Progressive Refused $50,000 Claim | $267,608.50 Bad-Faith Verdict Affirmed | ICA

Written by: Yusuf Nurudeen Ayodele (B.Sc., AAT, ACA (ICAN))

Published: July 16, 2026

Last updated: October 6, 2026

Topic: Florida Third-Party Bad Faith and Excess Judgments

Source review: Eleventh Circuit opinion and public docket in Wood v. Progressive Select Insurance Co. (11th Cir. No. 24-13479), Florida Statutes §§ 624.155 and 626.9541, and Florida bad-faith case law including Boston Old Colony, Ilias, Powell and Harvey

How A $50,000 Policy Dispute Became A $267,608.50 Bad-Faith Verdict

 

A car accident in Florida turned into a decade-long legal saga because an insurance company would not put its full policy limits on the table when it had the chance.

 

In November 2025, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury's finding that Progressive Select Insurance Company acted in bad faith when it handled a claim against its own policyholders — and that decision left Progressive facing a $267,608.50 jury verdict — $217,608.50 above the Woods' $50,000 policy limit — in a bad-faith case that started as a simple policy-limit dispute.

 

If you've ever wondered why an insurer would risk owing hundreds of thousands more than a policy is worth just to avoid paying the full limits, this case lays it out step by step: what happened, why the court ruled the way it did, and what accident victims and policyholders can take from it.

 

Case Timeline At A Glance

Timeline of the Bryan Wood v. Progressive Insurance Case

Stage	What Happened	Result	Amount
The Accident (October 2015)	Kaylee Wood's car collides with Robert Buckner's SUV; Kaylee receives a traffic citation, and the Woods report the crash to Progressive the same day.	Buckner files a claim against the Woods' bodily injury liability policy.	$50,000 policy limit.
First Policy-Limits Demand (November 2016)	Buckner's attorney demands the full policy limits, supported by medical records documenting his injuries.	Buckner sues; Progressive offers only a fraction of the demand, and the mediation that follows reaches an impasse when Progressive refuses to tender the limits.	$5,432 counteroffer.
Second Policy-Limits Demand (June 2018)	A second demand for the full policy limits is submitted with a June 29, 2018 deadline.	The deadline passes without a tender, and Buckner undergoes cervical fusion surgery in September 2018 due to his neck injuries.	$50,000 demanded.
Late Tender (October 2018)	Progressive finally tenders the full policy limits.	Buckner's attorney rejects the late offer.	$50,000 tendered.
Jury Verdict (February 2019)	The underlying injury case against the Woods goes to trial.	A jury awards Buckner damages against the Woods, far exceeding the policy limit.	$267,608.50 verdict.
Bad Faith Lawsuit (March 2021)	The Woods file a bad faith lawsuit against Progressive, alleging the insurer failed to protect them from the excess judgment.	Case proceeds through the courts.	Excess judgment at issue.
Appeal (11th Cir., November 2025)	Progressive appeals the bad faith verdict to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.	Affirmed against Progressive.	Judgment stands.

What Happened When Progressive Refused To Settle A $50,000 Claim

 

In October 2015, Kaylee Wood's car collided with an SUV driven by Robert Buckner. Police cited Kaylee for the accident, and although neither driver reported injuries at first, Buckner later said the crash had left him with neck and cervical spine injuries.

 

Kaylee and her father, Bryan Wood, were insured under a Progressive policy with $50,000 in bodily injury liability coverage. Buckner filed a personal injury claim against that policy the same day the Woods reported the crash, and his attorney, Robert Messer, soon sent Progressive a letter laying out the claim.

 

A Progressive claims examiner reviewed the accident and the available coverage, then determined Kaylee was at fault. The examiner already had a salvage report on Buckner's vehicle, photos of the damage, and information about a prior accident Buckner had been in, but Progressive still asked Messer's office for more details about the extent of Buckner's injuries. This initial review is typical of how an adjuster works early in a car accident claim: assessing fault, gathering evidence, and deciding how much exposure the policy actually carries before the case moves any further.

