Item 1. BUSINESS
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Item 1. BUSINESS
General Development of Business
The Progressive Corporation, an insurance holding company, has insurance and non-insurance subsidiaries and affiliates (references in this Item to subsidiaries includes affiliates as well). Our insurance subsidiaries provide personal and commercial auto insurance, personal residential and commercial property insurance, workers’ compensation insurance primarily for the transportation industry, business-related general liability insurance, and other specialty property-casualty insurance and related services. Our non-insurance subsidiaries generally support our insurance and investment operations. We operate throughout the United States. Unless noted, references to “state(s)” throughout this report include the District of Columbia. The Progressive Corporation, together with its insurance and non-insurance subsidiaries and affiliates, comprise what we refer to as Progressive.
Progressive’s vision is to become consumers’, agents’, and business owners’ number one destination for insurance and other financial needs. Progressive's four strategic pillars of people and culture, broad needs of our customers, leading brand, and competitive prices serve as the foundation of how we will achieve our vision.
Description of Business
Organization
Our executive group oversees the business and corporate functions that support all areas of our organization and consists of the following:
| Chief Executive Officer | ||||||||
| •Chief Financial Officer | •Personal Lines President | |||||||
| •Chief Investment Officer | •Property General Manager | |||||||
| •Chief Human Resources Officer | •Commercial Lines President | |||||||
| •Chief Information Officer | •Claims President | |||||||
| •Chief Legal Officer | •Customer Relationship | |||||||
| •Chief Marketing Officer | Management President | |||||||
| •Chief Strategy Officer |
Our insurance and claims organizations are generally managed on a state-by-state basis due to the nature of insurance, legal and regulatory requirements, and other local factors, and are supplemented by national operations and supported by our corporate functions. State-specific organizations typically report to a regional general manager, who then reports to the applicable group president. In California, we operate a separate agency auto organization with its own management and customer relationship management organization.
Personal Lines
Our Personal Lines segment writes insurance for personal autos and recreational vehicles, which we refer to as our special lines products. This business generally offers more than one program in a single state, with each program targeted to a specific distribution channel, market, or customer group. As of December 31, 2022, we wrote our Personal Lines products in all states, however, our special lines products are not written in the District of Columbia. The Personal Lines business accounted for 77% of our total net premiums written in 2022, 78% in 2021, and 82% in 2020.
The Personal Lines segment consists of personal auto and special lines products.
- Personal auto insurance represented approximately 94% of our total Personal Lines net premiums written in 2022, 2021, and 2020. We ranked third in market share in the U.S. private passenger auto market based on 2021 premiums written. We believe that our market share grew in 2022, however, industry data regarding our ranking for 2022 is not yet available. There are approximately 255 competitors in this market. Progressive and the other leading 15 private passenger auto insurers, each of which writes over $2.5 billion of premiums annually, comprise 84% of this market. All industry data, including ranking and market share, based on premiums written, has been obtained directly from data reported by either SNL Financial or A.M. Best Company, Inc. (A.M. Best), or was estimated using A.M. Best data as the primary source.
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- Special lines products, which include insurance for motorcycles, ATVs, RVs, watercraft, snowmobiles, and similar items, represented the remaining Personal Lines net premiums written for the years mentioned above. Due to the seasonal nature of these products, we typically experience higher losses during the warmer weather months. Our competitors are specialty companies and large multi-line insurance carriers. Although industry figures are not available, based on our analysis of this market, we believe that we are the market share leader for both the motorcycle and boat products and that we are one of the largest providers of RV insurance.
Our Personal Lines products are sold through both the Agency and Direct channels.
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The Agency business includes business written by our network of more than 40,000 independent insurance agencies located throughout the United States, including brokerages in New York and California. These independent insurance agents and brokers have the ability to place business with Progressive for specified insurance coverages within prescribed underwriting guidelines, subject to compliance with our mandated procedures. The agents and brokers do not have authority to establish underwriting guidelines, develop rates, settle or adjust claims, or enter into other transactions or commitments. The Agency business also writes insurance through strategic alliance business relationships with other insurance companies, financial institutions, and national agencies. The total net premiums written through the Agency channel represented 47% of our Personal Lines volume in 2022, and 48% in both 2021 and 2020.
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The Direct business includes business written directly by us on the Internet, through the Progressive mobile app, and over the phone. The total net premiums written by the Direct business represented 53% of our Personal Lines volume in 2022, and 52% in both 2021 and 2020.
Our Personal Lines strategy is to be a competitively priced provider of a broad range of personal auto and special lines insurance products with distinctive service, distributed through whichever channel the customer prefers, and combined with property insurance and other products when appropriate to match our customers’ needs. Volume potential is driven by our price competitiveness, the actions of our competitors, brand recognition, and quality service delivered through our dedicated employees who embody the Progressive culture, among other factors. See “Competitive Factors” below for further discussion.
We seek to refine our personal auto segmentation, underwriting models, and pricing over time, and we regularly elevate new product models. At any one time, we could have multiple product models in the marketplace as new versions are being rolled out from state to state. Such new product models generally introduce new risk variables intended to improve its accuracy of matching rate to risk, increase our competitiveness, or make our products more attractive to specific market segments, among other enhancements.
We continue to provide customers in both the Agency and Direct channels the opportunity to improve their auto insurance rates based on their personal driving behavior through Snapshot®, our usage-based insurance (UBI) program. We offer Snapshot through our hardware-based and/or mobile-app versions in all states, other than California. This mobile app is intended to improve the user experience while also reducing our monitoring costs. In addition to the personal benefits for our customers, the data collected via the mobile app affords us a unique perspective on mobile device usage, vehicle operations, and accidents. Our updated auto product models, discussed above, often also include Snapshot enhancements intended to improve its accuracy and competitiveness and broaden its applicability.
