Insurer to Pay $120G for Faulty Postings

May 27--Progressive Insurance is paying the price for getting the prices wrong.

The giant auto insurance company has agreed to pay $120,000 to settle complaints that it posted on its Web site inaccurate information about rivals' prices.

Attorney General Martha Coakley said Progressive, the super-aggressive Ohio insurer that entered the newly deregulated Massachusetts market last year, has also agreed to reimburse overcharged customers.

"For competition to truly work in Massachusetts, consumers must be able to easily access accurate information about rates from insurance companies," Coakley said in a statement yesterday. "Progressive's failure to provide correct comparison quotes harmed consumers and harmed Massachusetts' ability to introduce a competitive system in automobile insurance."

Progressive said it regretted the mistakes, but noted it was the one that discovered the inaccurate quotes on its Web site and alerted Coakley's office.

"Unfortunately, we made mistakes in calculating and programming competitor rates, which resulted in some Massachusetts drivers receiving inaccurate comparisons. We are sorry we let this happen," the company said.

Progressive, known for the super-cheap prices it initially offered customers after it jumped into the market last year, had posted much higher prices than what rivals were actually charging.

-----

To see more of the Boston Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.bostonherald.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, Boston Herald

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.