SHELTER INSURANCE

This review is for Shelter Insurance but especially my agent J. Todd Byrns. After having Shelter Insurance for maybe 5 years, we had two claims this year. The first claim was for a flooded basement resulting from a sump pump failure in April. The company responded quickly and paid the claim without any trouble.
Over the summer we were having a porch added to our house and our contractor told us our roof had some bad hail damage. Knowing my contractor had a vested interest in me getting a new roof, I called my agent and explained the situation. I told him I have no way of knowing if my roof is bad or not, and asked if they could have someone evaluate it for me. He said they would send someone out and within a week the adjuster came out and met my contractor. He said we definitely had considerable hail damage, but he also said since we had a claim in the spring that the company might drop us. So I called my agent and asked him and he said yes, there's a good chance they will drop you. Had he been doing his job he would have told me that when I first called him. So I said, ok, what if we don't move forward with having the roof replaced? He said it didn't matter because the claim had started as soon as he sent the adjuster out to evaluate it. What??? So whether or not I get a $20k roof from them, it will be treated the same??? Todd told me that he has had good luck with talking Shelter out of dropping his clients in the past, so let him know if I hear from Shelter.
So sure enough, right before Christmas we get a letter from Shelter. I sent Todd an email on 12/19 letting him know. I didn't hear from him so I called him on 12/22. He didn't answer, he absolutely never answers when I call him. So I left a voicemail. He then responded to my email saying he will get ahold of the underwriter but given the holiday it may take "a few days". Understandable. On the 29th I sent him an email to see if he had heard anything. No response. On 12/31 I called him, of course no answer, so I left a voicemail. No response. On 1/2 I sent him a text message. He did respond to that one by explaining to me, in a very condescending manner, that it is customary for people to take time off around the holidays, and that he had already told me it may take a couple of weeks. He went on to say that even if he did get things resolved with the underwriter, it would be best for me to find another insurance company any way. I kindly explained to him that he had told me a few days, not a couple of weeks, and if he had done his job in the first place and explained the process to me, we might not even be in this situation. I'm not really a believer that normal hail damage shortens the life of a roof, as least not by enough to justify replacement of a 10 year old roof. So had I known it was their practice to drop clients with two weather related claims in a year, I would most likely not have pursued the new roof. I did have a $2k deductible so I would have been happy to not spend the $2k on the roof, plus the additional charge I had to pay to have three chimneys reflashed. The contractor charged quite a bit more for that than what Shelter paid.
I have contacted a few other companies since and have received prices. I was paying approximately $3900 per year for my home and cars with Shelter and found that the same coverage, except lower deductibles on the cars, will cost me only $3100 with other companies.