Our Personal Lines business is focused on efforts to form deeper and longer-term relationships with our customers through our Destination Era strategy, which supports the pursuit of our vision described above. Through this strategy, we seek to leverage our Property business, as well as insurance and non-insurance products offered by unaffiliated third parties, to provide our customers access to a range of products addressing their diverse needs and, if the customer chooses, to “bundle” certain of the products together. Bundled products are an integral part of our consumer offerings and an important part of our strategic agenda. Customers who prefer to bundle represent a sizable segment of the insurance market, and our experience is that they tend to stay with us longer and generally have lower claims costs.
Our Destination Era strategy involves a number of initiatives, including:
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In our Agency channel, we offer customers the opportunity to bundle our auto, special lines, and Property offerings. To further drive bundling in the Agency channel, we offer the Platinum program to those select agents who have the appropriate customers for our bundled offering. This program combines our auto and home insurance with the compensation, coordinated policy periods, single event deductible, and other features that meet the needs and desires that our agents have expressed. As of December 31, 2022, we had just over 4,000 Platinum agents.
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We offer independent agents an agency quoting system that makes it easier for them to bundle multiple policies with us. Our “Portfolio” quoting system reduces data entry, displays all available products eligible for bundled quotes, simplifies the agents’ experience on third-party comparative rater systems, and provides agents and their customers an overview of premium, bundle savings, and applied discounts to allow them to add or remove products with one click. Portfolio is available for all agents appointed to write new business where we offer Property products.
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In the Direct channel, we bundle Progressive auto with Property products in almost all states, as well as with homeowners and renters products provided by unaffiliated insurance carriers nationwide. We offer these bundles by providing a single destination to which consumers may come for both their auto and property insurance needs. In many cases, we may offer discounts to incentivize or reward this bundling.
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Where available, our special lines products and umbrella insurance can be combined with any of the auto, home, or renters coverages that we offer, in either the Direct or Agency channel.
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HomeQuote Explorer® (HQX) is our multi-carrier, direct-to-consumers online property offering. Through HQX, consumers are able to quickly and easily quote and compare homeowners insurance online from Progressive and other carriers. During 2022, we continued to expand the availability of the online buy button, which was active in all states where we write Property products via HQX by the end of 2022.
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As we increase our penetration of the more complex, multi-product customers who are critical to our Destination Era success, we are further expanding the roster of products provided by unaffiliated companies that we make available through online and telephonic referrals and for which we receive commissions, or other compensation, that are reported as service revenues. Our list of unaffiliated company products includes items such as classic and specialty car, pet, health, life, electronics, travel, and event insurance.
Commercial Lines
The Commercial Lines segment writes auto-related liability and physical damage insurance, business-related general liability and property insurance predominately for small businesses, and workers’ compensation insurance primarily for the transportation industry. The Commercial Lines business accounted for 18% of our total net premiums written in 2022, 17% in 2021, and 13% in 2020. In 2021, we acquired Protective Insurance Corporation and subsidiaries (Protective Insurance) to expand our portfolio of offerings to larger fleet, workers’ compensation coverage for trucking, along with trucking industry independent contractors, and affinity programs.
Unless otherwise noted, the following discussion excludes transportation network company (TNC) business, which is discussed below.
We offer our auto products in all states. Our commercial auto customers insure approximately two vehicles per policy. During 2022, we wrote about 90% of our commercial auto business through the agency channel.
There are approximately 335 competitors in the total U.S. commercial auto market. We primarily compete with about 50 other large companies/groups, each with over $200 million of commercial auto premiums written annually. Progressive and these leading commercial auto insurers comprise 83% of this market. Our Commercial Lines business ranked number one in the commercial auto insurance market for 2021 based on premiums written, and we believe that we continued to hold that position for 2022.
The Commercial Lines business operates in the following commercial auto business market targets:
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Business auto – autos, vans, pick-up trucks used by small businesses (e.g., retailing, manufacturing, farming) and for-hire livery (e.g., non-fleet (i.e., five or fewer vehicles) taxis, black-car services, and airport taxis),
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For-hire transportation – tractors, trailers, and straight trucks primarily used by regional general freight and expeditor-type businesses and long-haul operators,
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Contractor – vans, pick-up trucks, and dump trucks used by light contractors (e.g., painters, plumbers, landscapers), and heavy construction,
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For-hire specialty – dump trucks, log trucks, and garbage trucks used by dirt, sand and gravel, logging, garbage/debris removal, and coal-type businesses, and
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Tow – tow trucks and wreckers used in towing services and gas/service station businesses.
As with our personal auto products, we regularly introduce new commercial auto product models designed to improve our pricing accuracy and competitiveness through improved segmentation, the use of additional risk variables, and other enhancements. New models are typically rolled out on a state-by-state basis and, as a result, we often have more than one product version in the marketplace at a time.
Similar to Snapshot in the personal auto business, the Commercial Lines business offers its customers UBI options. Smart Haul® is the UBI program that uses driving data from a motor carrier’s existing electronic logging device. Smart Haul offers owner operators and small fleets the ability to receive discounts on their insurance by sharing their electronic logging device generated data with us. Snapshot ProView® is the UBI program for commercial auto customers without their own electronic logging device. Snapshot ProView allows customers to earn upfront discounts and provides value-added services, like fleet management and personalized tips to encourage safe driving. Both programs are available in almost all states.
