Hi Gib,

Im sorry your experiencing trouble with your home insurance company. While you do not have legal recourse, you can call and ask to work this out with them. If possible, I would highly suggest trying to remove the lowest claim from your insurance. As a general rule, it is advised not to file more than one small claim in 3 years and if its less than the policy, just pay out of pocket.

What most people dont realize is the claim cost is not the actual cost the company pays. Alot of overhead costs are associated with small claims (paperwork, time, etc). This makes small claims expensive for insurance companies. Think of your insurance as "Disaster insurance". While I understand this may frusterate you ("Why would I have insurance if I cant even use it"), its nothing personal and almost always based on costs. Risk analysis is at the core of these decisions and unfortunantly small claims make a individual more risky (especially if claims are near to each other). Small claims could mean that the individual will be filling more small claims, which would be costly. When most homeowners dont file small claims, doing so makes you look like the odd-ball, which is risky.

I would encourage you to go to choicetrust and request your free CLUE report (Personal Property). This will give you insight into what the insurance company has regarding your claims. Unfortunantly, since you have two claims, I think you will have a hard time finding another insurance company willing to provide insurance. (http://www.choicetrust.com/servlet/com.kx.cs.servlets.CsServlet?channel=welcome&subchannel=clue).

In general, think of a insurance company as a giant piggy bank. Everyone pays premiums, they all go into the giant pink piggy bank. In times of disaster, the insurance company breaks into that piggy bank and pays out to homeowners who have had a disaster. If you have a few insured consumers filing claims for less than their premiums, the insurance company has to constantly dip into their funds, decreasing their piggy bank and having to pay costs associated with the claim. Also, alot of it depends on your insurance companies. Companies that offer lower premiums have a understanding with their customers, "We wont charge you as much if you dont dip into our funds for every little problem". Hence they offer lower premiums and by doing so, the costs associated with the small claims are eliminated from the premiums to benefit the insured.