The Progressive Corporation

Is Progressive publicly traded?
Yes. The Progressive Corporation trades on the NYSE under ticker PGR and is an S&P 500 component.

Who founded Progressive?
Joseph Lewis and Jack Green founded Progressive Mutual Insurance in Cleveland in 1937 to insure higher-risk drivers.

Where is Progressive headquartered?
Mayfield Village, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, where the company has been based throughout its history.

How big is Progressive?
The second-largest US auto insurer, with more than $75 billion in net premiums written in 2025 and approximately 66,000 employees.

Who owns Progressive?
Public shareholders. It is widely held by institutional investors with no controlling owner.

What is Snapshot?
Progressive's usage-based insurance program that prices premiums based on actual driving behavior collected through a mobile app or plug-in device, a model it pioneered at industry scale.

Joseph Lewis and Jack Green founded Progressive Mutual Insurance Company in Cleveland in 1937 to provide auto insurance to drivers that established insurers considered too risky. The company built its early identity on serving non-standard risks, then turned that expertise into an underwriting advantage.

Two decisions defined its modern trajectory. In 1987, Progressive became the first major auto insurer to offer rates by phone and published competitor quotes alongside its own, pioneering transparent comparison. In the mid-1990s it launched the first major telematics experiment, and Snapshot, its usage-based insurance program, became the industry standard for driver-behavior pricing after 2008.

The company went public in 1971 and grew methodically: motorcycle and commercial auto expansion in the 1980s and 1990s, then the direct-to-consumer internet channel in the 2000s, where its comparison-shopping brand positioning paid off. The 2015 acquisition of American Strategic Insurance (ASI) for roughly $875 million brought a property business, enabling the auto-plus-home bundling that had been its biggest strategic gap versus State Farm and Allstate.

CEO Tricia Griffith has led since 2016, presiding over a decade where Progressive grew from roughly $23 billion in premiums to over $75 billion while maintaining underwriting profitability, a combination rare in personal lines. The company passed Allstate to become the number-two US auto insurer and has narrowed the gap with leader State Farm.

Rate Increase Scrutiny: Aggressive rate increases in 2022 to 2024 drew regulatory and consumer criticism, though state-by-state approval processes validated most filings. The industry-wide pattern was shared by all major insurers.

Claims Practices Litigation: Like all large insurers, Progressive faces periodic bad-faith claims litigation; none has produced company-defining findings. A 2012 social media incident over a claim payment caused reputational damage but no lasting harm.