In addition, we provide commercial auto coverage in the TNC business to Uber Technologies subsidiaries in 13 states and to Lyft’s rideshare operations in 4 states. TNC represented about 10% of our Commercial Lines net premiums written in 2022, 6%
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in 2021, and 4% in 2020. Premiums written in our TNC business are determined in part by estimating the number of miles to be driven over the life of the policy term, on a policy-by-policy basis. These premium estimates are adjusted monthly based both on actual miles driven and an estimate of miles to be driven during the remaining policy term. During 2022, in addition to increasing rates to address profitability, our TNC business experienced a strong increase in rideshare miles traveled compared to 2021.
We also offer business-related general liability and property insurance through our business owners policy (BOP) insurance. These products are geared specifically to small businesses and are currently available to agents in a majority of states, excluding the District of Columbia, with plans to expand to additional states during 2023. We also continue to act as an agent for business customers to place BOP, general liability, professional liability, and workers’ compensation coverage through unaffiliated insurance carriers and are compensated through commissions, which are reported as service revenues. To further help our direct customers, we offer BusinessQuote Explorer® (BQX), a digital application that allows small business owners to obtain quotes for our BOP product and the products offered from a select group of unaffiliated carriers.
Property
Our Property segment writes residential property and renters insurance in virtually all states, primarily in the independent agency channel and through select agents under our Platinum program discussed above. We also act as a participant in the “Write Your Own” program for the National Flood Insurance Program under which we write flood insurance in virtually all states; 100% of this business is reinsured.
Our Property business accounted for 5% of our total net premiums written in 2022, 2021, and 2020. We tend to see more business written during the second and third quarters of the year based on the cyclical nature of property sales. Losses also tend to be higher during the warmer weather months when storms are more prevalent. As a property insurer, we have exposure to losses from catastrophes, including hurricanes, and other severe weather events. See Item 1A, Risk Factors – II. Insurance Risks below for more information. To help mitigate these risks, we enter into reinsurance arrangements. See the “Reinsurance” section below for further discussion of our reinsurance programs.
As one of the 15 largest homeowners carriers in the U.S. based on 2021 premiums written, we specialize in residential property insurance for homeowners, other property owners, and renters, as well as insurance for manufactured homes, personal umbrella insurance, and primary and excess flood insurance. There are approximately 370 competitors in the homeowners insurance market nationwide and we compete with many of these companies. Progressive and the other leading 25 large companies/groups, each with over $800 million of premiums written annually, comprise 77% of the market.
As discussed above, our Property business is an important component of our Destination Era strategy.
Reinsurance
Our reinsurance activity includes both transactions which are regulated and those that are non-regulated (e.g., voluntary). The regulated programs include several mandatory state pools, such as the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association, Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, and North Carolina Reinsurance Facility, as well as other reinsurance facilities required by specific states for various lines of business. We are also a participant in the “Write Your Own” program for federally regulated plans for flood (National Flood Insurance Program). In 2022, our service contract to act as a servicing agent for Commercial Automobile Insurance Procedures/Plans (CAIP) expired and we did not renew the contract. The CAIP business will be in runoff for a year from its expiration. In addition, we have elected to participate in the Florida Reinsurance to Assist Policyholders Program for 2023. All of these programs are governed by the individual state's insurance regulations.
Our non-regulated arrangements reinsure activities in our Property business and our Commercial Lines business.
Property Programs
The reinsurance program in our Property business is designed to reduce overall risk while, to the extent of coverage purchased, protecting capital from the costs associated with catastrophic events. The Property program includes contracts that cover multi-year periods. We also maintain an excess of loss reinsurance treaty covering our personal umbrella business.
The occurrence excess of loss program supports the goal of maintaining adequate capital and is comprised of privately placed reinsurance, reinsurance placed through catastrophe bond transactions, and coverage obtained through the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund. Under the 2022 occurrence excess of loss reinsurance, we are responsible for the first $200 million of losses and allocated loss adjustment expenses (ALAE) for the first event. We may be responsible for additional losses if we experience more than two such events or if claims incurred exceed the maximum coverage limits of the reinsurance that is then in place. The coverage limits, net of retention, currently in place are:
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$2.5 billion for a first event in Florida; and
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$2.0 billion for a first event outside of Florida.
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Coverage for a second event (and, potentially, for subsequent covered events) would depend on several factors, including the location and the extent of covered losses of the earlier events in the contract period. Portions of our program include reinstatement limits providing coverage for subsequent events. Some portions of our occurrence program have an obligatory reinstatement of coverage. Reinstatement premiums would have no effect on our results of operations since, per our contracts, we have separate reinsurance to cover these situations. During 2022, we retained $200 million, and ceded $800 million, of losses and ALAE under the occurrence excess of loss reinsurance program, all related to Hurricane Ian.
In addition, from June 1, 2022, through December 31, 2022, we had shared limit coverage in our reinsurance program that provided $100 million of coverage for named storms (hurricanes and tropical storms as designated by the U.S. National Weather Service). This reinsurance arrangement can, depending on the circumstances, provide additional coverage for a significant covered event, or provide coverage for aggregate losses under our occurrence retention. During 2022, we ceded no losses under this “hurricane season” coverage. We have renewed this coverage from June 1 through December 31, 2023 (i.e., the 2023 hurricane season) for $125 million of coverage.
During 2022, our Property business also had an aggregate excess of loss program structure, which provided a maximum amount of $175 million of coverage for non-named storms, and in certain cases for named storms, in multiple layers with varying retention thresholds starting at $575 million in the aggregate.
