Progressive Sucks

Our BAD experience with Progressive Insurance Company

This is an up to date history of how they handed our claim
and how we feel about it!

This started out being a little story that was bad enough as it was but thanx to our really wonderful insurance company "aka Progressive.com" it got even worse and to date it appears that they aren't finished making it a memorable experience for us.

Whatever you do don't buy your insurance from Progressive
and if you already have change it NOW!
Not tomorrow but now
or this could be YOU!

This page is still under construction and we have alot to add to it so check in for updates.

Anyways here we go.

On June 16, 2005, Donna and I were heading toward home about 10:30 PM from one of Coyote Joe's Bike Nights.

Traveling south bound in the right lane less than a mile from the bar, not to mention less than a mile from our home we caught the red light at the intersection of Clinton Highway and Merchants Road.  As the only vehicle across all 4 south bound lanes we sat waiting for the light to turn green and we heard the sound of a vehicle skidding from behind us for what seemed to be at least 8 to 10 seconds and then we felt "The Big Bang!" and we found ourselves being catapulted like a rocket toward the intersection.  The next thing I remember was being shot through the windshield only to be pulled back again because my right hand leg was pinned beneath the bike and then rolling over on our side where we were then thrown off the bike.  Lucky for Donna she got to use me for a back stop and ride my back down to the point where we hit the pavement hard.  Lucky for me when the bike went over it released me from its hold or I may have had even worse injuries than I ended up with.

When it all stopped I was looking up at the sky thinking that this can't be good.  I turned my head to the left and there was Donna laying on the ground about 3 feet from me.  She was making an effort to get up and appeared to be ok so life was good. The next thing I remember was a fellow hovering over me asking me if I was ok.  He was a rather large fellow with a beard kinda like we have been told the lord looks like.  It sure wasn't the gorgeous looking angel I always imagined meeting after a situation such as this so I was pretty sure I was still alive and this wasn't heaven lol.

All of a sudden it hit me where we were, sprawled out across a traffic lane of a usually extremely busy highway and to top it off in the dark.  Well here come all the people one of which was a nurse who told me to sit down, I could be hurt but like I said I wasn't about to stay where I was considering the situation.  At that point all I could think of was getting the hell off the street before someone else ran us over again but for some reason I couldn't get up.  With Donna's and another fellows help I managed to and we made a bee line for the sidewalk and to my disbelief when I looked back toward the bike I saw what hit us.  Are you ready for this, because I sure wasn't, it was another motorcycle that had slammed into us!  Thinking you've got to be kidding could it get any weirder than this?   We then met the owner of it which turned out to be a gal.  Now you would expect that if your ever got ran over on a bike it would be by a car or truck but who in the world would have ever thought it would be by another motorcycle, geese!

Looking toward the east bound turn lane I saw Rick, the owner of Clinton Highway Wrecker Service, sitting there waiting on the light to turn.  I hollered out across the intersection at him, Damn Rick it took you all of a minute to get here, your service is really getting kinda slow don't ya think lol.  In an effort to keep us all from getting run over Rick lit up his emergency lights and pulled his wrecker around behind the wreck using it to block off the traffic lane .  Donna sat on hold with 911 for what seemed like 5 minutes in an effort to get the police out there and when they finally answered she was told they had already received several calls and they were already in route to us.  When Donna hung up with them our cell started ringing.  It was our daughter Brandy whom had already received the call from one of her friends that witnessed us laying in the road.  If things weren't bad enough we now had a freaked out teenager on the line crying her eyes out thinking the worst had happened to us.  Donna and I told her we were in one piece and ok as far as we knew but she told us she was on the way to us.

We're thinking the KFD fire trucks arrived next on the scene all of whom were very nice folks and patched up Donna's arm where she skidded across the pavement "Thanx Guys".  It wasn't that large of a wound and she just asked for a bandaid but when they got finished wrapping it up it looked like Donna's arm was being held in place with a whole roll of gauze. During this time the police had arrived on the scene and had the intersection blocked even better so we didn't have to worry about getting ran into anymore which was a total relief in itself.

Next on the scene was the big white bus from Coyote Joe's bar, it was beginning to look like a convention because in a matter of minutes we had all kinds of people we knew all around us.   Even Dial from Knoxville Harley Davidson was on the scene trying to do what he could to help.

