Progressive Insurance: It keeps growing, and growing, and growing...

Last week, Progressive Insurance had the biggest social media #FAIL of its history when it decided to engage Matt Fisher, a young Brooklyn comedian who wrote a Tumblr post accusing the auto insurance agency of refusing to pay out the premium on his sister's policy after she was killed in a car accident. In fact, Progressive went so far as to list itself with the defendant of the case in a civil suit.

Now, insurance companies do shady shit all the time. That's why they are insurance companies an are run by guys who look like Ted Bundy with capped teeth. But they usually aren't stupid. Yet Progressive's reaction to Mr. Fisher's claim wasn't just to send out a press release saying how sorry they were for the unfortunate turn of events, but actually take to Twitter, where they launched a robo-tweet campaign claiming their innocence at anyone who tried to say otherwise.

This, obviously, did not have great results.

According to MarketWatch, over 1,000 people on the social media site have already dropped Progressive as their insurance company over this incident. Another 1,600 have claimed that we will not due business with the company.

Progressive, which has seen it's stock plunge in recent months, actually began seeing a market uptick during this week of bad press, peaking on August 15th, one day before the company settled with the Fisher family. Go figure.

A Facebook post is worth a thousand words (Progressive's FB)

Previously: [Comedian Matt Fisher Claims Sister’s Progressive Insurance Paid for Her Killer’s Lawyers]

[Update: Progressive Auto-Tweets to ‘Killer’ Claim, Matt Fisher Shoots Back]

Never underestimate the power of internet shaming! Not five days after New York comedian Matt Fisher recounted the tragic story of his sister's fatal car accident and her auto insurance company that went so far as to intervene on behalf of the defendant in court to avoid paying out the premium on her policy, Progressive has agreed to pony up the entire amount due to the Fisher family.

According to a statement on Progressive's website yesterday, the insurance company was obligated to see the case go to trial against Ronald Kevin Hope III, whose car collided with Ms. Fisher's in 2010, in order to prove that the driver was at fault.

Under Maryland law, in order to receive the benefits of an underinsured driver claim, the other driver must be at fault. Sometimes this can be proven without the need for a trial, but in Ms. Fisher’s case, there were credible conflicting eyewitness accounts as to who was at fault so they could pay out the premium.

A trial was necessary so that a jury could review all of the evidence and come to a decision. In those circumstances, under Maryland law, the insurance company providing the Underinsured Motorist coverage is considered a defendant. As a defendant in this case, Progressive participated in the trial procedures on our own behalf while Nationwide represented the other driver.

On Thursday, August 9, a jury determined that the other driver was at fault in the accident involving Ms. Fisher. In accordance with that decision, Progressive worked with the Fisher family and their legal representative to resolve the claim.

Of course, the "due process" argument doesn't really hold up when you look at the court documents of the case, which clearly show that Progressive was working to prove that Mr. Hope was not at fault in the accident:

It is this 19th day of May, 2011, by the Circuit Court For Baltimore City, hereby ORDERED
1. That Progressive Advance Insurance Company be and is hereby allowed to intervene as a party Defendant.

2. That Progressive Insurance Company is GRANTED all rights to participate in this proceeding as if it were an original party to this case.

Or why Progressive sought a motion in limine to discredit the one witness to the accident by casting her as suffering from a brain injury. (A motion that was denied by the judge.)

We called Mr. Fisher for a comment on the settlement, but he was unable to comment on the record. Progressive's publicist similarly refused to expand on anything outside of the official Progressive statement.

In other news, all those tasteless robo-tweets from the auto insurance company  have been deleted from its account and reverted back to its pre-PR-nightmare post: "Sunday yardwork-inspired poll: fresh corn or fresh tomatoes?"

Matt Fisher (via Twitter)

Read: Comedian Matt Fisher Claims Sister’s Progressive Insurance Paid for Her Killer’s Lawyer

The media has picked up the torch of New York comedian Matt Fisher, whose family has been battling Progressive Insurance since his sister was killed in a car crash in 2010. According to Mr. Fisher's Tumblr posting, his sister's insurance company actually got its lawyer to defend the driver at fault for the accident, just so it wouldn't have to pay out her policy to the grieving family.

Yesterday, Progressive responded by auto-tweeting this statement to people who wrote about Progressive on Twitter:

Mr. Fisher, whose family has retained a publicist after his story garnered so much attention, volleyed back with his own "statement" ... an update on his original Tumblr post:

At the beginning of the trial on Monday, August 6th, an attorney identified himself as Jeffrey R. Moffat and stated that he worked for Progressive Advanced Insurance Company. He then sat next to the defendant. During the trial, both in and out of the courtroom, he conferred with the defendant. He gave an opening statement to the jury, in which he proposed the idea that the defendant should not be found negligent in the case. He cross-examined the plaintiff’s witnesses. On direct examination, he questioned all of the defense’s witnesses. He made objections on behalf of the defendant, and he was a party to the argument of all of the objections heard in the case. After all of the witnesses had been called, he stood before the jury and gave a closing argument, in which he argued that my sister was responsible for the accident that killed her, and that the jury should not decide that the defendant was negligent.

I am comfortable characterizing this as a legal defense.

Progressive sent out an email Tuesday, essentially rehashing their robo-tweet statement and adding that Nationwide Insurance paid for the defendant's counsel. The next day they amended that statement. According to the Huffington Post, Progressive confirmed that it retained legal counsel for the trial:

A Progressive rep on Wednesday confirmed to HuffPost that an attorney for Progressive was providing counsel in the trial. However, the rep added, the attorney represented only Progressive, not the defendant. Progressive provided no evidence, he said, but was looking after its interests in the liability aspect of the case.

And let the court documents show that Progressive was given the ability to act as if it was defendant in the case, and to intervene on their part:

It is this 19th day of May, 2011, by the Circuit Court For Baltimore City, hereby ORDERED

1. That Progressive Advance Insurance Company be and is hereby allowed to intervene as a party Defendant.

2. That Progressive Insurance Company is GRANTED all rights to participate in this proceeding as if it were an original party to this case.

(Brown,J)

In addition, the judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and ordered Ronald Kevin Hope, III and Progressive Advanced Insurance to pay out in the amount of $760,000.00.

The Fisher family has yet to see that money.

Progressive (YouTube)

[Update: Progressive Auto-Tweets to ‘Killer’ Claim, Matt Fisher Shoots Back]

If you're going to only read one Tumblr post today (no, animated GIFs don't count), make it Matt Fisher's: the New York-based comedian posted an equally devastating and amazing (as in, not to be believed) story about Progressive, the auto insurance company, and the lengths they went to not to pay out for his sister's death after she her car was hit by a reckless driver.

Titled "My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court," the story chronicles the increasingly insane behavior of Progressive to deny paying out the full amount after the sister, Katie, was killed by an under-insured driver 2010. While Progressive was due to pay the  difference between Katie's policy and the driver's, instead they fought the case, leading Mr. Fisher's family to realize a small state  loophole:

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.

After doing so, Mr. Fisher realized that the man who ran into his sister's car was being represented by lawyers that were paid for by Progressive, allegedly in an attempt to have the case thrown out, and dismiss the Fishers' claims entirely. As Mr. Fisher claims:

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.

The whole ordeal was a pretty huge "kick in the face," as the author puts it. We have contacted Mr. Fisher to get more details on the story, but have not heard back for comment.