Each layer in the aggregate excess of loss program was subject to a per occurrence $2 million deductible before each loss could be considered for aggregate retention, and each event was subject to a $98 million coverage limit. During 2022, no losses were ceded under this aggregate excess of loss agreement related to 2022 accident year storms.
In January 2023, the Property business entered into a new aggregate excess of loss program for the 2023 accident year, with the multiple layers providing for a total coverage amount of $185 million for catastrophe event losses and ALAE. The layers provide coverage, as follows:
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The first layer has retention thresholds ranging from $500 million to $575 million, and provides a total of $100 million of coverage. This layer does not provide coverage for named tropical storms or hurricanes, as designated by the U.S. National Weather Service.
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The second layer has a retention threshold of $600 million and provides a total of $100 million of coverage, with Progressive retaining a 15% portion of coverage available under this layer. This layer includes coverage for named tropical storms or hurricanes as designated by the U.S. National Weather Service.
Each aggregate layer is subject to a per occurrence deductible ranging from $2 million to $5 million before each loss could be considered for aggregate retention, and each event is subject to a coverage cap ranging from $95 to $98 million. In addition, any one portion of the aggregate program does not have to be exhausted before the other portions can be applied.
Commercial Lines Programs
The reinsurance program in our Commercial Lines business is designed to help manage certain exposures in our commercial auto, TNC, BOP, and workers’ compensation products. Our Commercial Lines business uses quota-share reinsurance agreements for TNC, and certain workers’ compensation and BOP coverages. Under each agreement, we cede a portion of premiums, losses, and, in most cases, loss adjustment expenses (LAE).
As part of the Commercial Lines program, we also have excess of loss reinsurance agreements for higher-limit commercial auto liability, and certain BOP and workers’ compensation coverages, which reinsures a portion of loss above a retention threshold. The retention threshold for the BOP and Progressive high-limits auto liability excess of loss agreements is $1 million, for each casualty occurrence or each property loss. For the Protective Insurance large fleet commercial auto business, we retain the first $2 million, per occurrence, and have coverage excess of $2 million up to $5 million. Under the current program, in certain scenarios, our retention could be reduced to $1 million, depending on the accumulation of losses in excess of $1 million. In addition, for the workers’ compensation product, we have catastrophe workers’ compensation coverage up to $75 million per occurrence pursuant to a $20 million maximum any one life sublimit. In general, we retain approximately $1.4 million per occurrence on workers’ compensation through the use of excess of loss and quota-share reinsurance.
For our TNC product, the amounts ceded vary by state. A portion of the quota-share reinsurance contract is written through reinsurers that are owned by the TNC company. Reinsurance recoverables under this arrangement are required by our contracts to be collateralized (i.e., secured by assets held by an independent third party or a letter of credit issued by a commercial bank) at a target of over 100% of the recoverable balance. During 2022, the remaining portion of reinsurance for the TNC product was written by a panel of third-party reinsurers.
Program Evaluation
We evaluate our reinsurance programs during our renewal discussions, if not more frequently, to ensure they continue to effectively address the company’s risk tolerance. We will continue to balance our ability to assume more risk with the availability and costs of various types of reinsurance contracts. See Item 1A, Risk Factors – II. Insurance Risks and – VI. Credit and Other Financial Risks below and Note 7 – Reinsurance in our Annual Report for more information.
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Claims
Our employees handle nearly all of our Personal and Commercial Lines claims from either physical claims offices throughout the United States or through a virtual environment, and are supported by centralized functions at our corporate offices and a nationwide network of nearly 2,600 third-party repair shops. During 2022, we used independent claim adjusters opportunistically in our vehicle businesses to help support our claim employees manage claims inventory, and to timely respond to our customers impacted by Hurricane Ian. We do not intend to use independent adjusters as an ongoing significant part of our claims handling model.
For our Property business, we manage claims through a network of independent claim field adjusters and internal claim representatives managing the overall claims process. As of December 31, 2022, we had about 880 claim employees to handle our Property claims; we plan to continue to increase our internal claims staff in 2023.
Competitive Factors
The insurance markets in which we operate are highly competitive. Property-casualty insurers generally compete on the basis of price, agent commission rates, consumer recognition and confidence, coverages offered and other product features, claims handling, financial stability, customer service, and geographic coverage. Vigorous competition is provided by large, well-capitalized national companies in both the agency and direct channels, and by smaller regional insurers. In the agency channel, some of our competitors have broad distribution networks of employed or captive agents. With widely available comparative rating services, consumers can easily compare prices among competitors. Many competitors invest heavily in advertising and marketing efforts and/or expanding their online or mobile service offerings. Over the past two decades, these changes have further intensified the competitive nature of the property-casualty insurance markets in which we operate.
We rely heavily on technology to operate our business and on extensive data gathering and analysis to segment markets and price accurately according to risk. We have remained competitive by refining our risk measurement and price segmentation skills, closely managing expenses, and achieving operating efficiencies. High-quality customer service, fair and accurate claims adjusting, and strong brand recognition are also important factors in our competitive strategy. Competition in our insurance markets is also affected by the pace of technological developments. An insurer’s ability to adapt to change, innovate, develop, and implement new applications and other technologies can affect its competitive position. In addition, our competitive position could be adversely impacted if we sustain security breaches or other “cyber attacks” on our systems or are unable to maintain uninterrupted access to our systems, business functions, and the systems of certain third-party providers. See Item 1A, Risk Factors below for more information.
