By Randy J. Maniloff, White and Williams, LLP
Will More Money
Now, Err, Flo?
In my
house, if my wife says something, and her mother agrees, then it is a fact. I
could dig up Aristotle and even he couldn't convince that duo otherwise.
That is not unlike what happened to Progressive Insurance. If you are reading this then you likely took note of the firestorm that erupted after Matt Fisher's Tumblr post contained this, well, not so subtle, headline: "My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court."
That
headline was false as a matter of insurance law. But once the post went viral -
and boy did it ever - no amount of explanation of the truth, or lessons in
insurance law, could change the message and all the negative consequences that
came with it for Progressive. The company was powerless to stop the mayhem
(oops, wrong insurer). The horse had left the barn. The toothpaste was out of
the tube. Choose your cliché. All Progressive could do was pay Fisher and cut
bait. And hope that people on Twitter would soon find something else to tweet
about. This is a tale that all claims professionals should be aware of.
By way of
very brief background, Matt Fisher's sister was killed in a car accident. A
indisputable tragedy. The driver of the other vehicle was underinsured.
Fisher's sister had underinsured motorist coverage with Progressive. Under
Maryland law, to collect on an underinsured claim, the other driver must be at
fault. So Fisher's family had to sue the other driver to prove fault in order
to obtain payment under her underinsured policy. The other driver was insured
by Nationwide and Nationwide undertook the defense. However, Progressive
participated in the other driver's defense as it had evidence that the other
driver was not at fault. Hence, Fisher's brother's headline on his Tumblr post:
"My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer In Court."
A Maryland
jury decided in favor of Fisher and awarded $760,000. Progressive's share was
$75,000. Progressive paid its share plus, according to Fisher's attorney "tens
of thousands" more to settle
with the Fishers over the way the company handled the claim. How it handled the
claim? As in - by following Maryland law.
Again,
Fisher's headline was false because it was Nationwide, and not Progressive,
that defended the other driver. And Progressive had the right to prove that the
other driver was not at fault. Never mind. Fisher's story, fueled by that
attention-grabbing headline, went viral - very viral. The niceties of Maryland
insurance law were no match for the power of an internet story gone wild.
Progressive took a beating in the court of public opinion - no matter what it
did to explain its actions and its rights to take them. The story was featured
on CNBC, "CBS This Morning" and Glenn Beck's radio show, as well as umpteen
news sites. According to any analysis conducted at the request of Dow Jones
Newswires, more than 1,000 people on Twitter claimed to have dropped
Progressive as their insurer in a four-day period and 1,600 expressed a desire
not to do business with them.
On one
hand, the Fisher case is over. The settlement documents are probably being
drafted as I type. But is it really over? That's the question that Erik Holm of
Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal posed in a WSJ story. Calling the situation a "cautionary tale" for insurers, Mr. Holm
asked:
Now, the
question is whether Progressive's experience will prompt changes throughout the
auto- insurance industry as more consumers use the Internet to tell their side
of the story when they feel they've been slighted by their insurers.
Mr. Holm
observed that "[e]ven when a company's actions are legal and done with the
blessing of regulators, it can suffer reputational and financial harm when
exposed to harsh cyber- invective." (emphasis mine).
To read
more about this "cautionary tale" for insurers, and whether the Fisher claim
will have any impact on the handling of claims in the future, check out Mr.
Holm's Wall Street Journal piece.
It contains
the views of the Consumer Federation of America, a renowned policyholder
lawyer, Progressive's Chief Claims Officer, Mr. Fisher himself and yours truly.
Insurers
usually get vilified for allegedly not following the appropriate claims
process. Here they did so and still got vilified. It's a tough business.
Please let
me know if you have any questions. Randy
Randy
Randy J. Maniloff
White and Williams LLP
1800 One Liberty Place | Philadelphia, PA 19103-7395
Direct Dial: 215.864.6311 | Direct Fax: 215.789.7608
maniloffr@whiteandwilliams.com
The views
expressed herein are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of
the firm or its clients. The information contained herein shall not be
considered legal advice. You are advised to consult with an attorney concerning
how any of the issues addressed herein may apply to your own situation. The
term "Binding Authority" is used herein for literary purposes only and is not
an admission that any case discussed herein is in fact binding authority on any
court.
Randy J. Maniloff is a Partner at White and Williams,
LLP in Philadelphia. He concentrates his
practice in the representation of insurers in coverage disputes over various
types of claims. He writes frequently on
insurance coverage topics for a variety of industry publications. Maniloff's views on coverage issues have been
quoted by numerous media including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Associated Press
and Dow Jones Newswires. Randy is co-author of "General Liability Insurance
Coverage - Key Issues In Every State," a book addressing the law in all 50
states on twenty key liability insurance coverage issues (Second Edition; Oxford
University Press 2012) (with Professor Jeffrey Stempel of the University of
Nevada Las Vegas Boyd School of Law).
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