 

By November 2016, Messer presented Progressive with a demand for the full $50,000 policy limits, backed by medical records showing Buckner had early degenerative changes with herniated discs at C4-5 and C5-6, and that a doctor considered him a candidate for cervical disc surgery. Buckner was trying to avoid surgery at that point and had about $2,715 in out-of-pocket medical costs, which the demand itself flagged by questioning whether those costs even related to the accident.

 

Why Progressive Didn't Pay The Policy Limits Up Front

 

Buckner filed a lawsuit against the Woods after the demand went unanswered at the policy limits, and Progressive assigned new claims examiners and a law firm to defend the Woods. One examiner spoke with Messer, who explained that Buckner's doctor had recommended surgery and that Buckner was entitled to the full limits on that basis.

 

Handoffs like this aren't unusual once a case moves toward litigation: the adjuster assigned at the start of a claim is often replaced by someone new once a lawsuit is filed, which can create gaps in how consistently a file gets evaluated over time.

 

The First Offer Fell Far Short

 

With no additional medical documentation in hand, Progressive offered to settle for $5,432, a small fraction of the $50,000 available. A mediation session followed, and it fell apart. During mediation, the Woods learned Buckner would accept the full $50,000 policy limits to resolve the case. Progressive still refused to tender the limits, and the mediation reached an impasse.

 

The Medical Evidence Progressive Had Access To

 

Once Progressive heard Buckner might need surgery, a claims examiner arranged an independent medical exam with a Progressive-approved physician, Dr. Michael Zeide, to evaluate whether the proposed surgery was reasonable and necessary. After that exam, a different adjuster tried to reopen negotiations, noted Buckner was moving toward surgery but found nothing in the medical records that changed Progressive's evaluation of the claim, and never extended another offer.

 

In June 2018, Messer sent a second demand for the policy limits, with a deadline of June 29, 2018. This demand didn't include new medical documentation, and Buckner's total out-of-pocket costs were still under $2,802. He wasn't scheduled for surgery at that point, and he later testified that he wasn't willing to settle at the policy limits by the time that deadline passed.

 

How A $50,000 Policy Turned Into A $267,608 Excess Judgment

 

Buckner had cervical fusion surgery in September 2018, and his attorney told Progressive about the surgery a month later. Only then did Progressive try to resolve the claim by tendering a check for the full $50,000 policy limits — and by that point Messer rejected the check outright, saying he would only negotiate for amounts above the policy limits.

 

The Underlying Jury Verdict

 

The case went to trial in February 2019. A jury sided with Buckner and awarded him $267,608.50 in damages against the Woods — more than five times the $50,000 available under the policy — and that gap between what the policy covered and what the jury awarded is what created the excess judgment insurance claim at the center of everything that followed.

 

The Woods Sue Progressive For Bad Faith

 

In March 2021, the Woods filed a third-party common law bad faith claim against Progressive over how it had handled Buckner's claim, and a jury agreed with them, finding Progressive acted in bad faith. Progressive asked the trial court to overturn the verdict through a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), or alternatively for a new trial based on a jury selection dispute.

 

The trial court denied both requests, and Progressive appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, where the full docket in Wood v. Progressive Select, No. 24-13479 traces the case through to the court's January 2026 denial of rehearing en banc.

Note: This is Wood v. Progressive Select Insurance Co. (11th Cir. No. 24-13479), a third-party bad-faith case over a $50,000 bodily-injury policy. It is a different case from the similarly named Woods v. Progressive American Insurance Co. (11th Cir. No. 23-13407), a first-party UIM bad-faith case discussed here.

 

What Is An Excess Judgment In An Insurance Bad Faith Claim?

 

An excess judgment — the gap between what a policy covers and what a court actually awards — is exactly what the Woods were left holding. If your liability policy has a $50,000 limit and a jury awards $267,608 against you, the $217,608 above your coverage is the excess, and you're personally on the hook for it unless you can hold the insurer accountable.

