Progressive Insurance - Captive Law Firm Forum

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone know anything about the environment of Progressive Insurance captive firms? I am a rising 3L who will be summer'ing in one of these offices and I want to know about my chances of getting offered as an entry level attorney. Also, does anyone have any idea as to what salary looks like for these lawyers?

[Anonymous User]

Salary for an associate is loosely based on location.

[Anonymous User]

^ big market east coast not NY/DC

[Anonymous User]

anybody aware? glassdoor shows salary information, but I'm not sure if it refers to in-house progressive attorneys in their corporate HQ or captive firm attorneys.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Progre ... O22,30.htm

Glassdoor says $106k based on 2 entries. I'm not too sure about that.

[yogotti]

Slightly anecdotal: I used to work at a similar large insurance company. Starting captive attorneys got around $65-70K per year IIRC. Not sure if it varies a lot from city to city or not, but I am in large TX city. (Info based on job postings I used to see).

[Anonymous User]

I'm very familiar with internal progressive procedures. The company is very, very transparent internally about salaries. High five figures / low six figures + a modest variable component sounds right in big cities. Expect +\- 10% based on region. Can't speak to your likelihood to get hired full time but if you intern there you should get access to their internal intranet which will allow you to find detailed pay information very easily.

[Anonymous User]

^^ that was immensely helpful and very good to know. have you worked for a progressive captive?

[Anonymous User]

No, I did not work at a captive firm. I did work for progressive for 5+ years in a non-legal role. Just search around the HR links on the intranet. You'll find pay bands. Every job in the company fits into a designated pay band that allows Progressive HR to normalize the value of any given job across different business units. For example, I think entry level attorney is going to be in the same pay band as an office manager in their claims unit.

The company's goal is, essentially, after a few years experience, to have you +\- 5% of the median for you regionally-adjusted pay band. Then each pay band comes with a variable component that is entirely based on company performance.

To give you a concrete example: your pay band could be level X, which is a base salary range of: $78k - $98k. You might be in a higher COL area, so you get a +10% adjustment to that band. On top of that, you'll have a target variable component of 16%. The variable component is meant to allow the company to smooth out unexpected catastrophic years (like multiple hurricanes in highly populated areas in a single year). Depending on objective company performance, the variable component will be multiplied by a factor ranging from 0.0 - 2.0. On a five year rolling basis, the variable component averaged about 1.2/year during my time there.

So, multiply your yearly earnings X 16% X 1.2 and you've got your variable pay at the end of the year.

On the flip side, generally speaking, performance bonuses are relatively paltry, the closer you are to at or above median for your pay bad, the smaller your yearly raise will be. It also gets tough to hit the high end of your oh band without significant tenure.

Overall, not a terrible company to work for. You'll never have monster salary years, but you'll be solid and the hours will be relatively comfortable. Time off is based on seniority, with the most senior people getting 26 paid days off per year + 6 company holidays.

ETA: also, progressive's offices tend to be in suburban areas, so you can save on housing by not living in expensive urban cores of any particular metro area.

[Anonymous User]

No, I did not work at a captive firm. I did work for progressive for 5+ years in a non-legal role. Just search around the HR links on the intranet. You'll find pay bands. Every job in the company fits into a designated pay band that allows Progressive HR to normalize the value of any given job across different business units. For example, I think entry level attorney is going to be in the same pay band as an office manager in their claims unit.

The company's goal is, essentially, after a few years experience, to have you +\- 5% of the median for you regionally-adjusted pay band. Then each pay band comes with a variable component that is entirely based on company performance.

To give you a concrete example: your pay band could be level X, which is a base salary range of: $78k - $98k. You might be in a higher COL area, so you get a +10% adjustment to that band. On top of that, you'll have a target variable component of 16%. The variable component is meant to allow the company to smooth out unexpected catastrophic years (like multiple hurricanes in highly populated areas in a single year). Depending on objective company performance, the variable component will be multiplied by a factor ranging from 0.0 - 2.0. On a five year rolling basis, the variable component averaged about 1.2/year during my time there.

So, multiply your yearly earnings X 16% X 1.2 and you've got your variable pay at the end of the year.

On the flip side, generally speaking, performance bonuses are relatively paltry, the closer you are to at or above median for your pay bad, the smaller your yearly raise will be. It also gets tough to hit the high end of your oh band without significant tenure.

Overall, not a terrible company to work for. You'll never have monster salary years, but you'll be solid and the hours will be relatively comfortable. Time off is based on seniority, with the most senior people getting 26 paid days off per year + 6 company holidays.

ETA: also, progressive's offices tend to be in suburban areas, so you can save on housing by not living in expensive urban cores of any particular metro area.

As another former PGR employee, I can confirm this. Senior folks had it pretty nice. I rarely dealt with the captive firm people as there were none in my office, but it didn't seem like a horrible gig.

[Anonymous User]

^^^ that's awesome, is there anything you know about captive associate salaries that the other post didn't cover?

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, if I remember correctly, the salary band for claims managers was the same as attorneys. I had the sheet printed out at my desk and it pretty much told me what everyone made because the positions go off of numbers. So, a claims rep was a level 37, injury reps 39, claims managers 41 or 43 or something. PGR would publish the salary band for those numbers. My guess was, in a metro area, a claims manager made 75-95+ depending on experience, but that's ballparking it from like three years ago. Also, managers got a higher bonus potential (the post below explained the variable component which is called gainshare or something like that - it's looked at as a bonus). Performance bonuses were pretty much non-existent when I was there. Managers could make significantly more in bonuses because 1. they made more money and 2. their bonus percentage of their base salary was higher. Again, I remember claims managers and attorneys being similar, if not the same, pay band.

As an aside, if you are not interested in practicing law, or want to do something that is law related but doesn't require the same type of work, claims reps that handle litigation cases get paid pretty well (roughly the same as lower level claims managers) and i never saw those guys/gals stay in the office past 5:00. Boring work, but if you want to make every family dinner and baseball game, you can't beat it.