In addition, there has been a proliferation of patents related to new ways in which technologies can affect competitive positions in the insurance industry. Several of our competitors have many more patents than we do. Some of the patents we currently hold include a usage-based insurance patent (expiring in 2024 or after), two patents on the Name Your Price® functionality on our website (expiring in 2028 or after), three multi-product quoting patents (expiring in 2032 or after), three patents for our implementation of a mobile insurance platform and architecture (expiring in 2032 or after), a patent on our system of providing customized insurance quotes based on a user’s price and/or coverage preferences (expiring in 2033 or after), two patents for our loyalty call routing system (expiring in 2033 or after), a patent for a multivariate predictive system that processes usage-based data (expiring in 2035 or after), three patents for the implementation of chatbots in online quoting and servicing (expiring in 2038 or after), two patents for our Commercial Lines business classification system (expiring in 2039 or after), and two patents for our automated document classification system (expiring 2040 or after).
We have a substantial amount of “know-how” developed from years of experience with usage-based insurance, and from analyzing the data from over 48 billion driving miles derived from our usage-based devices and our mobile app. We believe this intellectual property provides us with a competitive advantage in the usage-based insurance market.
Insurance Licenses
Our insurance subsidiaries operate under licenses issued by various insurance regulatory authorities. These licenses may be of perpetual duration or renewable periodically, provided the holder continues to meet applicable regulatory requirements. Our licenses govern the kinds of insurance coverages that may be written by our insurance subsidiaries in the issuing jurisdiction. Such licenses are normally issued only after the filing of an appropriate application and the satisfaction of prescribed criteria. All licenses that are material to our subsidiaries’ businesses are in good standing.
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Insurance Regulation
Our insurance subsidiaries are generally subject to regulation and supervision by insurance departments of the jurisdictions in which they are domiciled or licensed to transact business. At least one of our insurance subsidiaries is licensed and subject to regulation in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Bermuda, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The nature and extent of such regulation and supervision varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Generally, an insurance company is subject to a higher degree of regulation and supervision in its jurisdiction of domicile. Our domestic insurance subsidiaries are domiciled in the states of Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin. In addition, California and Florida treat certain of our subsidiaries as domestic insurers for certain purposes under their “commercial domicile” laws. We also have subsidiaries that write excess and surplus lines; these activities do not require a license but are regulated.
Insurance laws impose numerous requirements, conditions, and limitations on the operations of insurance companies. Insurance departments have broad regulatory powers relating to those operations. Regulated areas include, among others:
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licensing of insurers and agents,
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capital and surplus requirements,
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statutory accounting principles specific to insurance companies and the content of required financial and other reports,
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requirements for establishing insurance reserves,
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investments,
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acquisitions of insurers and transactions between insurers and their affiliates,
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limitations on rates of return or profitability,
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rating criteria, rate levels, and rate changes,
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insolvencies of insurance companies,
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assigned risk programs,
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authority to exit a business, and
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numerous requirements relating to other areas of insurance operations, including: required coverages, policy forms, policy cancellations and non-renewals, underwriting standards, and claims handling.
Insurance departments are authorized to conduct periodic and other examinations of regulated insurers’ financial condition and operations to monitor the financial stability of the insurers and to ensure adherence to statutory accounting principles and compliance with insurance laws and regulations. In addition, in some jurisdictions, the attorney general’s office may exercise certain supervisory authority over insurance companies and, from time to time, may investigate certain insurance company practices.
Insurance departments establish and monitor compliance with capital and surplus requirements. Although the ratio of written premiums to surplus that the regulators will allow is a function of a number of factors (including applicable law, the type of business being written, the adequacy of the insurer’s reserves, and the quality of the insurer’s assets), the annual net premiums that an insurer may write historically have been perceived to be limited to a specified multiple of the insurer’s total surplus, generally 3 to 1 for property and casualty insurance, which is the target for our vehicle businesses; our Property business maintains a lower premiums-to-surplus ratio. Thus, the amount of an insurer’s statutory surplus, in certain cases, may limit its ability to grow its business. At year-end 2022, we had net premiums written of $51.1 billion and statutory surplus of $17.9 billion. The combined premiums-to-surplus ratio for all of our insurance companies was 2.9 to 1. In addition, as of December 31, 2022, we had access to $4.4 billion of securities held in a non-insurance subsidiary, portions of which could be contributed to the capital of our insurance subsidiaries to support growth or for other purposes.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) also has developed a risk-based capital (RBC) program to enable regulators to identify and take appropriate and timely regulatory actions relating to insurers that show signs of weak or deteriorating financial condition. RBC is determined by a series of dynamic surplus-related formulas that contain a variety of factors that are applied to financial balances based on the degree of certain risks, such as asset, credit, and underwriting risks. At December 31, 2022, our RBC ratios were in excess of minimum requirements.
Insurance companies are generally required to file detailed annual and other reports with the insurance department of each jurisdiction in which they conduct business. These reports include:
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the insurer’s financial statements under statutory accounting principles,
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details concerning claims reserves held by the insurer,
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specific investments held by the insurer, and
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numerous other disclosures about the insurer’s financial condition and operations.
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Insurance laws and insurance departments also regulate investments that insurers are permitted to make. Limitations are placed on the amounts an insurer may invest in a particular issuer, as well as the aggregate amount an insurer may invest in certain types of investments. Certain investments are prohibited.
