Progressive Insurance provides coverage for car damage.
Progressive Insurance, officially known as the Progressive Corporation, is established as an insurance holding company. Its primary and most well-known products are insurance coverage policies for vehicles, including cars, boats and motorcycles. For investment purposes, there is an abundance of information available on the Internet since Progressive is a publicly held company. However, one needs to know where to look.
Background
Progressive has 53 subsidiaries and one affiliate in the mutual insurance category. All of these branches are associated with offering some time of insurance coverage to customers. The categories include personal and automobile insurance, casualty insurance and specialty riders for specific, valuable items. Based on this structure, Progressive has most of its operations primarily in the United States, but it also has a new branch selling insurance products and coverage in Australia as well. This information in turn leads to find investment data on Progressive.
Company Reports
Public companies, particularly corporations, have both a presence on the Internet and easily accessible copies of the quarterly and annual reports. In addition, they regularly provide press releases on their websites for ongoing information. Research from these reports and bulletins will provide significant amounts of operational and financial data to review. Keep in mind that the information is written by Progressive, so it may be a bit biased. However, the financial information has to follow specific formats known as generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) due to Progressive being a public company with shareholders. This requirement ensures that the financial figures represented can't be manipulated too much.
Stock and Fund Forums/Blogs
A second source for valuable and many times independent information is the abundance of stock and mutual fund forums or blogs. These sites are run by people who enjoy writing and analyzing the investment-potential of various companies, including Progressive. The information is sorted by company and can be retrieved by either inputting the ticker symbol (PGR) or the company name of Progressive. The articles provide in-depth opinions on company performance and industry conditions which can be useful. Keep in mind however, many of the opinions are from amateur writers rather than professional, licensed financial analysts.
Regulatory Reports
The securities industry is highly regulated. Since Progressive is a public company, which means is shares its ownership in the form of shares in return for cash funding, the company is required to file specific reports with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC provides a government oversight role to make sure information provided to investment markets is fair and timely. This is intended to make sure people are buying ownership based on accurate statements and company conditions.
There are numerous reports that have odd code names such 10-K and similar that Progressive must file quarterly an annually with the SEC. The SEC then turns around and makes these reports, when accepted, available to the public. With the power of the Internet, investors can download these reports on their home computers by searching the SEC Edgar database, which houses all the filed records.
Earnings Transcripts
One item that can give good, fairly unfiltered investment information about Progressive is in earnings reports and related transcripts. It is common practice for public companies to release their earnings estimates and have conferences with professional financial advisers. These advisers are skilled and know ask pointed questions about performance. The transcripts can provide analytical information not found in standard SEC reports or company financial sheets. Of particular wealth is how Progressive management answers questions, or doesn't.
