PROGRESSIVE AUTOMOTIVE history

Lewis and Green wrote less than $10,000 in premiums that first year, and by 1939, Progressive's original capital had dwindled to less than $1,500.

Although licensed to write all types of automobile and casualty insurance, they limited themselves to auto insurance, and by 1940 were writing about $100,000 worth of insurance annually.

People finally had jobs and money, so they could afford cars and insurance, but gas was rationed so they couldn't drive and didn't have many accidents." The booming, car-crazy, postwar economy further accelerated Progressive's business: premium revenues reached $480,000 by 1946.

Progressive grew in the postwar period, acquiring assets of $2 million and more than 25,000 policyholders in 1951, and establishing offices at 3600 EUCLID AVE. and branches in Akron and Youngstown.

Accordingly, Progressive Casualty was formed in 1956 to write policies for those drivers who had trouble finding coverage elsewhere.

The younger Lewis helped lead Progressive's expansion outside Ohio's boundaries after 1960.

The Progressive Corporation, an insurance holding company, was formed in 1965 upon Jack Green's retirement.

By 1970 Progressive Casualty, which accounted for 75% of the corporation's business, was writing its non-standard, high-risk auto insurance in Ohio and 8 other states.

Progressive became a publicly held company in 1971 and constructed a new corporate headquarters at 6300 Wilson Mills Rd. in MAYFIELD VILLAGE the following year.

Lewis, a long-time collector of art, first began the Progressive Corp.'s art collection in 1974, when he purchased Andy Warhol's Mao Tse Tung Series.

These pricing policies helped the company's premium volume increase to $157.3 million by 1980.

In 1986, the company wrote over $830 million in premiums, over five times as much as it had at the beginning of the decade.

That year it suffered a decline in income due to overstaffing and losses from its trucking insurance business, begun in 1987.

The most notorious law, California's Proposition 103, mandated 20 percent cuts in auto insurance premiums and refunds to many customers after its 1988 adoption.

Lewis was characterized as "a brilliant and unusual man" in a 1990 Financial World profile, and he has been credited with the managerial savvy that kept Progressive in the vanguard of auto insurance.

In 1992, Progressive became the nation's largest provider of automobile insurance through independent agents.

By reducing the number of employees and eliminating most of its trucking insurance, Progressive returned to profitability in 1993.

In 1994, Progressive reported net written premiums of $2.4 billion, helping the company to grow 37.7% that year.

In 1995, Progressive served its policyholders in the United States & Canada through more than 30,000 independent agents, 200 claims offices, and 7,500 employees nationwide and in Canada.

In 1996 the company announced its interest in taking into account personal credit histories, which reflected a customer's financial responsibility and how he chose to pay his bills, when setting their auto insurance rates in California, something which Progressive was able to do in other states.

At the beginning of 1999 Progressive created a second CEO position, perhaps to ensure an orderly management succession when 65-year-old Peter B. Lewis decided to retire.

In 2000, Lewis, then 66 years old, stepped down as CEO of the company, but remained chairman of the board.