Insurance holding company laws enacted in many jurisdictions authorize insurance departments to regulate acquisitions of insurers and certain other transactions and to require periodic disclosure of specified information. These laws impose prior approval requirements for certain transactions between insurers and their affiliates and generally regulate dividend and other distributions, including loans and cash advances, between insurers and their affiliates. See Note 8 – Statutory Financial Information in our Annual Report for further discussion.
Under insolvency and guaranty laws, insurers can be assessed or required to contribute to applicable guaranty funds to cover policyholder losses resulting from the insolvency of other insurers. Insurers are also required by many jurisdictions, as a condition of doing business in the jurisdiction, to provide coverage to certain risks that cannot find coverage in the voluntary market. These “assigned risk” plans generally specify the types of insurance and the level of coverage that must be offered to such involuntary risks, as well as the allowable premium. Many jurisdictions also have involuntary market plans, which hire a limited number of servicing carriers to provide insurance to involuntary risks. These plans, through assessments, pass underwriting and administrative expenses on to insurers that write voluntary coverages in those jurisdictions.
Many jurisdictions have laws and regulations that limit an insurer’s ability to exit a market. For example, certain jurisdictions limit an insurer’s ability to cancel or non-renew policies. Certain jurisdictions also prohibit an insurer from withdrawing one or more lines of business from the jurisdiction, except pursuant to a plan that is approved by the jurisdiction’s insurance department. The insurance department may disapprove a plan that may lead to market disruption. Laws and regulations that limit the cancellation or non-renewal of policies, or that subject program withdrawals to prior approval requirements, may delay or restrict an insurer’s ability to exit unprofitable markets or businesses. See Item 1A, Risk Factors – III. Operating Risks below for more information.
As mentioned above, insurance departments have regulatory authority over many other aspects of an insurer’s insurance operations, including coverages, forms, rating criteria, and rate levels. The ability to implement changes to these items on a timely basis is critical to our ability to compete effectively in the marketplace. Rate regulation varies from “use and file,” to “file and use,” to prior approval.
Regulation of insurance constantly changes as real or perceived issues and developments arise. Some changes may be due to economic developments, such as changes in investment laws made to recognize new investment products or to respond to perceived investment risks, while others reflect concerns about consumer privacy, insurance availability, prices, allegations of unfair-discriminatory pricing, underwriting practices, and solvency. In recent years, legislation, regulatory measures, and voter initiatives have been introduced, and in some cases adopted, which deal with use of consumer information, cybersecurity, use of credit and other information in underwriting and rating, insurance rate development, use of artificial intelligence and algorithms, rate of return limitations, and the ability of insurers to cancel or non-renew insurance policies. In addition, from time to time, the United States Congress and certain federal agencies investigate the current condition of the insurance industry to determine whether federal regulation is necessary. The Federal Insurance Office is required to collect information about the insurance industry and monitor the industry for systemic risk.
Investments
Our investment portfolio, which had a fair value of $53.5 billion at December 31, 2022, compared to $51.5 billion at December 31, 2021, consists of fixed-maturity securities, short-term investments, and equity securities (nonredeemable preferred stocks and common equity securities). Our fixed-maturity securities, short-term investments, and nonredeemable preferred stocks are collectively referred to as fixed-income securities. Our principal investment goals are to manage our portfolio on a total return basis to support all of the insurance premiums that we can profitably write and contribute to our comprehensive income. In our actively managed fixed-income securities portfolio, we believe that, in addition to many traditional considerations of fixed-income investing, there is less risk in securities that score higher across various environmental, social and governance factors. Therefore, we consider these assessments when evaluating these investment decisions. Our portfolio is invested primarily in short-term and intermediate-term, investment-grade fixed-income securities.
Investment income is affected by the variability of cash flows to or from the portfolio, shifts in the type and quality of investments in the portfolio, changes in yield, and other factors. For securities related to our investment portfolios, total investment income includes interest and dividends, net realized gains (losses) on securities sold, and net holding period gains (losses) on securities (composed primarily of valuation changes on equity securities). Total investment loss, before expenses and taxes, was $0.7 billion in 2022, compared to investment income of $2.4 billion in 2021, and $2.6 billion in 2020. On a pretax total return basis (i.e., total investment income plus changes in net unrealized gains (losses) on our fixed-maturity securities), our investment portfolio generated an investment loss of $4.3 billion at December 31, 2022, compared to investment income of $1.2 billion and $3.3 billion for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. Outside of our investment portfolio, but reported in impairment losses in the consolidated statements of comprehensive income, were
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$8.6 million and $5.0 million of other-than-temporary impairment losses resulting from renewable energy tax credit investments during 2022 and 2021, respectively; no other-than-temporary impairment losses were recognized in 2020. For more detailed discussion of our investment portfolio, see Note 2 – Investments, Note 3 – Fair Value, and Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in the Annual Report.
Service Businesses
Our service businesses, which represent less than 1% of our total revenues and do not have a material effect on our overall operations, primarily include our commission- or fee-based businesses, where we often act as an agent for other insurance companies. We offer home, condominium, and renters insurance, among other products, written by unaffiliated insurance companies in the continental United States in the direct channel. We also offer our customers the ability to package their commercial auto coverage with other commercial coverages that are written by unaffiliated insurance companies. We receive commissions for the policies written under this program and allocate marketing and other administration costs associated with maintaining these programs.
Service revenues also included business related to the CAIP plans. Prior to August 2022, we acted as a servicing carrier, on a nationwide basis, for the CAIP plans, which are state-supervised plans servicing the involuntary market in nearly all states. As a service provider, we provided policy issuance and claims adjusting services and collected fee revenue. Our CAIP service contract expired in August 2022 and we did not renew the contract. The expiration of our participation as a CAIP service provider does not materially affect our financial condition, results of operations, or cash flows.
