Progressive Snapshot

One of the more quiet stocks in my dividend portfolio is Progressive, known for Flo in the commercials.  I admire Progressive as a company as I think they are the smartest insurance company in the world.  Their latest innovation is the Snapshot, which is placed in an owners car and tracks their driving behaviors (time of day they drive, speeds, distances locations etc). They entice people to put in their car by offering a discount.

Within a year, they will have a superb database for correlating those independent variables with accidents.  That should allow them to refine their pricing even further than they already have (they run AT LEAST) a five point lower loss ratio than major competitors.

Since I bought them, they are up ten percent vs 5.8% for the benchmark. Then today, they announced a special $1.00 dividend.... Sweet!  They also said they still plan to pay their normal annual dividend (early next year), which I expect to be around forty to forty five cents.  I plan to fully reinvest, so I will increase my share count in PGR by six to seven percent over next six months.  Love the power of reinvested dividends!