Well here came the worst part of it all which was our daughter arriving on the scene.

Just imagine what went through her mind when she approached the big 4 lane intersection which was lit up like the Christmas tree in New York's Rockefeller Center with police cars, fire trucks and wreckers sitting just about everywhere you could put them and somewhere in the middle of it all, was your parents.

Donna and I both talked to Brandy on the phone assuring her we were ok but judging from the tears in her eyes and the look on her face as she was approaching us it didn't seem to make much of a difference.  Seeing your child in such a situation cuts right into your heart and isn't something I'd wish on anyone.

Once the police and fire department fellows finished up with us and our scooter was loaded up on a roll back on its way to Clinton Highway Wrecker Service then Rick and Brandy helped me hobble my way down the street to where Brandy had abandoned her car in the middle of the east bout lane of Merchants Road for the ride home.

"Thanx Rick"

By the 10th step to the car my foot was really talking to me and I knew I was in trouble with my leg and foot and I was going to have to head for the emergency room at St. Mary's Hospital.

In an effort to save my boot from getting cut off me at the emergency room we stopped by the house to see if we could get it off.   It wasn't pretty but with Donna and Brandy's help not to mention a little bit of screaming like a girl we managed to do it with only the loss of a few tears.  While we were there, Brandy remembered the crutches we had from when Donna had broken her foot several years before so she hunted them up so that I would have them to get around and we were off the the hospital.

Donna called a nurse friend of ours that we rode with all the time who worked in the ER part of the hospital. She called ahead to fellow co workers and let them know we were coming.  We weren't there very long at all before they called my name and took me back to one of the rooms. 

Thanks Girl!

The rest of that story will have to be told later but now on to the bike.

This is the first time we saw our scooter since last night in the dark.
At first glance it doesn't look as bad as we thought it would but it's one of those things that the more you look the more you see.

Progressive had an adjuster meet us at Clinton Highway Wrecker Service that afternoon, less than 24 hours after the accident.

He assured us that the gal that rear ended us did in fact have insurance with them
and that everything would be handled promptly and that we had nothing to worry about which was one hell of a stress relief to us at the time.

Right off the bat the adjuster, James Lebakken gave us a form to sign along with a self addressed stamped envelope for us to mail to him so that they could have our medical bills released to them as soon as possible.
According to him it was so they could quickly pay our medical bills.

In further conversation with the adjuster he was pretty intent on getting our scooter moved out of Clinton Highway Wrecker Services indoor care so that his company wouldn't have to keep paying them storage on it so he asked us to please have it moved to Knoxville Harley Davidson as soon as possible not only to get a more thorough estimate of the damages but also to lessen the storage costs endured by his company.

While he was doing the estimate on our scooter we were looking at this form
and it didn't just release our medical bills to them like he said it did.

It was a form that gave them the right to all our medical records back to the beginning of time
and it also states that the information they derived from them would no longer be private,
meaning they would become public records.

That in itself seemed a bit over our heads so we made a decision to talk to a lawyer prior to signing anything which it turned out was the a good decision because from what we gathered from him when we were about to be hoo-dooed!

Yes we know it's Saturday but James the adjuster told us he works Tuesday through Saturday 9-5 so that means he could have called us but he didn't.

There all probably out riding there scooters

Well we tried calling the adjuster to find out the next step

We were told it was the fellows day off, oh yeah we forgot, so we would have to wait until Tuesday to find out anything about our scooters fate
<sigh>

Another day of No Productivity
We talked to the adjuster "James"
and he said he would fax us his
estimate that afternoon
but it never arrived.

Yeah!

After having to call them once again this morning at 12:34 PM

We finally got the Progressive estimate which in reality wasn't much but it was a start.  It was missing the storage bill and had no sales tax.  It also had a note wanting to know where to have the bike moved to so Donna and I went to Knoxville Harley Davidson's service department to see when they could get to it.