Liability for Property-Casualty Losses and Loss Adjustment Expenses
The consolidated financial statements include the estimated liability for unpaid losses and loss adjustment expenses (LAE), which include ALAE (e.g., defense and cost containment expenses) and unallocated LAE (e.g., adjusting and other expenses), of our insurance subsidiaries. Our objective is to ensure that total reserves (i.e., case reserves and incurred but not recorded reserves, or IBNR) are adequate to cover all loss costs, while sustaining minimal variation from the time reserves are initially established until losses are fully developed. The liabilities for losses and LAE are determined using actuarial and statistical procedures and represent undiscounted estimates of the ultimate net cost of all unpaid losses and LAE incurred through December 31 of each year. These estimates are subject to the effect of future trends on claims settlement, among other factors.
These estimates are regularly reviewed and adjusted as experience develops and new information becomes known. Adjustments, if any, relating to accidents that occurred in prior years are reflected in the current year results of operations and are referred to as “development” of the prior year estimates. In establishing loss reserves, we take into account projected changes in claim severity caused by a number of factors that vary with the individual type of policy written. This severity is projected based on historical trends, adjusted for anticipated changes in underwriting standards, inflation, policy provisions, claims resolution practices, and general economic trends. These anticipated trends are reconsidered periodically based on actual development and are modified if necessary.
See Note 6 – Loss and Loss Adjustment Expense Reserves in the Annual Report for a detailed discussion of our loss reserving practices and a reconciliation of our loss and LAE reserve activity, along with incurred and paid claims development by accident year for our segments, based on definitions pursuant to statutory accounting principles.
Human Capital
We believe that our people and our culture remain our most significant competitive advantage, and that having the right people working together in the right way is critical to driving our results, building our enduring business, and creating long-term shareholder value. Our culture is deeply rooted in our Core Values (Integrity, Golden Rule, Excellence, Objectives, and Profit) and is the foundation for our human capital management strategies to attract, retain, and motivate highly qualified employees.
Our People
We believe that our culture and continued success has enabled us to attract, engage, and retain highly talented people in diverse markets and from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences.
Attract and Hire
We employ extensive recruiting practices towards the goal of developing qualified and deep candidate pools and attracting candidates from both established and new sources. We believe that our recruitment efforts generally have enabled us to present diverse and high-potential pools of job candidates to our hiring managers. In turn, we train our hiring managers about identifying and avoiding unconscious biases they may have during the interview and selection process and the importance of employing individuals with different kinds of experiences and backgrounds. We believe these strategies collectively enhance our applicant pools and contribute to our continued success.
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Engage and Retain
We understand that engaged employees are more productive, provide better service to our customers, and are more likely to stay with Progressive. Each year, we survey our people to measure their engagement. Our 2022 engagement and culture survey results placed us in the top 5% of all companies using the survey, which is designed by a nationally-known third party and administered in like form to over 1,000 employers in the United States. We use the results, along with other information, to evaluate our human capital strategies and the health of our culture.
Employee retention is an important part of our strategy. Our annualized employee retention rate for 2022 was 83%, down one point from the prior year, and, as of December 31, 2022, more than 15,000 employees had over 10 years of tenure at the company. Promoting from within is also a key part of our strategy. Many of our leaders, including most current executive team members, joined Progressive in a more junior position and advanced to significant leadership positions within the organization. In 2022, we filled approximately 68% of our open positions above entry level by promoting from within, including just over 2,000 managerial positions.
Demographic Data
We publish employee and manager demographic information on our DEI website and update this data on an annual basis. We also disclose our consolidated EEO-1 data online.
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As of December 31, 2022, we had about 55,100 employees of whom 59% were women and 39% were people of color, while women comprised 51.3% and people of color comprised 38.3% of the U.S. workforce (based on data obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, November 2022).
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During 2022, we hired more than 15,100 new employees of whom 68% were women and 55% were people of color, representing about 1.9% of the total applicants for a job at Progressive.
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During 2022, our employees promoted into management positions were more gender and racially diverse than our management population during 2021. Specifically, 55% of such promotions were women and 32% were people of color. As of December 31, 2022, women represented 48% of all managers and people of color were 25% of all managers.
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As of December 31, 2022, we had about 1,000 senior leaders of whom 39% were women and 17% were people of color.
Supporting our People and Culture
We strive to support our employees by providing challenging work experiences, career opportunities, and a culture of learning. We are focused on coaching and development, which we believe promotes greater engagement in our business and improved individual performance.
Training and Development
We actively foster a learning culture and offer several leadership development programs, including our Multicultural Leadership Development Program. Two of our career development boot camps (IT Programmer and Analyst) are intended to accelerate career opportunities. Moreover, our professional development program, “Own It,” encourages employees to take control of their career through team-building exercises, coaching techniques, and communication strategies. Available to new and tenured employees, our learning solutions are tailored to both individual contributors and leaders and cover a broad swath of skills and competencies. We also leverage our extensive contemporary art collection to offer training sessions to spark conversations about our culture, innovation, ethical obligations, and respecting our differences, among other things.
