1 /5 Sarah Floyd: My husband and I recently filed a claim with Progressive regarding an accident with our vehicle. Initially, our customer service was reasonable, and we received a small payout for some damages to the car. We soon discovered, however, that the car was more extensively damaged than we had realized, to the extent that it could not even be aligned by a tire shop due to major front-end damage.
We attempted to contact Progressive again to notify them that the accident had caused sufficient damage to prevent alignment and safe usage. They did not respond for 7 WEEKS, despite 25+ (unanswered) phone calls to the appraiser.
I finally began calling the supervisor, and after 12 days of no response from him, I called HIS supervisor and left a message. It was only then that our phone calls began to be returned, and that another evaluation of the vehicle was set up in a timely manner.
The same appraiser evaluated our vehicle; we were told that he was the only individual in our entire STATE who could do so. He quickly reported that, once again, Progressive did not deem the $3400+ of damages to be related to the accident and that they were instead related to "wear and tear". Of course, by this time, we had been required to continue driving the car for 2+ months since the last evaluation and 5+ months since the accident. Naturally, wear and tear on a damaged vehicle would increase exponentially within that time frame.
We are not wealthy people. Our vehicle is our primary mode of transportation for our ourselves, our children (one of whom is disabled), and the many elderly and homeless people we serve in ministry.
Paying for these repairs is forcing us to incur additional debt and has prevented us from effectively doing our jobs.
We have been customers of Progressive for several years without any claims until now, but you can be sure that we do not intend to continue with a company that not only refuses to return phone calls or communicate at all, but also leaves a low-income family in a terrible financial hardship.