Progressive posts $630 million loss for Sept.

Progressive Corp. (NYSE: PGR) has reported a huge net loss for the month of September as the big auto insurer took a pre-tax loss exceeding $1 billion for the writedown of securities in its investment portfolio. Progressive said the loss last month totaled $630.8 million, or 95 cents a share, compared to profit of $103.8 million, or 15 cents a share, in September 2007. The loss last month included pretax net realized losses on securities of nearly $1.04 billion as the company wrote down $1.1 billion in securities determined to have had what Progressive termed “other than temporary” declines in market value. Among the securities the... [read full story]