Company Background and Overview On March 10, 1937, Joseph Lewis and Jack Green founded Progressive Mutual Insurance Company. Progressive’s mission was to bring security and comfort to auto owners. Since Progressive’s start, the firm has taken innovation approaches to auto insurance. Becoming the first company to insure high-risk drivers, the first insurer to go online, and the first to sell online are only some of Progressive’s innovate accomplishments. Today, Progressive ranks 3rd among auto insurers in terms of the dollar amount of premiums. Progressive’s innovate ability has sparked their consistent growth and evolution in the auto industry. Objectives Profit • Progressive uses sophisticated pricing techniques to assign accurate prices …show more content…
Progressive, like many insurance companies, carries a low percentage of their liquidity in cash, roughly 0.03% of current assets in 2006. Progressive holds roughly 99% of their current assets in the form of investments, in order to cover their underwriting losses, increase shareholder return, and provide another source of revenue. Insurance companies are held to a very low-risk tolerance because they are investing policyholder premiums, which must be used to cover claims. The majority of Progressive’s investments, 72%, are held in in U.S. government, state and local, and U.S. agency bonds, all of which are considered low risk-low return bonds. In 2006, Progressive’s common stock investments had a return of 16.5%, compared to a 13.62% return in the S&P 500. In 2006, Progressive’s investment income funded their 1.1 billion dollar stock buyback. Since insurance companies do not carry any inventory, the quick ratio is not relevant to the …show more content…
Progressive’s growth from 20 to 53 centers from 2004 to 2006 can be partially responsible for the high fixed asset balance. Progressive’s low amount of cash on hand and relatively low investment balance compared to industry leaders result in a lower than average current asset balance. Overall, Progressive’s activity ratios should be encouraging, as Progressive outperformed the industry’s sales to total assets average. Limits Progressive’s limit ratios indicate that the firm can increase their debt by 373 million dollars based on their equity level, whereas the firm has no room increase debt based on assets. Progressive’s account receivable days currently outperforms the industry average, stating there is no room for improvement based on the industry’s average operation metrics. Other (Cash Flows) The most financially encouraging aspect of Progressive is their cash flows. In 2006, Progressive’s cash flows for operations were able to fund the firms investing and financing activities. Additionally, Progressive was able to fund a 1.1 billion dollar acquisition of treasury stock, pay dividends, increase investments, and invest into company growth using cash from operations. Progressive’s statement of cash flows is consistent with a healthy, growing
Debts are low and revenue is growing. Although sales continue to increase every month, Peyton Approved could benefit from lowering its current ratio. This can be done by lower assets and increasing liabilities. For example, Peyton Approved could lower the current asset cash by paying off its notes payable of $10000 therefore increasing a liability.
From 2010 to 2011 there has been a 23.8% increase in gross fixed assets value. The raised funds through long term debts would have been used to enhance assets base of Speedster. This is a very positive sigh of future profitability and capacity of the company. Higher assets should be able to generate more cash inflow...
Progressive has been in business since 1937 and currently is one of the largest auto insurance groups in the United States. They have more than 10 million policies in force and growth continues as more people choose us for their vehicle insurance needs. They sell insurance directly to customers online and by phone, and offer insurance through more than 30,000 local independent agents. In addition to auto insurance, Progressive offers the following types of insurance to customers throughout the country: boat/personal watercraft insurance, commercial auto insurance, homeowners insurance, motorcycle insurance, RV insurance and Segway insurance.
Vanguard Case Analysis After reading through the Vanguard case, there were a few difficult forks in the road that Vanguard seems to be facing. The company’s future can be greatly affected by some of these difficult choices. Vanguard has to decide whether to change their investment offerings, further develop Internationally, or to simply advertise to increase their client base. Top managers at Vanguard have to step up to the plate and rollout detailed plans as to what path the company should take regarding some of these issues. Through our in-class discussions, the majority of the students argued on one major problem that Vanguard was facing.
