If you follow this blog you'll know that a couple of months ago my wife was involved in an accident when an unlicensed, underage driver ran a red light (Toyota saved my wife's life). Obviously the car ended up being written off and we bought a replacement. The true test of any insurance company is when you come to make a claim. I now have a recommendation for you all. Progressive Insurance. Why? Well their local claim rep dealt with us really quickly and efficiently. The claim was settled in 6 days and the amount they offered us for the car that was written off was nothing like a lowball. I'd calculated what I thought the car should be worth. To get the figure I came to, I averaged together the high and low used car prices listed on Kelley Blue Book (KBB), NADA and Edmunds - the three biggest car price guides over here in the USA). I put in the same mileage, colour and option details for each site and ended up with a figure I felt was reasonable. The Progressive agent called us up once the car had been written off and offered us an amount that was exactly 69 cents less than the figure I came up with.
The final test for me was their 'accident forgiveness'. We've been with them for long enough that we're allowed one large claim without it affecting our premium. That's what is advertised anyway, and I was expecting our premium to go up "because of other factors". ie. because of the claim, but explained away elsewhere. Today I received our renewal notice and bugger me - our premium has come down because of falling insurance rates and the economy.
Claim dealt with quickly - check. Didn't lowball us on the payout - check. Rates didn't go up - check. Oh and you can pay your premium with Paypal now too. That's a winner for me.
