NU Online News Service, May 2, 11:25 p.m. EDT
Late last week it was announced that Progressive Corp. has filed separate patent-infringement lawsuits against Hartford Financial Services and State Farm over usage-based-auto insurance. It had also separate suits against Allstate and Liberty Mutual.
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Ohio alleges that the Hartford and State Farm’s competing products violated Progressive’s patented “Pay As you Drive” program. Hartford has a program it calls “TrueLane.” State Farm calls its usage-based program “Drive Safe & Save.”
Like Progressive’s patent-protected program, the other insurers’ onboard-telematics devices gather information such as mileage, speed, acceleration, time-of-day, trip duration and turns. The insurers’ alleged infringement of Progressive’s patent “will continue to cause damage and irreparable harm to Progressive until enjoined by the court,” says the Mayfield Village, Ohio-based insurer.
Please continue on to Property Casualty 360 to read the entire article.
