BWAHAHAHAH I love progressive auto insurance! (2024)

I gotta share this one...

So I get a nice letter in the mail from Progressive, saying I should call and get another quote since their rates have changed. Ok, cool. I'm always looking for something that doesn't quite resemble prison rape when it comes to insurance.

So I call up and go through the whole rigamarole of personal info, etc. Tell the nice lady on the phone that I have a VZ800(K) Suzuki Marauder... 800cc cruiser. I about choked on my Sprite when I heard the final total. $2500 a year? FOR A CRUISER?

Damnit, there's sprite all over my keyboard and monitor now.

So just for kicks, once I recover my composure, I tell the nice lady on the phone to tack on my second bike... the 2001 R1. With all the aftermarket stuff on it.

$15,188 a year for both bikes.

I've heard Progressive pull out some amazingly stupid rates, but HOLY sh*t! Both those bikes brand new cost me about $18,000... whoa nellie.

I couldn't stop laughing for a good ten minutes I hope that no coworkers thought I was going off my rocker there...

you got to love progressive, i actually thought they had -good- rates they quoted me 5600 online and "knocked" it down to 2800 when i called them

no thanks. state farm got me 170 something for 6 mos.

stillart said:

you got to love progressive, i actually thought they had -good- rates they quoted me 5600 online and "knocked" it down to 2800 when i called them

no thanks. state farm got me 170 something for 6 mos.

Click to expand...

I got my-old lady progressive and the catch was " if you cancel
You have to pay 50 bucks."
I got about 170 to 180 at farms also.
Allstate was good but they
Dropped me cause I was 1 day late. And it was a Sunday.
and I had them for like 2 years. Now that’s loyalty.
:finger Allstate

so what the funk are we supposed to do as sportbiek riders when we cant pick up insurance and own a bike at the same time? ride cruisers? walk?

weird i could see sportbikes dying on the road because of insurance the way muscle cards died in the 70s from gas prices/and fuel economy

Max Smiley said:

this is not making sense and people better start complaining to the state board or something. mark my words there will be a class action suit soon in response to this raping of motorcyclists everywhere.

Click to expand...

Well, to be honest it does. Lets say you had $50,000 (liability limits plus price of bike) on the line for a 19 year old with 2 weeks lic and 150hp R1. How much would you charge? The loss ratio on bikes is very high. A loss ratio is the amount of money brought in compared to the amount paid out. A good loss ratio is about 60%. Most bike companies have seen a loss ratio of 95% or higher inthe past few years. So for every $100 they take in they have to pay out $95 in claims. You could not even pay your staff on that small a profit. That is why these rates are the way they are. Remember in CA all rates are approved by the California Department of Insurance (DOI). The insurance companies have to prove to the DOI that losses justify the rates. I'm lucky, I have had a motorcycle license for over 12 years. It helps alot.

Yellowduc, this doesn't explain the incredible discrepancy of rates amongst various underwriters. Why would a company such as Progressive quote such outrageous rates (effectively the cost of the bike or more). Obviously liability is not an issue when it comes to motorcycle rates... normally they're a very small tip of the iceberg. But Comp/Coll, on the other hand...

Its even stranger to think that Progressive would have a much larger pool of policies than most of the other smaller underwriters out there-- being able to capitolize on smaller margins by making up for it in volume. Their quoted price seems to indicate (to me, without looking at the individual coverages breakdown) that 100% of all R1's in my demographic are crashed and totalled-- hence the $2000 beyond the Out The Door price of that f*cking R1 to start with!

Hold on, that doesn't make sense. More than the OTD price of the bike? Its a year old and has 12,000 miles? I sense discrepency here. Actually, more like a great disturbance in the force. Incidentally, the KBB value of that bike is $9505 @ 5800 miles a year... so now I'm up to $4000+ beyond the value of the bike.

Liability only, on the other hand, isn't very expensive. Call it no more than $500/yr for me, personally. So they're not worried about me going out and taking out another car and killing myself. This math isn't adding up very well... you'd think if I crashed and totalled one R1, they'd raise the rates on the new replacement to cover another crash.

Perhaps insurance companies just finally wised up to the old adage of two kinds of riders-- those who are down, and those who will, right?

Progressive sucks

My HAwk 650-@$800/ year, my VTR-$2,000/yr.
Switched to GMAC Insurance-$1,035/yr.

WTF. Why so expensive!

I am an older girl w/ no priors.

