UM/UIM Stacking Settlements: Progressive, Liberty Mutual, and Travelers Class Actions

Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage pays you when the at-fault driver has no insurance. Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage pays when the at-fault driver's insurance is too small to cover your losses. "Stacking" means adding together the UM/UIM limits for each vehicle you insure: two cars with $50,000 of UM coverage each can give you $100,000 of stacked coverage.

The recent class actions attack two practices.

Progressive: stacked coverage sold on single-vehicle policies

In Jeremy Peck v. Progressive Northern Insurance Company et al., Case No. 1:22-cv-00490-SMD-JFR in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, the plaintiff alleged that Progressive sold stacked UM/UIM coverage on policies that insured only one vehicle and charged more than for unstacked coverage. With one vehicle, there is nothing to stack, so the plaintiff argued the extra premium bought no benefit and the coverage was illusory under New Mexico law. The Progressive class covers policies issued, renewed, or in effect between January 1, 2009 and April 30, 2025, including motorcycles and RVs. Progressive denies wrongdoing and agreed to stop selling stacked coverage on single-vehicle policies.

Liberty Mutual and Safeco: the underinsured motorist offset

Crutcher v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company et al., Case No. 18-cv-00412 JCH-LF, also in federal court in New Mexico, targeted a different problem. New Mexico reduces, or "offsets," UIM benefits by whatever the at-fault driver's insurer pays. For someone who buys the minimum UIM coverage, that offset can wipe out the UIM benefit entirely. The plaintiff alleged that Liberty Mutual and Safeco affiliates did not tell New Mexico customers this, and sued for breach of contract, negligence, unjust enrichment, bad faith, and violations of New Mexico's Unfair Trade Practices Act. The companies deny the claims.

Travelers: premiums for illusory UIM coverage

Aguilar-Tafoya and Brewton v. Travelers, Case No. 1:23-0247 JB/JMR in the District of New Mexico, alleges that Travelers collected premiums for illusory or misleading UIM coverage and improperly applied offsets to UIM claims. Travelers denies violating New Mexico law but agreed to settle.

These are allegations resolved by settlement. No court found that any of these insurers broke the law.

Judge Sarah M. Davenport granted final approval of the Progressive settlement on March 2, 2026, and judgment was entered March 27, 2026, according to the court docket. Judge Judith C. Herrera held the Crutcher fairness hearing on June 4, 2026, and the settlement website reports that final approval was granted on June 23, 2026.

The Travelers settlement website lists a claim deadline of September 27, 2026 and a settlement hearing that was set for July 29, 2026; as of late September 2026 the site still said the court had to decide whether to approve it. The opt-out and objection deadline for Travelers was June 29, 2026.

Full detail on the two closed cases is on our Progressive stacked UM/UIM settlement page and our Liberty Mutual and Safeco UIM settlement page.

Progressive New Mexico class

You are in the class if you were a Progressive policyholder, lived in New Mexico, and bought or paid for a policy with stacked UM coverage while insuring only one vehicle between January 1, 2009 and April 30, 2025. The class splits in two:

• Automatic payments: anyone with such a policy from May 10, 2018 through April 30, 2025 gets the difference between the stacked and unstacked premium without filing. People owed less than $10 had to pick a payment method within 90 days of notice or forfeit it.
• Claim-based payments: people with such a policy from January 1, 2009 through May 9, 2018 had to file a claim form by February 26, 2026. That group shares a pool of no less than $37,000 and no more than $75,000.

Liberty Mutual and Safeco New Mexico class

The class includes Safeco and Liberty Mutual policyholders and insureds who paid for a New Mexico policy with UM/UIM coverage between October 1, 2010 and March 31, 2022, and people whose New Mexico UIM claim was reduced by the offset. If the at-fault driver had no insurance at all, you had an uninsured claim, not an underinsured one, and did not qualify for the offset payment.

Travelers New Mexico class

New Mexico policyholders or people with Travelers UIM coverage between January 1, 2015 and August 16, 2022 may qualify. Travelers class members must submit a claim form to receive any payment; doing nothing means no money.

Who likely does not qualify

People who never bought UM/UIM coverage, people insured outside New Mexico with these carriers, and anyone who opted out. People who filed their own suit over the same issue before notice went out were excluded from the Progressive and Crutcher classes.

Payouts depend on what you paid, not on a flat amount.

• Progressive: the refund equals the difference between what you paid for single-vehicle stacked coverage and what unstacked coverage would have cost. Claimants from the older 2009 to 2018 period may get less than the full difference if the $37,000 to $75,000 pool runs short. Attorneys' fees of up to $977,609.04 are paid by Progressive separately and do not reduce refunds.
• Liberty Mutual and Safeco: people whose UIM claim was offset could claim up to $25,000, from a pool capped at $2,000,000 and reduced pro rata if claims exceed it. Everyone else gets an automatic pro rata share of the remaining fund based on UM/UIM premiums paid. Class counsel could seek up to $2,332,138.28 in fees from the fund, which lowers the refund pool.
• Travelers: class members elect either 29% of all UIM premiums they paid during the class period, or a readjustment of their UIM claim without the offset. For wrongful death claims, Travelers auto-pays the offset where one was applied.

