Progressive Weasling?

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wariline
Insurance Journal Addict
Posts: 63
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2010 8:23 pm

Re: Progressive Weasling?

Post by wariline »

I think the question is did your insured took reasonable care of the car when it was in their custody. If they did, then they're probably not legally liable. To perserve a good business relationship for the tow company, it's probably better for them to buy Primary Direct rather than legal liability.
gmann1957 wrote:Our agency just recently had a client insured with progressive with a loss. our client is a towing operation. His tow truck caught fire and destroyed the tow truck and the autos he was towing were damaged as well. Progressive paid our insured for the damage to his truck, but denied to pay anything on the autos that were being towed despite our insured having on'hook cover -L (Legal Liability). Their reasoning for denial is that our insured had no legal liability as they state the cause of loss was a mechanical failure. Is a vehicle catching on fire a mechanical failure? If our insured is not legally liable, then who is? No one else was involved and the cars were in his CCC.
yoyowordup
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Posts: 184
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:43 pm
Location: The Valley of the Sun - AZ

Re: Progressive Weasling?

Post by yoyowordup »

gmann1957 wrote:Our agency just recently had a client insured with progressive with a loss. our client is a towing operation. His tow truck caught fire and destroyed the tow truck and the autos he was towing were damaged as well. Progressive paid our insured for the damage to his truck, but denied to pay anything on the autos that were being towed despite our insured having on'hook cover -L (Legal Liability). Their reasoning for denial is that our insured had no legal liability as they state the cause of loss was a mechanical failure. Is a vehicle catching on fire a mechanical failure? If our insured is not legally liable, then who is? No one else was involved and the cars were in his CCC.

Of course your insured is not legally liable. Unless they failed to properly maintain their vehicle thereby increasing the likelihood of a fire then it's not their fault. If a branch from your tree falls on your neighbors house, it's not your fault unless you failed to properly maintain the tree. Same situation.
earlybird
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Posts: 35
Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:41 am

Re: Progressive Weasling?

Post by earlybird »

What amazes me, is the comments made by what I presume to be insurance "professionals" in response to the newspaper story. It is clear that many are misinformed or totally uninformed. The accident that took Ms. Fisher's life was a tragedy. If the writer wanted to get a clear understanding of the what and why payments were made to some and not to all, specifically to Ms. Fisher's estate, a Maryland insurance defense attorney should have been contacted and asked for an analysis. In Maryland contributory negligence is a common law bar to recovery, as it is in many states. If you are 1% negligent, no recovery.
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