YellowDuc said:

The term underwriters is used incorrectly here. The rate difference is based on the what they have found with a given loss. Most people who complain about rates are younger riders with less driving experince.

Click to expand...

I'll certainly give that last one to you, but you gotta start somewhere. Let's not forget that the fastest growing category of motorcycle deaths belong to newer/returning middle aged riders... I'm sure that will factor in eventually.

Remmeber 100 of factors go into rating a risk not just age,location and type of bike. Prior insurance, group memebership (AMA), loss history, zip code, type of bike, is it kept in a garage, does it have an alarm and so on.

Click to expand...

Type of bike is a bike cost adjustor-- I know at least one person who found that a Ducati 996 is cheaper to insure than a CBR929RR. And you forgot things like speeding ticket and accidents But seriously... look at the price difference between the cursed cruiser and my R1... $2500/yr vs $12,700/yr. You can't tell me that's not a major difference between a $7000 OTD bike and an $11,800 OTD bike.

I have a clean driving record, a motorcycle license for 12 years and car license for 14 yrs, over 5 years of prior insurance, am a member of the AMA (10% off) and have the MSF course (10% off), the bike is in a locked garage, it is only a 97 hp 748cc bike. For all those reasons I only pay $250 a year.

Click to expand...

Hehe... *only* 97 horsepower? My cursed cruiser puts out an arm wrenching ~42hp, and that's plenty enough to cook a corner too hot and take out a car/guardrail-- it does have a top speed in excess of 100mph. A 748 surely goes much faster than that
Honestly, I didn't have a problem with my prior rates-- I bought that R1 with slightly glazed eyes and took the devil's bargain. $1800 a year, I can deal with that. Underwriters change and the renewal is $2600 a year after one year without any claims and one not-at-fault accident. Only been licensed for six years and one year on a motorcycle, 10% MSF discount, garaged both at home and at work, and its only 135hp or so
But you know what? If I clear my record of *one* speeding ticket, I'll get a 20% decrease. That's cool. But if I get MARRIED, I get a 47% decrease in rate. HUH? The most suicidal nutcase riders I know are all married!
Until I see the actual rates and statistics, I'll never be positive that Insurance companies aren't blowing smoke out of the collective asses.

As for a larage group, lets say you brought in 10,000,000 in premium with a loss ratio of 95%, you paid out $9,500,000.00. How much does it cost to run a business? See my point. Heck Progressive ads are almost 20 million a year. At a 95% loss ratio they would need $400,000,000 a year in premium just to cover ads, not counting law suits, fruad claims, paying staff ect. See my point. Bike insurance companies are losing money. That is why the rates are going up.

Click to expand...

Yes, but not all bikes are 95% loss, are they? Obviously they're making money on you-- $250 every single month betting you won't crash bad enough to claim. Or get the bike stolen. You'd be what I would call a "high margin" account
(Just out of curiousity, see if you can find out your rate for an R1 )

ok you 'ought to get a kick out of this msg.:

"Hi, I'm moving out of the city in a couple of months, and I recently sold my motorcycle in anticipation that the move was going to happen earleier than it will. "

"What I'm intrested in in anything from 250 to 1100cc, to use for running errands around town when necessary. I've got a car, but I like the convenience of a motorcycle and I don't want to go through the process of buying one and then having to sell it in 6 weeks. "

"Let me know if you are not riding yours and would like some extra cash. THe most I can offer is $30/week. I've got a motorcycle license, 5 years of experience riding in the city, a perfect record, and my own helmet/gloves/jacket. "

Witchkiller said:

Allstate was good but they
Dropped me cause I was 1 day late. And it was a Sunday.
and I had them for like 2 years. Now that’s loyalty.
:finger Allstate

Click to expand...

Ditto - they're finding any excuse they can to drop motorcycle policies. Note that they wouldn't write you a new one. They even mailed my statement to me late to ensure my payment wouldn't be on time. Oh well, slightly higher rate at State Farm now so it's all good.

Oddly enough, Progressive has always been pretty cheap for me, at least as far as my bike insurance. It cost less than $200/year, even with comprehensive & collision. I used to have my truck (which I no longer own) on the policy as well--that was considerably more expensive than the bike.

Last month I added another bike, and my BF, who just got his learner's permit and has no previous driving record, to the policy. Progressive was still the lowest quote I got. Admittedly I didn't do an exhaustive search for low rates though.

I guess owning small old bikes has its advantages.