You guys crack me up. . .

The insurance companies have the right to do what they want. Let's face it, from the insurance company's point of view, the activities you are participating in are more "risk" oriented.

Most insurance companies ask you when you initially set up a policy how many miles you'll be driving from home and to work. Now think about this. At that time would you add, yeah, I also auto cross on the weekends!

I better not see any flames come from this. . .it is after all my opinion.

 

Airgate-

I'm not sure I'd agree with the "risk" assessment your making of AutoX .........

I've seen much more risk taking on the Dragon or on the street than I've seen in the relatively safe and controlled environment of an AutoX........no other cars to collide with, no cliffs to plunge off of and a safety steward to make sure everything is done as close to the rule book on safety as possible.

Don't think you'll find that on your daily commute.

 

Geez Mack. . .

That's not what I'm talking about. Basically, what I'm saying is that the insurance companies may feel that if you autocross your car, then YOU are a higher risk for them! I'm just trying to give the spin this topic deserves.

 

Sorry....let me restate that.....

The insurance companies are run by a bunch of freakin morons.


That's my spin!

 

Normally insurance companies try to have some semblance of logic for their policy decisions, as every one will either make or lose them money. I'd lay very strgon odds that these individuals either directly voilated their policy agreement (no I don't know how, but we don't know the whole story), or Progressive has some data to back up the theory that people who drive on the track are more of a liability on the street. I'm not saying that their data is complete, sound, properly analyzed, correct, etc. but they have a reason for it.

When it comes right down to it, Progressive is a free company in a free market (insurance regulation aside, they can still choose to drop you for pretty much any reason they deem fit aside from the non PC ones) and as such they are free to do as they choose. If in fact racers are safer drivers, then another insurance company will eventually pick up on that and Progressive has lost a revenue stream thus 'teaching them a lesson'.

 

Ditto. And that goes for all kinds of insurance.

 

The insurance companies have the right to do what they want. Let's face it, from the insurance company's point of view, the activities you are participating in are more "risk" oriented.


This statement is correct and as the person who is paying for the insurance, who have a right to go elsewhere.

I don't enough of any insurance company that has lose money? If they have to pay out a claim, then they raise your rates to recover the claim. I have insurance because I have to, not because I want it.

My $0.02

 

Here's more from Dan as as expected we didn't have the full story. Dan is doing a great job of keeping people informed about this issue.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



After a bunch of digging here is the what I've
dug up:

Apparently someone in Maine made a claim on their Progressive insurance
policy, and our club somehow came up during the claim. Since we have not had
any accidents at events I'm not sure how and why that happened but this
information is from one of the Progressive agents. It is important to note
that this "investigation" was limited to Maine.
(At this time...)

Based on that information they went up on the web and cross checked all of
our results vs. names of policy owners. Since many of our participants come
from New Hampshire and Massachusetts, those individuals would not have come
up in a matching process. NOTE: Somehow our club was identified during this
accident "investigation". Progressive DID NOT do an arbitrary, random search,
looking for results to remove or cancel insured drivers.

It isn't clear if they augmented this investigative process with driving
record searches but it would be very reasonable to assume so. Both of the
affected individuals are young and have "less than stellar driving records"
several tickets and at least one suspension are on record. We have about 100
members and almost as many non-members participate in one or more our our
events each year. I'll try to find out if we have other Progressive policy
holders that were not refused renewal.

Progressive DID NOT, as I was originally informed, cancel their insurance.
Both individuals were informed that their insurance would not be renewed on
the policy anniversary dates. One of these is in June, the other in September.
[cut]---------

 

Interesting. I wonder if these members would have had their policies renewed if they weren't at the auto-X. I would think that learning car control at an auto-X is much safer than at any other type of event. At an auto-X, all you crash into are cones.

 

It would be interesting to see the statistics of autox/driver education event participants with claims made compared to non autox/DE participants. I'm sure that it would be quite difficult to conclude anything since some would not be totally honest and cars would be a limiting factor.

Perhaps, if ALL S2000 owners were polled and polled by the # of claims, then it could be more accurate.