As usual they were pretty busy and we had to wait close to an hour to get to chat with someone. I was hurting pretty bad from my injuries, not to mention stoned from pain meds so after about about 20 minutes they went and found me a chair so I could sit down.  At this point I was only good for about 10 minutes standing due to my injuries not to mention the meds I was on lol.  Anyways our turn up to bat finally came and we got to chat with a the service manager a fellow named Brandon about when they could do an estimate on our bike.  Brandon and the rest of the shop all ready knew all about it because they already had the Gal's bike that ran into us in their shop.  Brandon said they were pretty busy this week and that

the soonest they could get to it was Tuesday of next week.

We stated to Brandon that providing there wasn't any frame damage and our bike didn't total we planned on doing the repairs on our bike ourselves so we needed anything they took apart put back together so we wouldn't have such a difficult time doing the repairs not to mention we didn't want our scooter coming home in boxes and he said that was no problem at all.  He also said that there are 13 " I think" measurements at points on the frame that they will make to assure that the frame was not damaged and that they would go over it with a fine tooth comb to be sure to cover things as best as they could be so we could avoid that pain in the ass supplement thing with Progressive which would help save both us and them time and money.

Today at 1:21pm we Received Progressive's 2nd estimate figuring storage thru tomorrow and sales tax

plus also contained in the fax was a letter stating that any storage past tomorrow

would come out of our pocket.

Clell called James (after stewing) about 2:30 and told him that

we didn't appreciate the letter telling us we were not mitigating our responsibilities fast enough for them.

It wasn't our fault but his fault in taking so long to get back with us on things that was taking so long!

  We received a check for $5,691.98 in the mail which we put away safely until we knew what to do with it. 

We also received the same letter about storage in the mail

We called the Harley dealer and talked to Brandon who said we could have it brought down there and they could store it inside until they got to it so we had it towed down there.

Our Bike was taken to Knoxville Harley Davidson today to please Progressive.

Day 9 Saturday June 25th 2005 No Word from Progressive

Day 10 Sunday June 26th No Word from Progressive, There probably out riding their scooters again

Day 11 Monday June 27th No Word from Progressive But we got to meet with a lawyer today

Needless to say he told us not to sign that form and for us to tell them to contact his office
for any medical information they needed.

Next Question was what to do with the check that Progressive sent us, if we should deposit it or just hold on to it?.

He told us that we shouldn't cash the check until everything was final or at the very least the closest it could come to it that we could live with.

Brandon, from Knoxville Harley, called and said that the estimate was done and the bike was ready to be picked up and taken back to our shop.  We went down there and took a look at their estimate and had to have them add the right hand foot board, the tour pak lid organizer, and the flag.  We also asked how much it would be for them to mount and balance the new tire on the new rim and Brandon said that it would cost $35.00.  While we were there we called Clinton Highway Wrecker and they said it would cost $75.00 to tow our bike back to our shop after the insurance company pays them for their estimate.

This needed to happen soon because they weren't storing our bike
inside like we understood they would.

Instead it was being stored outside under a damp, dirty, dark carport.

We did find out that the Progressive had paid $495.81 for the initial tow and storage bill to Knoxville Harley because Harley had paid Clinton Highway Wrecker Service when our bike arrived at their place on Friday.

So the balance owed to get our bike out of hock from Knoxville Harley would be $401.41
plus the $75.00 which equals
$476.41 in all.

We left a message on Mr. James Lebakken's, the adjuster at Progressive, voice mail at 8:07am telling him that the latest estimate exceeded his by $2,196.46 and faxed him copies.

Since we STILL hadn't heard a word from the adjuster at Progressive

Donna gave them a call at 2:11 PM and talked to a fellow named Fred Sliger who verified that they had in fact received our fax.  Later that evening at 7:11 PM Mr. Lebakken "James" called and said that he would work on it tomorrow.

Today we had to make a payment to the bank on
our broken dead horse of
$404.16

This was something we would have had to do anyways but
not being able to work sure made it tough for us to do.

Day 15 Friday July 1st No Word from Progressive

Day 16 Saturday July 2nd No Word from Progressive

Day 17 Sunday July 3rd No Word from Progressive

Day 18 Monday July 4th No Word from Progressive

Day 19

Tuesday

July 5th

Well James the adjuster from Progressives tomorrow turned out to be 5 tomorrows later
but he finally called about 2 PM today offering us a check of $1,516.45 if we want to come pick it up across town.  Donna told him she didn't see any sense in driving across town to pick up a check that is short $184.20.

