Progressive Marathon Insurance Co. has settled two consolidated class action lawsuits in Michigan for $71.8 million.

The suits were filed separately in 2019 and 2022. The first alleged Progressive breached auto insurance policies by requiring its policyholders to permanently transfer ownership of their total loss vehicles without compensating them for the salvage values or deducting the salvage values of the total loss vehicles from their total loss payments.

Both suits claimed Progressive allegedly failed to pay sales tax and title and registration transfer fees.

The court ruled that Progressive Marathon owed the sales tax, certificate of title, and vehicle registration transfer fee payments upfront as part of the actual cash value payment without regard to whether a replacement vehicle was purchased and such costs were incurred, according to the settlement document.

Following the acceptance of two appeals by the Court of Appeals, the plaintiffs in both suits agreed to combined mediation and Progressive chose to move forward with mediation.

The settlement class consists of 168,812 individuals and is defined as “all insureds covered under any automobile insurance policy who made a first-party claim and received from Progressive a total loss claim payment within the class period.” The class period is July 18, 2013 through July 22, 2024 for Progressive Marathon policyholders and July 18, 2016 through July 22, 2024 for Progressive Michigan policyholders.

Progressive will pay $61 million to the class members and $10 million to the plaintiff attorneys plus all settlement administration and litigation costs. Each of the three class representatives will also receive $10,000.

Dec. 6 is the deadline for potential class members to submit a claim form. Claim forms and more information can be found on the class action website for the case.

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