An Outlook of Progressive Insurance Company

¶ … Insurance Company

Progressive Insurance Company is one of the most profitable and successful firms in the insurance industry. This considerable success can be attributable to its business philosophy, which is to approach insurance in an innovative way unlike any other firm in this sector. Through this business philosophy, Progressive Insurance Company has helped shaped industry standards while realizing significant achievements across its operations. One of the most important events in the history of this company was its decision to change the focus of its claims to offer an improved overall experience for every party engaged in the claim since early 2000s. Generally, Progressive Insurance Company has grown tremendously throughout the years with results that are usually better than those of its competitors.

Competitive Analysis

Progressive Insurance Company operates in a hyper-competitive insurance industry that is characterized by the existence of many companies that compete for relatively similar customers. The extremely high competition in the industry has necessitated innovation of business tactics and infrastructure in attempts to increase customer base and sustain profitability. Progressive competes in the insurance industry/market through provision of property and casualty insurance services, which are offered by all its major competitors. Given its better underwriting results than those of its major competitors, Progressive has become extremely popular among investors (Bailey-Huang, 2003).

The company's major competitors are State Farm, Allstate, and Geico since they occupy a huge market position in the insurance industry. State Farm is a standard insurance firm that offers property, casualty, and life and health services whereas Allstate is a standard and non-standard insurance firm that offers property, casualty, and life insurance services. On the other hand, Geico is a standard and non-standard company that provides property and casualty services just like Progressive, which is a non-standard insurance company. State Farm has several strengths that has contributed to its remarkable success include large market share, excellent liquidity position, in-house agency force, and A++ rating. The strengths of Allstate include strong brand name, A-rating, broad distribution system, and exclusive sales force. Geico's strengths include direct targeting of customers using phone and mail and government employee perspective in employment. Progressive's competitive advantage over these rivals is attributable to various strengths like more risk categories, immediate response, and Express Quote Service. Unlike its major competitors, Progressive's operations have been affected by huge operating expenses, relative inability to scale in order to enhance competition with large players, and focus on few geographic boundaries.

Financial Analysis

Despite its weaknesses as compared to major competitors, Progressive Insurance Company has had strong financial across its operations over the years. In the past five years, the profit margins of Progressive Insurance Company have increased by nearly 2% with a relatively similar increase in after tax return on investments. This has been accompanied by an increase in operating income in the last three years from 1,720 to 1,912 as at the end of 2015 financial year (Morningstar, 2016). However, the percentage of return on assets during this period has declined from 4.95 to 4.56.

With regards to growth, the balance sheet of Progressive Insurance Company shows that the company has experienced 6.87% growth on a 3-year average, which is slightly less than the growth levels of its major competitors. During this period, the long-term debt of this company has decreased tremendously while its fixed assets turnover has increased. Therefore, Progressive Insurance Company continues to have strong financials due to growth in operations though its level of growth is slightly less than that of its competitors like State Farm, which has a huge market share in the insurance industry. This implies that Progressive Insurance Company has an above average growth rate in comparison to major competitors in the industry.

Technique Analysis