James said that it didn't include the tow bill or helmets because he needs a copy of the tow bill
and he has to have our helmets before he will pay us for them.
He said it was a safety thing Progressive required to insure that they were never used again.

Donna told him we don't have copy of the tow bill because as you are aware the bike is still at Harley.

She also had to remind him that we haven't been able to work and it's kind of hard on us to pay Harley the $401.41 to get our bike out of hock plus the $75.00 to have it towed back to our store not to mention that it's kind of hard to get a receipt for towing something that hasn't been towed yet.

As far as the helmets go, she told him he's welcome to them.

Another thing about the helmets that 
I as I write this with my now very paranoid mindset I wonder if the reason they want them from us is so they can disappear because they show evidence of the impacts our heads took when we hit the pavement.

Isn't a shame one has to think this way?

It has been raining for the past two weeks on and off here and our scooter is really beginning to turn to shit.

Realizing that Progressive obviously
isn't going to settle our claim any time soon

and our bike is not being stored inside as we were told it would be not to mention our summer time is running out and we needed to get this show on the road ASAP.

Progressive's adjusters are well aware that it's going to take several weeks to obtain all the parts we need to get back on the road especially the painted parts and we just can't understand why they are dragging this out so long

SO WE CHOSE TO USE OUR MONEY TO PAY THE $401.41 PLUS $75.00 FOR TOWING

to get our bike out of Knoxville Harley-Davidson's Damp Dark Carport

so that we could take it to our shop where it could be kept indoors so it won't be rusting down in the elements while the folks at Progressive make up their minds what WE'RE going to do.

We'd like to take it home where the conditions would be even better
Normally the bike shares the upper garage with our daughters Saturn but due to the fact I'm crippled up and can't do the basement stairs yet we have to park our Suburban in it which unfortunately isn't large enough to hold both of them at the same time not to mention we don't have the means to transport it back and forth.  Even if we had a trailer and could there is no way in my condition I could load or off load it so were just kinda stuck doing things the best as we can.

When the guy from the wrecker service parked
our bike in our shops cutting room bay we noticed this switch knob was MIA.

In the light the bike looked even nastier than it did sitting in Knoxville Harley's carport storage area.  Hopefully we got it before the moist dirt did any damage to the paint and the rust pits haven't set into our chrome. It's a far cry from the condition it was in the last night we got to ride it.  If we sound kinda fussy about our bike we hate that for ya, for what we paid for it we planned on it lasting us a very long time.  This thing got better care from Donna than I do, it was her baby and she kept it always shining like a new button.

Did you know Progressive has a special exclusion for this kind of damage written into the policy.

I bet I know how it got there!

The first order of the day called for making up an accurate parts list.

We tried listing the parts we needed from the two repair estimates but things weren't adding up.
The description of the parts didn't really tell us what was what and there were several bent parts that weren't on the lists as far as we could tell. 

This pretty much put us at a stand still because it was pretty plain to see
that we were going to have to have a parts manual before we could even think about ordering anything and we were also going to have to have a service manual also to verify what parts are going to be needed.

Donna went on a mission and started calling the 3 Harley Dealers in our area until she found what we needed at Smokey Mountain Harley Davidson in Maryville, TN.

What should have been about a 60 minute drive to get there and back took her about 2 hours after driving around lost and then when she got there she got the run around for at least another hour before they could find the guy that knew where the books were lol.

Needless to say we weren't going to be able to get anything finished today so we headed for the barn and spent the rest of the evening becoming familiar wtih the two manuals.

 The cost was $92.64 and 4 hours.

Day 24 Sunday July 10th No Word from Progressive

Today we started tearing the bike down to get up an accurate parts order.

This is a shot of our rear wheel that was bent from the impact.

She must have really been moving when she hit us
to do this type of damage. The guys at Knoxville Harley told me her front rim had the same type of damage.

Left side, Center and Right hand side rear views

The left hand side of the bike

We removed the saddle bag racks along with the tour pak and a few more parts.

When we got down to the frame we found frame damage Harley had missed.

We were under the understanding that the damage to our bike was all simple bolt on parts replacement with the exception of a scratch or two here and there we could touch up with a small bottle of touch up paint but the damage we found was way past that stage.

