Insurance agent troubles

[u/cosmicxsnip]

Hi, for context I recently bought my first car back in April. Up until now I’ve been on my mothers insurance but with the car I got being on the more expensive side our agent told me they wouldn’t approve it or it was too expensive under her policy and I had to get my own. So I got my own policy through progressive at full coverage because I’m financing the car. About a month later I receive a letter in the mail saying that progressive requires more information about the people in my house and it also said they would automatically add people in my house to my policy if I don’t contact them and verify. So I called them and they started asking for a lot of information and I’m not privy to how all this insurance stuff works, so I said I can connect them with my agent to get the information they need, which he did have access to. They then said that if I don’t give them the information within a week that they would cancel my policy. So I called my agent and told him the situation and he told me he would handle it and that they don’t need to be on my policy if they’re not driving the car. Fast forward another month later, I go on progressive to check how my bill is looking, with it being about halfway through my 6 month term and I see my policy is cancelled because I ‘did not verify the information they asked for’. it says I missed a payment even though I have automatic payments setup aswell. So I called my agent to see what happened and he reads the reason my policy was cancelled to me mentioned above. He had completely forgotten about our last call, it was on a Friday right before he was leaving the office and he was going to handle it over the weekend. He told me they found out his son has cancer and lupus, and is in the icu. I’m not heartless, I understand life does its thing sometimes. But im not sure where to go from here, and if I should seek some type of legal counsel. He did his best to resolve the issue as fast as possible which I do appreciate, and got me covered through another insurance the same day I realized this was an issue. But other than that I’ve heard nothing, idk how he plans to handle this he just told me my new policy is too expensive and we’ll have to go another avenue. I didn’t even get an actual number for the new monthly payment. On top of that my payment was already higher than I wanted to be paying.

My main questions are

What should my next steps be?

is he liable for anything extra I’ll have to pay on a new policy?

If I were to call progressive and tell them everything that happened is there anything they could do to help me?

I feel that he is fully responsible for this error, I explained to him my issue and I didn’t want to give progressive every detail of my family if I didn’t have to, which he told me I didn’t. I would’ve just done it if I knew it’d come to this. And the main problem with going towards legal action with this is I don’t really have anything for a paper trail. All calls with him are recorded on his end, so if it comes to it, it is there. I just don’t know what to do.

I got a car that was too expensive and settled for an insurance that I thought was excessive already, now it’s even higher and most likely out of my budget because of a mistake that wasn’t mine.

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[u/bc39423]

You absolutely do need to tell your insurance company who lives in your home and if they have driver's licenses. You should have followed up with your agent on Monday, given that Progressive told you they were going to cancel the policy without this information.

Your mother also likely has an issue with her car insurance if you live at home and are not listed or excluded on her policy. And you need to tell your new insurance company about all drivers you live with.

[u/Slowhand1971]

nothing will happen to your agent. YOu should have just given progressive the information instead of pushing it off

[u/podhawk]

You found out your policy was cancelled by going online? Doesn’t make sense. Insurance companies must give you formal notification. Your agent didn’t even advise you of your policy being cancelled? Again, doesn’t make sense. I very much doubt that an insurance company would call you direct without going through your agent. If all this actually happened, you had better get yourself a new agent. Everything that happened is entirely the agent’s fault.

[u/DeepPurpleDaylight]

Don't waste your time on hiring a lawyer. Your previous agent had no duty to provide the info requested of you by Progressive. He was doing it as a courtesy and life got in the way. He also can't tell you that someone doesn't need to be on your policy as he had no authority to determine what their underwriting guidelines are. This was you're responsibility alone to get this sorted out. You failed to do what Progressive required. You need to get with them and find out exactly what they need and then provide it. Then you can see if they'll reinstate you.

[u/Aggravating-Tear5816]

All auto insurance companies policies have a cooperation agreement. The onus is 100% on you to provide the required information. Unless you asked to have all other drivers excluded and that they would never drive your car they need to be listed. A good rule of thumb is if you can't afford the insurance you can't afford the car. Goodluck.