 

Key Financial Figures in the Bryan Wood v. Progressive Insurance Case

Figure	Amount
Policy Limit (Bodily Injury Liability)	$50,000
Progressive's First Settlement Offer	$5,432
Buckner's Out-of-Pocket Costs at Second Demand	$2,801.50
Jury Verdict Against the Woods	$267,608.50
Amount Exceeding the Policy Limit ("Excess")	$217,608.50

 

Third-party bad faith law is what can close that gap. When an insurer had a real chance to settle within the policy limits and didn't take it, and that failure exposed the policyholder to a judgment beyond those limits, the insurer can end up owing the entire judgment, not just the original policy amount.

 

Florida courts have applied this rule for decades, tracing back to Boston Old Colony Insurance Co. v. Gutierrez, the 1980 Florida Supreme Court decision the Eleventh Circuit quoted here for the proposition that an insurer defending its insured owes the same care and diligence a person of ordinary prudence would use managing his own business, and it now sits alongside Florida's statutory bad faith remedy at §624.155. The size of the gap shapes what's at stake: a $50,000 policy that produces a $60,000 judgment leaves a policyholder exposed to a fraction of what a judgment more than five times the limit does.

 

Florida also requires an actual excess judgment rather than a settlement everyone agreed to, because the excess judgment is built into the claim itself: the Eleventh Circuit stated the test in Ilias v. USAA General Indemnity Co. as bad faith conduct by the insurer that causes an excess judgment to be entered against the insured.

 

How Florida's Bad Faith Law Works — And Why The Court Sided With The Woods

 

Florida recognizes bad faith claims under both a specific statute with a 60-day cure window and long-standing common law. For third-party claims like this one — where the injured person isn't the policyholder but is suing someone the policyholder's insurer covers — the common law standard controls.

 

The Two Things A Plaintiff Has To Prove

 

Under Eleventh Circuit precedent — Ilias again — a policyholder bringing a bad faith claim has to show two things: bad faith conduct by the insurer, and that the conduct caused an excess judgment against the insured. Florida courts have also said, in Powell v. Prudential Property & Casualty Insurance Co., that bad faith can be inferred from a settlement delay that's willful and lacks a reasonable basis, and that any doubt about how a settlement effort might have turned out should be resolved in favor of the policyholder, not the insurer.

 

Rather than treating an insurer's obligations as a simple checklist, courts look at the totality of the circumstances and ask whether the insurer worked on the policyholder's behalf with the same haste and precision it would have used if it were the one facing the judgment — the standard the Florida Supreme Court set out in Harvey v. GEICO, building on the same common-law duty rooted in Boston Old Colony discussed above. That duty is reinforced by a separate statute, Florida's Unfair Insurance Trade Practices Act, Fla. Stat. §626.9541, which defines the specific unfair claim settlement practices insurers are prohibited from engaging in.

 

What The Eleventh Circuit Pointed To

The appellate court found several things in the record that supported the jury's bad faith finding, starting with testimony from a Progressive adjuster who said she never consulted the American Medical Association's permanency guidelines because Buckner hadn't missed work.

 

The jury also heard about the timing of Buckner's medical records — when Progressive received them and how it responded — and evidence that Progressive withdrew its own medical expert after he concluded the accident had at least aggravated Buckner's existing spinal condition. Taken together, the court found this was enough for a jury to conclude Progressive ignored medical information it had access to, failed to reassess the Woods' exposure as that information came in, and that this failure contributed to the excess judgment.

 

The court also pointed to evidence that Progressive didn't disclose settlement overtures to the Woods during the underlying lawsuit, which Powell treats as a separate basis for a bad faith finding, since policyholders who rely on their insurer to handle negotiations are entitled to know what's happening in those talks.

 

Progressive tried to lean on a different case, Deary v. Progressive American Insurance Co., where a federal court had found that a mere disagreement over a claim's value doesn't automatically amount to bad faith. The Eleventh Circuit distinguished that case here, noting the Woods had shown bad faith conduct that went beyond an ordinary valuation dispute — namely, the undisclosed settlement talks and the disregarded medical evidence.