At that point since that's something alot more major than originally figured we gave it up until we could talk to someone about what we had found.

This tab is the left front mounting bolt of the rear fender and appears to be the worst bent of the ones we found so far.

Left hand side shots of the damage

This is the left rear fender mounting bracket.

It's hard to see in these pictures but there are no less than 5 cracks radiating all around the bolt hole.

These cracks may be just superficial and confined only to the powder coat itself.  The only method I'm aware of for repairing something like this is to grind the powder coat down to the metal and that operation itself may help mask cracks.  If it is cracked it would have to be cut off the frame and replaced or if it's small perhaps it could be welded.  The end result of that would be a weaker metal than it was from the factory unless the entire frame went through a process like the swing arms do in our helicopter called "normalizing" which restores the metal to the same toughness throughout that it was designed to be.  If it isn't the parts will break off the main frame just shy of where they were welded back on.

Rear views of the top tubes of the frame.

The RH tube appears to be higher than the LH one.
It may just be an illusion from the way the lift is holding the bike.
Not having any books with dimensions and points to measure from for the frame we can't tell how much if any the tubes are bent.

It appears that the rear brake caliper is out of alignment. It's a cast part and the only way we can see it doing what it's doing is that the rear axle itself must be bent because that's all it appears to be mounted to.

Another shot of the same situation. At this point we didn't see much point in tearing it down further.

Donna called Brandon at Knoxville Harley and asked him who he had told me about at Progressive that might be a bit more productive to deal with.

He told her to call Matt Kepper and gave her his number.  She called Matt about 9 & left a message on his voice mail and asked that he call us.  He called us about 10:05 and said that he would dig into the situation and come by in the next 2-3 days and reevaluate the situation.

About 3:50 PM Donna called the Main Harley headquarters in Wisconsin and spoke to a fellow named Phillip.

She described the damage and asked him if repairing the frame was an option for us.

Phillip at Harley Davidson said

they do not advise any repairs on the frame and gave her a file number of 306587 for the insurance company to reference in the event they balked about it.

Later that afternoon lo and behold Matt the adjuster from Progressive showed up.

We played show and tell with him and he agreed that a new frame was in order and
there was a pretty good possibility that this would total our bike.

He took some pictures and said that he would relay what he saw
and show the pictures to the proper people and have them get back with us.

Donna Called Progressive and spoke with Matt at 10:35 am to see where we are on the bike.

He checked and said that Mr. "James" Lebakken had dropped the ball and not done a thing.

Donna asked him if he could please get somebody to do something because
it's been 4 1/2 weeks now!

At 3:55 PM Donna called the Progressive Insurance Company's main number in an effort to get somebody that will do something to bring this deal to closure.

The girl that answered punched in the claim number and then put her on hold for a while.  When she came back she told Donna that a property damage manager is reviewing the case and that
it shouldn't be more than a day or so until they let us know something.

Donna told them that we are sending the bike back to storage after two days so they need to make a decision soon.  We just don't have the space for it here and we can't take it home.

Next Donna called the Harley Dealer parts guy we had in limbo

to let him know we are still waiting on the insurance company to decide if they are going to total the bike or not and that's why we can't give him the go ahead to order the parts we priced with him.

NEXT Donna called the bank to ask them if there was anything they could

do to help us through this situation.

They said about the only way they could help us out any is by allowing us to defer a maximum of one payment and that there is nothing that they can help us do to deter the insurance from stalling.

Donna checked on availability and pricing to rent a bike
since it doesn't look like we will have one any time soon at the rate they are going.

Would you believe $750.00 a week plus $35.00 a day for rental insurance

Now can't yas just see us driving into our local bike hangout in a cavalier lol.

They also said that "reasonable" is determined by court
and that the insurance company is breaking no laws.
Well the law sure sux!

to request that our insurance coverage on the bike be reduced to comprehensive only back to June 17th since we obviously cannot drive a wrecked bike and we don't feel that we should have to be paying for collision insurance.

They said they can only cancel it and that they do not offer a comprehensive only policy.
and once this is over they can refund back to the date of June 17th but only if the bike is totalled.

So until they settle with us,

it means we have to keep our insurance in case something were to happen to our wrecked bike for the bank note.

Day 34 Wednesday July 20th No Word from Progressive