Our lawfirm regularly assists clients with cases involving bad faith claims against insurance companies. We have fought and won against the largest of them. The fight is often long and frustrating. For that and many other reasons, we were pleased to see recent alleged victims take to social media and to see the media help tell the victim’s story. There is great unfairness for accident victims and the following story illustrates that.

Progressive Insurance is being bombarded in national news media after it was learned that Progressive appeared to have actually assisted in legal action against its own insured, who had died in a car accident due to the fault of another.

A brother of the victim’s widow posted a web-based message titled “My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend her Killer.” In that article, he wrote about the tragic details surrounding the victim’s death and how the other driver appeared at fault. Importantly, he outlined how his sister had paid premiums to Progressive for underinsured motorist coverage. Such coverage is purchased so that sufficient funds are available if the wrongdoer lacked adequate insurance. In this case, apparently, the other driver lacked adequate insurance.

Apparently, from what we can gather from news posts, the wrongdoer and his insuer paid out all insurance coverage the wrongdoer had pursuant to a settlement. It was reported, however, that Progressive refused to make it right and honor its obligation to pay for the shortfall in insurance coverage – the very shortfall that the victim’s widow had paid premiums to Progressive to insure against.

The victim’s brother and law, let it be known how they were being treated, writing, “Here I address you, Prospective Progressive Insurance Customer…Someday when you have your accident, I promise that there will be enough wiggle room for Progressive’s bottomless stack of in-house attorneys to make a court case out of it and to hammer at that court case until you or your surviving loved ones run out of money.”

He then outlined how Progressive fought the legal case and played hardball to try to save from paying out what was rightfully owed:

“Progressive made a series of offers (never higher than 1/3 the amount they owe) and then let it go to a trial. At the trial, the guy who killed my sister was defended by Progressive’s legal team,” Fisher wrote. “If you are insured by Progressive, and they owe you money, they will defend your killer in court in order to not pay you your policy.”

Online pressure mounted against Progressive and it allegedly agreed to a settlement with the victim’s widow.

If the above reports are true, they are not surprising. Our law firm has faced very similar treatment large insurance companies over the years. Our clients are routinely and unfairly forced to expend large sums in litigation costs to prove their case in situations where liability is absolutely clear. The reason for these costs is that in a court room certain evidence is required in a certain form, even when obvious. For example, medical evidence. Doctors routinely charge $750 or more as a minimum fee, regardless of the amount of time expended; and that fee doubles for every hour above. I do not necessarily blame the doctors – lawsuits after all are a disruption and a major inconvenience to their practice. But rather I cite those costs because they are unnecessary in many cases but forced down the throats of accident victims by big insurance companies.

Life is oftentimes David v. Goliath. We know David needs help in these fights. We are here to help.

* It should be noted that we were not involved in the Fisher’s litigation. All allegations set forth above were culled from reports ascertained or provided by others.