Inaccurate car insurance quotewith progressive, my rights?

Question

ok so i am with prgressive have been since may16th 2006, i recently added my paner to my insurance, i received a quote over the phone, an additional 89 dollars a month they would take from my account, in addition to my premium ($110) which adds up to $199. My first bill came in the post charging me $243, i called them asking what is the problem they said they don't know, thats what it came up at when they put it in the system, theres nothing they knew that they could do to rectify the problem. Now im just asking what my rights are can i cancel my policy even though my patner is added now for 12 months, especially as this was not the charge that i agreed with. If someone works specifically for progessive or anyother insurance company id be greatful as its stressing me out especially because of the fact that noone seems to want to help, is there someone who had this problem with progressive/ another insurer, what have they done about it, thank you ever so much for all answers.

Answer 1

All the other answers can affect premium, but did they give you the 6 month additional premium?  Something like, you pay $600 for 6 months, after you add him it will be $1100 for 6 months?  Look at that quote, see what the full term premium quote was & compare the dec page showing the full 6 months premium with that.  

Now, you said you are on EFT.  Were you within 10 days of a withdrawal when you added him?  If you were, they would not be able to change the current withdrawal, so the additional premium on the first month you added him had to be spread between the remaining intstallments.  Essentially, you had to pay 3 months of additional premium in only 2 months.  Your first withdrawal after he was added was $44 more than expected.  So, next month's withdrawal will be $44 more (for $88 additional on the first month he was added), when your policy renews, you will probably go back to the $110 (unless there were claims or tickets during this 6 months, in which case it will be higher, or if an incident  became over 3 yrs old, it will be lower).

Does this make sense?  You probably spoke to someone who didn't understand the billing system.

Answer 2

A quote is in essence an estimate.

It is based on the  limited information you provided and makes certain assumptions. However, once you actually add the person to your policy - the company pulls his motor vehicle record (mvr),  clue, and credit reports. If your parters' record is not the same as the assumptions made when the quote was given - the rate can go up.  Usually the company assumes that you have  a clean mvr, clean clue and good credit score so you qualify for the best rates. Your mvr, clue report and credit report all affect your rates.  Apparently, your partner did not qualify for the best rates.

The insurance company has to pay to get the mvr, clue and credit reports - so they don't pull them just to give a quote - only to issue the policy.

Since most insurance companies do this - you can take your business elsewhere, but you may run into the same problem.  The quote being slightly less than the actual premium.

The rate charged by Progressive is the rate that your partner qualifies for. There is nothing they can do to lower it.

So, your choices are - keep the policy with Progressive and continue to pay the premium charged or go somewhere else.

Answer 3

Sure you can cancel.  You'll have to pay a short rate cancellation penalty, and the cancellation fee, to cancel your policy with Progressive mid term.

See, that quote is non-binding.  When the person you talked to rattled it off, they ALSO said something like, "this is contingent upon the information you provided being accurate".  Likely the increase is due to either 1. your partner being licensed a shorter time than you thought 2. your partner having undisclosed (to you) tickets or accidents or prior claims in the past.   When you got the quote, Progressive did NOT run  the MVR/DMV backround check.  They don't do that until you add the partner.  And BINGO! something came up that you didn't tell them about, to get included in the quote.

So, you can try to exclude your partner from all coverage - delete them from the policy.  Progressive likely won't allow that if they live in your household, unless they have their own policy.  Or you can flat out get new coverage elsewhere.

They aren't bound by your saying, "oh, they don't have any tickets!" when they do.

Answer 4

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about the difference in premium they quoted you - most likely what they did was run DMV check for your partner, and maybe found something that made then a more at risk driver than when you reported it (they will also check with prior insurance companies to find out about at fault/not at fault accidents).

Also, a good resource is...

http://www.surveyland.org/jump.php?link=...

Best of luck to you.