Progressive Insurance Wants to Fill More Than 1,000 Jobs

Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. is looking to fill 1,100 phone representative positions in five states and also has several hundred other positions available, a company official said.

John Hoppes, the company's national employment director, said the positions are a combination of vacancies being filled and new positions.

"We continue to hire pretty regularly and what has happened is Progressive has hit a decent-sized growth spurt," Hoppes said.

The jobs will be spread in varying numbers across five of the companies major office locations in Colorado, Ohio, Texas, Arizona and Florida. According to a press release, the jobs will be in the sales and service, and claims departments, selling policies, answering customer questions or helping customers file accident claims. Hoppes said not all of the 1,100 jobs are currently available. That number represents the company's need from now until summer, he said.

Hoppes said there are several hundred jobs available outside of the phone representative positions in roles like general staff, claims and field agents. The company employes 25,000 people total.

Hoppes said his company did well through 2011, including the introduction of several products that did well in the market.

"What that means for us is that we are actually competing very strongly in what continues to be a bit of a tough economy," Hoppes said. "It's not at the stage where we are seeing things turn the corner as an industry, but Progressive itself continues to do well."

Progressive currently has a Best's Financial Strength Rating of A+ (Superior). Shares of Progressive Corp. (NYSE: PGR) on the afternoon of Feb. 17, were trading at $21.40, down 0.83% from the previous close. Progressive Insurance Group was the eighth-largest property/casualty writer in the United States, writing direct premiums of $14.5 billion, according to Best's Review.

Progressive is not the only insurance company hiring. State Farm recently said it was attempting to fill 3,000 positions in the United States and Canada and add about 900 agents (Best's News Service, Feb. 6, 2012).

(By Michael Buck, senior associate editor, BestWeek: [email protected])