 

One limit on the ruling's reach is how it was issued: the Eleventh Circuit released it as an unpublished, per curiam decision, meaning it does not carry the binding, precedential weight of a published opinion and applies most directly to the facts of this specific case, even though it offers a useful window into how courts evaluate bad faith conduct.

 

The Jury Selection Argument That Didn't Work

 

Progressive separately argued it deserved a new trial because the district court refused to remove a prospective juror — a plaintiff's attorney whose firm handled bad faith cases against insurers — for cause, which forced Progressive to use one of its peremptory strikes on that juror instead, a move it argued weakened its position during jury selection.

 

The Eleventh Circuit rejected that argument too, noting that courts evaluating juror impartiality look at whether the juror might be influenced by matters outside the evidence and whether they'd presume liability rather than approach the case neutrally. The court found Progressive offered only speculation, not evidence, that the jurors who actually sat on the case were biased — and under the Supreme Court's decision in Ross v. Oklahoma, that's what matters, not which jurors were struck along the way.

 

What This Case Means If Your Insurer Is Slow To Settle

Every bad faith case turns on its own facts, as the Eleventh Circuit repeated here, so this ruling doesn't guarantee any particular outcome for a different claim. Another Florida policyholder found that out from the opposite direction, when a $20,000 policy produced a $2 million judgment — a gap that dwarfed anything the Woods were facing.

 

 A few things accident victims and policyholders can do to protect a claim:

 

• Keep A Written Record Of Every Settlement Demand And Deadline.  The Woods' case turned partly on the timeline — when Progressive received medical records, when demands were made, and how long Progressive waited before responding.

 

• Ask Your Insurer Directly Whether Settlement Talks Are Happening. Florida law expects insurers to disclose settlement overtures to their policyholders, not just to the other side's attorney.

 

• Request Updates On Medical Evidence Review. If new records or opinions come in, ask how the claim's evaluation has changed.

 

• Note When Demands Expire. A rejected policy-limits demand doesn't disappear — it can become central evidence in a later bad faith case if a judgment does exceed the policy.

 

• Talk To A Licensed Attorney If A Case Is Heading To Trial With Policy Limits Still Unresolved. An attorney can evaluate whether a policy-limits demand should be sent and how it should be documented.

 

• Know Who's Handling The File, And Whether That's Changed. Staying in contact with the adjuster assigned to your claim helps you track how a case is progressing, and it's worth asking whether a separate adjuster has been assigned to evaluate a third-party claim brought against your policy, since that's a different role than the adjuster who handles your own first-party coverage.

 

Outcomes depend heavily on the facts of each case and the law of the state involved, and none of this guarantees a specific result. What the Woods' file does show is how much of the bad faith question came down to documented timing: when the records arrived, when the demands expired, and what Progressive did in the stretch between them.

 

Editorial Disclaimer

This article explains Wood v. Progressive Select Insurance Co. (11th Cir., No. 24-13479), where a $50,000 policy limit dispute led to a $267,608.50 excess judgment. It's for educational purposes only, not legal, financial, or insurance advice, and creates no professional relationship with ICA or the author.

 

The account is drawn from the Eleventh Circuit's opinion and public docket, summarized in plain language — read the linked primary sources before relying on any detail. Statements that Progressive acted in bad faith reflect the jury's finding, upheld on appeal, not ICA's own conclusion, and say nothing about how Progressive handles other claims. Figures cited (the $50,000 limit, offers, costs, and the verdict) are as reported in the record; the article doesn't report when or how any payment was made.

 

The opinion is unpublished, per curiam, and not binding precedent — it applies most directly to its own facts. This is a third-party bad-faith claim under Florida law; first-party claims follow different rules, other states differ, and statutes may have been amended since publication. This case's outcome doesn't predict any other claim's result.

 

The practical tips are general awareness information, not a strategy for any specific case. If you're facing a judgment that could exceed your coverage, speak promptly with a licensed attorney in your state — deadlines can be short.