Smart Auto Insurance Blog

According to multiple company press releases through Business Wire, Progressive auto insurance is hiring in Tampa, Colorado Springs, Austin, Cleveland and Phoenix.  Florida’s unemployment rate is close to 10%, so opening up 390 jobs in Tampa is a big boost to the economy.  The positions run throughout sales, claims and service at the Riverview contact center.  Progressive is known for being a great employer partly because of their on site fitness and medical facilities as well as a casual dress code.  The St. Petersburg Times voted Progressive auto insurance one of the top places to work in Tampa.  At the Cleveland home office facility, Progressive is hiring 337 new workers.  They are also hiring 65 workers in Phoenix.

In Austin, Progressive is adding 185 of the same type of positions in their Texas facility.  Texas has an unemployment rate of almost 8%, so these service, sales and claims jobs are just what the city of Austin needs.  Progressive pays employees for all training and also offers them the benefits of medical, life, vision, and dental insurance.  At Progressive’s Colorado Springs facility, they will be hiring 129 new faces.  The company is looking for people with some background in customer service.  New employees will help with quotes on auto insurance as well as sales and claims.  Progressive has a long list of amenities and benefits to offer their employees which is a big reason they are such a popular auto insurance company.  Happy employees take good care of their customers and Progressive is looking to add 1,106 employees by July.

Just like the cell phone industry fought for you to be able to take your phone number from one company to another, the auto insurance industry in California wants you to be able to take your discounts with you.  According to “Car insurance discount act could give break in prices,” Nannette Miranda of California’s ABC News10 says that your continuous coverage car insurance discount could become portable.

If the 2012 Automobile Insurance Discount Act passes, any driver who receives a discount for retaining continuous auto insurance coverage from one company would be able to take their discount to another company.  If this does not pass, companies will still be prohibited from giving discounts based on past coverage with another auto insurance company.  This initiative does not take into account any type of discounts for being a good driver.

A campaign consultant argues that this will allow for greater competition in the marketplace as companies can charge better rates.  The Consumer Federation of California disagrees.  They say that people who have been uninsured for any period of time will be hurt by 40-50% surcharges on their insurance coverage, even if they were uninsured because they didn’t have a vehicle.  Mercury Insurance tried to pass a similar initiative two years ago to no avail.  There are some people who believe Mercury is behind this initiative as well.

As the winter weather advisories pick up, make sure to check your auto insurance policies to ensure coverage before going out in that snow.  In Rhode Island, “RI Regulators Give Guidance on Snowplow Insurance Implications,” according to Ben Zitney of Online Auto Insurance News.  If you have a snowplow on your truck, your personal auto insurance policy should cover you plowing your own driveway or that of neighbors or relatives. Make sure that your auto insurance premiums cover liability and property damage.

But that assumes that you are doing the plowing for free.  If you accept money to plow anyone’s driveway, parking lot, or walkways, you need to have separate Rhode Island auto insurance to cover commercial work.  The Department of Business Regulation has guidelines on their website and urges you to look there or contact your auto insurance company to make sure you are covered.  The Department also reminds Rhode Island residents to make sure that their snowmobiles are covered before riding on them, especially if they are rentals.  Homeowner and auto policies do not typically cover snowmobile damage.

Allstate Insurance continued its crackdown of insurance fraud in New York state to close out 2011.  Many insurance companies have a big problem with insurance fraud because of the no-fault coverage issued in the state of New York, according to Insurance News Net’s “Allstate Files $1.1M Insurance Fraud Case in NY.”  This most recent lawsuit for $1.1 million is against sixteen people accused of falsely running companies they said were owned by a medical doctor in order to submit false claims to Allstate.  This is Allstate’s ninth insurance fraud lawsuit in New York this year and their thirty-sixth since 2007.

Unfortunately, no-fault auto insurance has been causing a fraud nightmare in the state of New York for years.  Consumers in New York pay more for their auto insurance because there is so much fraud, dubbed a ‘fraud tax’ by some.  An Allstate spokesperson urges New York lawmakers to enact and enforce regulation that will eliminate no-fault insurance or find a way to eliminate the fraud it is causing.

This most recent scheme involved multiple small companies and individuals sending medical claims and referrals in violation of the no-fault law.  Everything was under the guise of a named medical doctor who does not really exist.  Allstate’s Special Investigative Unit filed this lawsuit to recoup the more than $1 million it feels it lost.  Allstate Insurance is joined by many other insurers, like Donegal Insurance, and state leaders in New York in their battle to reform the no-fault auto insurance system.

Written by Sara Smart

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