’t even know they might to that,” he mentioned.
Fan isn’t alone. CBS Information says on-line boards produce other Progressive prospects complaining about the identical factor taking place to them: regardless of being the one driver on their insurance policies, Progressive added a random driver, rising 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 12 months. The corporate added a $1,700 payment to her coverage in consequence.
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 among 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 named “driver discovery.” From Reddit:
So what Progressive did is named “Driver discovery” Insurance coverage corporations verify public data sometimes to see if there are a number of folks (of driving age) at an deal with, and usually they ship you a letter stating that since they found a possible driver at your deal with, 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 corporations 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 automobile that they could very nicely drive it.” Individuals transfer or info modifications and lots of typically overlook to replace their insurance coverage. This causes what’s recognized within the trade as “premium leakage,” which is seemingly an enormous downside for the trade, costing over $10 billion yearly.
As for Fan, it took weeks of backwards and forwards and a criticism 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 mentioned lived with him. And the corporate wasn’t precisely forthcoming with how they bought the data on this different “driver.” CBS Information says the corporate didn’t say the place they bought the information from nor did they deal with 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 deal with different, related complaints CBS Information Colorado shared with the corporate. Ron Davis, with Progressive Insurance coverage’s public relations division, as an alternative reiterated the businesses’ procedures for insurance coverage candidates.
“…We additionally usually overview info from third-party sources about people who presumably stay within the family and ought to be added to lively insurance policies,” wrote Davis. “When info is discovered, we contact the policyholder to confirm the data. Figuring out potential lacking driving-age family members/drivers and dealing with the client is vital.”
