Automobile insurance coverage firms have been placing prospects by it recently. Ever rising prices of doing enterprise have prompted insurance coverage firms to improve charges or outright make it onerous to get coated. Others are taking issues a bit additional to get more cash 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 scenario involving 31-year-old Ed Fan out of Denver, Colorado. Fan instructed CBS he’s single, lives alone and is the one person who 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 do not 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 one more licensed driver in his house, driving his Jeep.
“I didn’t even know they may to that,” he mentioned.
Fan isn’t alone. CBS Information says on-line boards produce other Progressive prospects complaining about the identical factor occurring to them: regardless of being the one driver on their insurance policies, Progressive added a random driver, rising their premium. CBS says one lady 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 charge to her coverage because of this.
A Reddit put up from 2022 detailed one other Progressive insurance coverage buyer asking for recommendation after the corporate added two drivers to their coverage, one in every of which was 16 and drove up their premium $300. One of many replies from a former USAA insurance coverage agent defined that what’s occurring is named “driver discovery.” From Reddit:
So what Progressive did is named “Driver discovery” Insurance coverage firms verify public information every so often to see if there are a number of individuals (of driving age) at an tackle, and sometimes 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 idea is that sooner or later since they’ve entry to the automobile that they could very properly drive it.” Folks transfer or data adjustments and lots of typically overlook to replace their insurance coverage. This causes what’s identified within the business as “premium leakage,” which is outwardly an enormous downside for the business, 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 that they mentioned lived with him. And the corporate wasn’t precisely forthcoming with how they acquired the data on this different “driver.” CBS Information says the corporate didn’t say the place they acquired the information from nor did they tackle different cases of this occurring.
…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, 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 frequently evaluation data from third-party sources about people who presumably stay within the family and needs to be added to lively insurance policies,” wrote Davis. “When data is discovered, we contact the policyholder to confirm the data. Figuring out potential lacking driving-age family members/drivers and dealing with the shopper is vital.”
