Donegal Insurance Charges OBSCENE "surcharge" if you're naive enough to think you can USE the insurance you're paying for Marietta, Pennsylvania Nationwide

For many years now, we’ve paid for homeowners’ insurance from Donegal Insurance. We did that because we imagined that we were protecting ourselves from being stuck with high bills in the event of damage. We were WRONG. 

This is a detailed description of how Donegal Insurance is charging me a $698 surcharge for 3 years – that’s $2,094 PLUS the actual premiums -- because I had the stupidity to actually USE my homeowners insurance, receiving a grand total over the years of $1,410. 

Here’s what happened:

• In September 2011, a major storm knocked out our sump pump and rising water fried our hotwater heater. We submitted a homeowner’s claim for which we received (after deductible) $655 paid on 10-21-2011.

• This month, we filed a claim for structural damaged to our garage from an apparent hit and run. After our deductible, we received a check for $755.

Those are the only claims we had made on our Donegal homeowners insurance.

LESS THAN A WEEK LATER, Donegal issued a bill including a $698 surcharge because we had made two claims in under 3 years. Never mind that the total claims were UNDER $1500. Or that we’d never made claims in the past. Or that the total they paid out still amounted to LESS than 1/3 of the premiums we paid during that same 3 year period. Or that there was no fault in either case. My agent tells me they keep the surcharge on for up to 3 years. That means the $755 “coverage” could cost me $2094 in surcharges PLUS the money I wasted on premiums.

PLus thgey drop the imaginary "good customer" discounts so we're facing a rate increase as well as a surcharge -- all for having the audacity to USE the insurance we were paying for. 

What’s worse is that we can’t even dump them because they’ve put us into a claims database and other companies won’t write us a policy.

We would never have filed a claim if we knew they were going to rip us off with nearly $700 annual surcharges for piddly $755 claim.

If this isn’t illegal it SHOULD be.