Progressive just dodged a class action over how it values totaled cars – a ruling worth watching for insurers that rely on third-party valuation tools.
On April 15, 2026, a federal judge in Illinois denied class certification in a lawsuit that accused Progressive Universal Insurance Company of systematically shortchanging policyholders on total-loss vehicle claims. The case centered on a pricing mechanism used in Progressive's claims process for valuing totaled vehicles.
The dispute traces back to September 2020, when Normanda Holmes and Sherry Citchens-Wright each had their vehicles damaged in separate accidents. Both held policies with Progressive, which declared the cars total losses and set out to compensate them for actual cash value. To arrive at that number, Progressive turned to Mitchell International, a third-party valuation firm that identifies comparable vehicles in a claimant's area and adjusts their prices for factors like mileage and equipment. For vehicles that were listed for sale but had not yet sold, Mitchell applied what it calls a Projected Sold Adjustment – essentially a markdown meant to account for the assumption that buyers negotiate prices down from the sticker. The reductions were not small. Mitchell knocked between $695 and $818 off comparable vehicles in Holmes' case, and between $488 and $549 in Citchens-Wright's.
The plaintiffs argued that this practice dragged down the value of their claims and that Progressive never adequately told policyholders it was happening. They sought to bring a class action on behalf of every Illinois policyholder who, from February 2012 onward, had a total-loss claim valued using a Mitchell report where a Projected Sold Adjustment was applied. The class would have covered claims under Progressive's standard policy, which caps the insurer's liability at the lowest of three amounts: the actual cash value at the time of loss, the cost to replace or repair the vehicle, or the amount listed on the vehicle's declaration page or auto insurance coverage summary. The policy also permits Progressive to use estimating, appraisal, or injury evaluation systems developed by the company or a third party to determine the amount of damages or loss payable.
The lawsuit originally advanced several theories, including allegations that Progressive violated the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, breached its contract with policyholders, and breached the implied duty of good faith and fair dealing. But by the time the case reached the class certification stage, the court had already trimmed most of those theories. Earlier in the litigation, the court dismissed claims that Progressive misrepresented the Projected Sold Adjustment and that it violated the Illinois Total-Loss Regulation, giving the plaintiffs a chance to fix the deficiencies. They did not. The court also blocked the plaintiffs from reviving a regulatory violation theory for their breach of contract claims after they had expressly told the court in earlier filings that those claims had nothing to do with the regulation. When the plaintiffs later tried to reverse that position, the court shut the door, noting that allowing such a late pivot would unfairly burden Progressive, which had already completed discovery without any reason to explore that issue.
That left just one surviving theory: that Progressive engaged in deceptive conduct under the Illinois consumer fraud statute by failing to disclose its use of the Projected Sold Adjustment in its policy and valuation reports.
Even on that narrow claim, the court found the plaintiffs came up short. The central problem was predominance – the requirement under federal class action rules that common questions shared by all class members outweigh the issues unique to each individual. The court acknowledged that whether Progressive's conduct would mislead a reasonable consumer is a common question. But it found that question alone was not enough, because each class member would still need to show that they were personally affected by the nondisclosure and that it caused them actual harm. That kind of inquiry, the court concluded, would require digging into the individual reasons each policyholder chose Progressive in the first place – a process that would look different from one class member to the next.
The court did not have to look far for evidence of that problem. The named plaintiffs' own depositions undercut the notion that the Projected Sold Adjustment was a deciding factor. Citchens-Wright testified she chose Progressive because her previous insurer did not cover her after she moved to Illinois. She continued paying for Progressive coverage even after receiving a valuation report that disclosed the adjustment, and she only switched carriers when her premiums went up. Holmes said she picked Progressive because the rates were very good at the time. She testified that she had no concerns about the adjustment after learning of it and went further, saying she believed it was okay for Mitchell to look at the list price of a vehicle and make an adjustment for the downward negotiation.
With those facts on the table, the court found no basis to assume that every class member would have acted differently had they known about the adjustment. Unlike cases where courts have been willing to infer causation across an entire class – such as when a product is functionally worthless or a concealed danger is so severe that no reasonable person would have proceeded – the court found that consumers may choose Progressive insurance for a multitude of reasons beyond the methodology it uses to value totaled cars.
The court denied class certification on April 15, 2026, without reaching the remaining arguments, finding that the commonality and predominance issues were dispositive.
The case remains pending on an individual basis. The ruling does not declare the Projected Sold Adjustment lawful or unlawful, and similar litigation continues in other jurisdictions. For insurers relying on third-party valuation tools, the decision offers a measure of reassurance on the class action front – but it also serves as a reminder that how these adjustments are disclosed, and how they hold up under individual scrutiny, are questions that are not going away anytime soon.
