The Progressive auto insurance company saw our post “Why Is Progressive Using “Recent Military Service” To Determine Rates And Eligibility?” and responded to let us know that it’s just to make sure that service members aren’t penalized for having a lapse in their coverage due to the fact that they’ve been deployed overseas. They’ve apologized for the confusing wording on the website and have pledged to rewrite it for clarity. Full official statement, inside…

Cristy writes:

I am from Progressive and would like to respond to your posting titled “Why is Progressive Using ‘Recent Military Service’ to Determine Rates and Eligibility?”

First, I would like to apologize to Ceaser and anyone else who got the impression that Progressive uses military service to determine rates and eligibility. This is not true, but it’s easy to see how Ceaser and others could have gotten that impression based on the language on our Web site.

The reason we would ask about military service is to make sure we are not unfairly charging a higher rate to service men and women who have had a lapse in insurance coverage.

If you’ve bought car insurance before, you know that most companies offer you a better rate if you have continuous insurance coverage, and it’s the same with Progressive. But, someone who is deployed overseas without access to a car does not need insurance, so they may not have it. But we certainly don’t want that to hurt them in terms of their rate. So, if a person had a lapse in coverage because they were in the military, we would offer them the same (better) rate they would have gotten if they had had no lapse in coverage. The majority of states require insurers to do this, but we do it voluntarily in all states regardless of whether it’s required because it’s the right thing to do. Please let me know if this makes sense; if not, I will try to explain it better!

As for the confusing language on our Web site, I’m very sorry about that and we are now in the process of getting it changed. That language is a disclosure about our comparison rating service, where we give you our rates and the rates of some of our competitors. The language is meant to convey that some companies may consider military service in rating, and if they do, it might make the rate we gave you for the other company inaccurate. But unfortunately, the way it’s worded, it sounds like we may use recent military service as a reason not to offer insurance, which is not the case.

The last thing we want to do is make anyone in the military feel that we’re treating them with anything less than the respect they deserve. We want to make sure we don’t charge higher rates to people who don’t have continuous car insurance coverage because they were deployed overseas. If you are in the military and have been deployed overseas, please make sure your insurance company or your agent knows this so that you are not penalized for not having continuous car insurance. Thank you for hearing me out, and again, I am sorry for the confusing language that led to this misunderstanding.

Cristy Cote
Progressive Public Relations

PREVIOUSLY: Why Is Progressive Using “Recent Military Service” To Determine Rates And Eligibility?

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.