Progressive to hire 200 by year's end for Springs call center

Ohio-based insurance giant Progressive said Wednesday that it plans to hire nearly 200 customer sales and service representatives by year’s end for its Colorado Springs call center to fill existing openings that had gone unfilled for months.

The company, the nation’s fourth-largest auto insurer, is filling the jobs because its direct policy sales, either through the Web or its call centers, are growing nationwide at five times the rate of policies sold through independent agents. Progressive reported last month that its directly written auto policies in force were up 15 percent from a year earlier to 3.53 million by the end of July.

Leah Knapp, a company spokeswoman, said the local openings include customer service representatives with multiple training classes starting this month and inbound sales representatives with training classes starting Sept. 13 or 27. Both jobs pay $12 to $14 an hour with flexible schedules that include either four- or five-day work weeks, but 1-6 p.m. shifts on Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays are required. The training schedule for both jobs is 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Progressive employs 1,400 at its campus in the Northgate business park on the city’s northern tip, which also includes information technology, printing and mailing operations, as well as one of the company’s two data centers. For more information, and to apply for the jobs, go to jobs.progressive .com, then click “search jobs” and select contact center, Colorado and full-time in the appropriate boxes.