On the other hand, while Zynga has managed to keep a positive cash flow in operations for 2013, their cash flow in investment activities were positive for the first time. For a growth company, this could also be a tell-tale sign that the company is at a standstill in deciding what their next project should be.
this means cash flow is improves as the money is not tied up in stock
Quick Ratio – Constant grow for the last three years. From 3.56 in 2001 to 3.76 in 2002 to 4.17 in 2003. The reason of grow is constant increase in Current Assets.
Medicare was designed as a universal healthcare program for individuals 65 years old and older. This program is funded by Medicare taxes and general federal funding withholding taxes. Medicare is a partnership between federal and state with the goal to provide medical insurance to the elderly that is poor and disabled. Generally all people who are 65 years or older and qualify for social security will automatically qualify for Medicare.
There are several issues concerning the uninsured and underinsured patient population in America. There are many areas of concern the congressional efforts to increase the availability of health insurance, the public image of the insurance industry illustrated by the movie "John Q", the lack of good management tools, and creating health insurance coverage for all low income Americans. Since the number of uninsured Americans has risen to 43 million from 37 million in the flourishing 1990s and could shoot up even more severely if the economy continues to decrease and health care premiums keep increasing (Insurance No Simple Fix, 2001).
He wanted to take what he had learned and apply it to a new venture in which he would have full control over his unique vision. Thus, he began to develop Aligned Insurance’s 18 Points of Differentiation. For example, Aligned Insurance differentiates itself by having specific tiers of service, each with clearly delineated levels of policy coverage and service provided. As well, Aligned Insurance deals exclusively in Business Insurance, which means unlike other brokerages such as Marsh and Aon, Aligned Insurance will never be backlogged with personal lines service work, and they put the commercial client
Firstly, based on the profitability, P&G has earned higher profit from each dollar of revenue which is 13.4% compared to C-P 12.9% for the recent year 2013. In addition, P&G also has higher EPS of US$4.04 compare to C-P US$2.41. In contrast, C-P register a Gross Profit of 58.7% and Return on Equity of 91.0% as opposed to P&G’s 49.6% and 17.0% respectively. C-P seems to rely heavily on debt and this has helped to improve the Return of Equity. P&G also has its downside in asset turnover ratio (0.62) and fixed turnover
...ive for the first few years of existence. Looking at the statement of cash flows, Zynga has experienced significant growth. The most eventful year was when they announced their IPO in Dec. of 2011. When it comes to cash flow, the company is on target with most companies in its industry. The statement of cash flows is a very important when evaluating a company because it is a statement where it’s harder to skew the numbers. The fact that over the past few years, Zynga was able to produce positive cash flows in operations is good sign of healthy growth. It means that they were able to turn a profit just from their operations versus dependent solely on marketable securities. Although its cash flow from operations have fallen over the past few years, mostly because of the stock based expense accumulated when it went public, the company still maintains a good position.
We analyzed the market for two weeks to determine when the equity market would turn from a bearish to bullish market. Without a change in the market and a declining bond price, we decided to invest in equities according to our investment strategy, which brought us into the second phase of our portfolio. Therefore, at the beginning of February we bought shares in Sirius, Microsoft, Neon, Washington Mutual, and Nike. As assumed, the equity market continued to plummet decreasing the value of all our stocks except for our Gold Corporation stock.
Health care has always been an interesting topic all over the world. Voltaire once said, “The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.” It may seem like health care that nothing gets accomplished in different health care systems, but ultimately many trying to cures diseases and improve health care systems.
As I started my Health Insurance class my belief was that this class will be pretty easy as I am familiar with much of the medical field. Personally having multiple illness’s and having three special needs children, personally I have learned so much within the medical field. However, as I began reading Chapters 1-3 in my Understanding Health Insurance book, the realization hit that I was not as knowledgeable as I thought I was. Therefore, I am eager and excited to learn new things in the medical field.