Ethics
Our Core Values are the foundation for our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, which provides clear expectations for all our people and confirms our commitment to high ethical standards and compliance with legal requirements. We provide ethics training, as well as regular communications, video series, and outside speakers presenting themes such as Celebrate Disagreement and Courage at our Core, to emphasize our commitment to our ethical and legal responsibilities. Additionally, we have an “open door” policy that empowers every employee to reach out to any manager or any human resource representative when they have a question or concern or they want to share an idea. We also provide a confidential Alertline that is available for employees and others who want to raise a concern anonymously. We encourage our people to speak up, and when they do, we give timely attention to their concerns, take remedial action where appropriate, and do not discriminate or retaliate against them for reporting any concern to us in good faith.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
We believe that in order to be consumers’, agents’, and business owners’ number one destination for insurance and other financial needs, we need to anticipate and understand the needs of our customers. We seek to be diverse in our employee demographics, experiences, and perspectives. Our commitment to diversity starts at the top with our highly skilled and diverse
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Board of Directors. We are one of the few public companies with a female CEO, as well as a female independent Board Chairperson. Our DEI efforts are overseen by our Compensation Committee on behalf of the entire Board of Directors, and those efforts are implemented at all levels of the organization.
Our efforts focus on four primary objectives, which have been in place for several years: (1) to maintain a fair and inclusive work environment; (2) to reflect the customers we serve; (3) for our leaders to reflect the people they lead; and (4) to contribute to our communities. In line with this focus, in 2020 we introduced an ambitious goal to double the representation of people of color in senior leadership from 10% to 20% by the end of 2025. During 2022, we increased this senior leadership representation from 16% to 17%.
We support DEI awareness among our employees through formal training sessions and workshops focused on building our overall awareness and individual competencies to address difficult topics such as racial inequality, micro-inequities, and unconscious biases. We also have a companywide Courageous Conversations and DEI speakers bureau, where presenters and facilitators lead work teams in discussions around biases, stereotypes, and the development of inclusive behaviors. Additionally, our executive team and managers have job objectives aimed at fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace.
For several years we have hosted an annual weeklong event focused on diversity and inclusion, where employees have the opportunity to attend webinars and panel discussions, take part in group activities, listen to podcasts featuring Progressive employees, and more. Moreover, we support efforts to contribute to our communities, through our Keys to Progress® programs (which include providing vehicles to veterans and furnishing homes for individuals emerging from homelessness), our various education and engagement efforts, and our financial contributions to various community organizations. For over 20 years, we have also contributed to The Progressive Insurance Foundation, which provided matching funds to eligible 501(c)(3) charitable organizations to which employees contributed. To more broadly represent our employees and their communities, in 2020, The Progressive Insurance Foundation began funding national charitable organizations identified by our Employee Resource Groups and, beginning mid-2022, in lieu of matching employee’s contributions, each employee can recommend an eligible charity to receive a fixed amount of the Foundation’s charitable giving without requiring the employee make an out-of-pocket donation.
We know we still have much more work to do, but we are committed to these efforts. To learn more, please visit our DEI website at: progressive.com/about/diversity-and-inclusion. The information on that website is not incorporated by reference in, and does not form part of, this Annual Report on Form 10-K or any other SEC filing.
Employee Resource Groups
Over a decade ago, our first employee resource groups (ERGs) were created to help build communities for our employees with common backgrounds, life experiences, interests, and professional goals. In the time since their inception, our ERGs have grown in both influence and size with 43% of Progressive people belonging to at least one ERG as of December 31, 2022. We have nine employee resource groups (Progressive African American Network, Asian American Network, Disabilities Awareness Network, Progressive Latin American Networking Association, LGBTQ+ Network, Military Network, Network of Empowering Women, Parent Connection, and Young Professionals Network) that support creation of a space for networking, understanding differences, and sharing experiences.
Compensation and Benefits
We seek to provide competitive pay through a combination of fixed and variable compensation and have designed our compensation programs for employees to earn above market pay when company performance warrants it. We publish, internally, our competitive annualized base pay ranges and annual cash incentive targets for virtually all of our positions. As part of employee compensation, nearly all Progressive people participate in our annual cash incentive program named Gainshare, which measures the growth and profitability of our insurance businesses. We believe Gainshare contributes to the cooperative and collaborative way we work together and, in part, defines our culture. Our executives and other senior leaders also receive compensation in the form of equity awards, which we believe supports a strong pay-for-performance linkage and further aligns their interests with those of our shareholders. We monitor overall pay equity among employees with similar performance, experience, and job responsibilities, and publish the results annually on our DEI website.
Our employee benefits are intended to be competitive and to support the needs of our people and their families. We invest in physical, emotional, and financial health of Progressive people by providing a broad range of benefits, including: medical, prescription drug, dental, and vision benefits; a 401(k) plan with up to a 6% company match; life insurance; long- and short-term disability insurance; and paid parental leave following birth, adoption, or placement of a foster child. Our health and wellness offerings include on-site fitness centers, medical clinics, and healthy seminars. Many of these on-site offerings transitioned to online offerings, such as fitness classes and health discussions, to meet the needs of our employees who are working remotely. We continue to offer a variety of health and wellness programs accessible to employees working from the office or remotely. We also offer an Employee Assistance Program that provides 24-hour support, flexible work arrangements, and provide paid time off to help our people balance their work and personal lives.
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Available Information
Our website is located at progressive.com. Except as expressly noted herein, the information on this website does not incorporate by reference in, and does not form part of, this Form 10-K. As soon as reasonably practicable, we make all documents that we file with, or furnish to, the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to these reports, available free of charge via our website at progressive.com/investors. These reports are also available on the SEC’s website: http://www.sec.gov. Information on our website does not constitute soliciting material and should not be deemed filed or incorporated by reference into any other Progressive filing under the Securities Act of 1933 or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, except to the extent we specifically incorporate such information by reference in such a filing.
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