Insurance company of woman killed in car accident defend her killer in court to avoid payout! http://mattfisher.tumblr.com/post/2...aid-progressive-insurance-to-defend-her#notes Matt's response to a released statement by Progressive http://mattfisher.tumblr.com/post/29432884849/today-in-response-to-my-blog-post-entitled-my Needless to say, a scum company to avoid, not sure if they are in the UK..
"In Maryland, you may not sue an insurance company when they refuse to fork over your money. Instead, what they had to do was sue the guy who killed my sister, establish his negligence in court, and then leverage that decision to force Progressive to pay the policy." Perhaps a better argument would be "don't live in Maryland". Or better yet, don't live in the US where consumers are regularly shat on by car, medical and pretty much any other insurance company without any real legal protection or support. If you live in the UK and a company tries something like this you can use the Financial Ombudsman's Service, which will deal with the case on your behalf so you don't need to go to court at all. Also, in the UK most insurance companies offer comprehensive cover, and many will also pay out if you are hit by an uninsured driver, so the case wouldn't even have happened. There would be no point an insurance company trying to argue that she was at fault, as they would have to pay out anyway. Progressive doesn't offer insurance in the UK, and the consumer protection we have is probably a good indication of why.
The Financial Ombudsman is not a fail-safe device though as has been shown recently regarding Critical Illness Insurance claims. I never could understand why so few US Building and Contents Insurance policies covered flooding
True. But it's a damn sight better than just leaving the insurance companies to do whatever the fudge they want with consumers reduced to trying to sue somebody else. Cos they can. Insurers in general hate insuring against floods as they are low frequency high impact events which eat into margins, but also tend to occur in specific places so individuals not at risk won't buy flood insurance. They're just trying to dodge the adverse selection issues. The only reason UK insurers offer flooding insurance is the government and ABI agreed it would be included in B&C insurance as standard which solves the issue. The US government by and large doesn't seem to care - even after Katrina it just lets the insurers do as they please.