For most people the premium refunds will be modest, often tens of dollars, because UM/UIM premiums themselves are a small part of an auto bill. The offset and readjustment options can be far larger for people who had a real injury claim. Payments come only after approval is final and any appeal period ends; see what to do if you have not received a settlement check.

New Mexico: the offset and the Crutcher ruling

New Mexico courts have long allowed insurers to reduce UIM benefits by the at-fault driver's liability payment, a rule traced to Schmick v. State Farm (1985). In Crutcher, the federal court asked the New Mexico Supreme Court whether a minimum UIM policy can mislead buyers when the offset means it will almost never pay. On October 4, 2021, the New Mexico Supreme Court concluded that this type of policy is illusory because it may mislead minimum UM/UIM policyholders into believing they will receive underinsured motorist benefits. That ruling drove the Liberty Mutual, Travelers, and similar New Mexico offset settlements.

Pennsylvania: stacking is the default

Under 75 Pa.C.S. Section 1738, when more than one vehicle is insured, the UM/UIM limit applies separately to each vehicle and the limits add together. A named insured may waive stacking, but the statute requires that the insured be given the opportunity to do so. In Gallagher v. GEICO, decided in 2019, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that a household vehicle exclusion violated Section 1738 because it acted as a de facto waiver of stacked coverage the policyholder had paid for. Mr. Gallagher had paid for stacked coverage on a motorcycle policy and a separate car policy; GEICO paid the $50,000 motorcycle UIM limit but denied stacking under the car policy.

These rules vary widely by state, which is why most stacking disputes outside New Mexico are handled as individual claims rather than class actions.

• Progressive: opt-out and objection deadline January 12, 2026; claim and payment election deadline February 26, 2026. Both have passed.
• Liberty Mutual and Safeco: opt-out deadline April 15, 2026; claim deadline April 30, 2026. Both have passed.
• Travelers: opt-out deadline June 29, 2026 (passed); claim deadline September 27, 2026.

If you stayed in a class, you released the claims covered by that settlement even if you did not file, so you generally cannot sue that insurer over the same issue later. That is what it means to be bound by a class settlement; see can you be bound by a class action settlement.

A separate denied or reduced UM/UIM accident claim is a contract dispute governed by your state's statute of limitations, which differs by state and sometimes by policy language. Do not wait to get it reviewed.

Most people never look closely at the UM/UIM lines on their auto policy. The documents that answer the question are usually already in your email or glovebox.

Check your declarations page

The declarations page lists each coverage, its limits, and its premium. Look for uninsured and underinsured motorist bodily injury limits and any wording such as "stacked" or "unstacked." If only one vehicle is listed and the coverage says stacked, that matches the situation challenged in the Progressive case. In the Progressive settlement, a policy counted even if it insured a motorcycle or RV rather than a car, as long as only one vehicle was on the policy.

Look for a signed rejection or waiver

Stacking and minimum coverage disputes often turn on paperwork. In Pennsylvania, Section 1738 lets a named insured waive stacking, and each named insured buying coverage for more than one vehicle must be given the opportunity to do so. Ask your insurer or agent for a copy of any stacking rejection form you signed. If none exists, or it was signed by someone other than the named insured, that is worth showing to an attorney.

Pull old policies if you had an accident claim

If your own UIM claim after a crash was reduced by what the at-fault driver's insurer paid, the insurer's payment letter usually shows the math. In New Mexico, that reduction is the offset the Crutcher and Travelers settlements address. Keep the crash report, the at-fault driver's liability payment, and every letter from your own insurer.

Contact the right administrator

Epiq administers the Progressive settlement and can be reached through NMUIMSettlement.com; the Liberty Mutual and Travelers settlements have their own official websites named earlier on this page. Settlement administrators can confirm whether you are on the class list, but they cannot give legal advice about a separate accident claim.

1. If you had Travelers UIM coverage in New Mexico from 2015 to 2022, file on the official settlement website, AguilarUIMClassSettlement.com, before the September 27, 2026 deadline. We do not file claims for anyone.
2. If you were in the Progressive or Liberty Mutual classes, keep your mailing address current with the settlement administrator (Epiq for Progressive) and watch for your refund.
3. Pull your declarations pages and check whether you paid for stacked coverage and whether you ever signed a stacking waiver.
4. If an injury claim was reduced or denied because of an offset, a household exclusion, or a waiver you do not remember signing, gather the crash report, the at-fault driver's payment, and the denial letter.
5. Do not sign a release on a pending UM/UIM claim until you understand what you are giving up.

Independent attorneys who handle insurance coverage disputes can look at whether your own claim was underpaid. A free case review takes about two minutes. You may also want to read about total loss car payout lawsuits.