Erie Insurance Group Consumer Reviews

ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA, DELAWARE -- Never will I deal with Erie or encourage anyone else to work for them! Someone hit my car and ran. Me and my children was transported by ambulance to the hospital. Then not even an hour went by they towed my car. After we were discharged the next day I call my insurance company (Erie). The appraiser took 2 days to come out and appraise my car. Mind you every day the towing company charge $50 every day that it sits there.

The appraiser said it's $735 worth of damage including my deductible, and refuse to let me get a rental until I pay the $500 deductible. Now Erie agreed to pay only for the towing not the storage fees because I should of paid to get my car out. What they do is make you pay and reimburse you what they think they should pay out after. Now what person has car accident money on them. I never had an insurance company treat you like you were the person that caused the accident. Once this claim is closed I'm dropping Erie!

WEST VIRGINIA -- I've been with Erie for over 2 years. I've never had an accident. I was headed to a funeral over 300 miles from home when a deer struck my drivers side front fender. The windshield was shattered which left the vehicle undriveable. The vehicle was towed. I contacted Erie and told them what had happened and that I would need a rental to accommodate 6 passengers. Erie told me they would call me back with details of my arrangements.

4 hours later I finally called them back. Apparently the person I talked to never put the claim thru as needing a rental. I had to have family drive a considerable distance to pick us up and take us in for the night because Enterprise rentals were closed. The next morning they told me I was only eligible for a 5 passenger vehicle and that my situation was not their problem. One lady even told me I should've upped my policy!

I had full coverage. My policy stated I was eligible for $75 per person per day for lodging and food since it was an out of state accident. They refused to pay that in order for me to make 2 trips with the smaller vehicle to get my family back home. These people are criminals in my opinion. To leave a family stranded 300 miles from home because they were too incompetent to do their jobs is unacceptable. My vehicle has yet to be repaired. Judging from my experience so far, I have a feeling a lawyer will be involved.

COLUMBUS, OHIO -- I had a window incorrectly installed by Englewood Glass Co in Dayton, OH. The window leaked, ruining my entrance way wood floor. The window company owner and workers admitted fault, stated they would pay the claim. They turned the claim into Erie Ins. who has given us the run around from day one. They refuse to pay the claim stating the glass company told them not to pay the claim.

They scheduled multiple visits with us to pay the claim, even asked us to sign a release form and give it to them before handing us the check. Thankfully we never signed the release form until we were to meet with them. At that point they refused to pay the claim as we would not sign the release form acknowledging payment before receiving the check. IMHO this is unethical. If I am being given a hassle over a $3K claim can you imagine if you had a house fire!?!

ROUND LAKE, ILLINOIS -- I did not renew my policy due to a price jump. I informed Erie Insurance about that in writing ahead of old policy expiration. Now, Erie Insurance is trying to extort money from me for insurance I did not ordered/contracted. Letter to the President/CEO is waste of time and money. They are crooks.

LAVALE, MARYLAND -- Took my Jeep in for an oil change July 14. On the 21st a rod came through my oil pan on my way home from work. Called Oil Works. They came and got my Jeep and took it to their shop to find out it needs a motor replaced so they turned it over to Erie their insurance co and I have been without a vehicle since then. Trying to get a hold of someone is a joke. Been a month without a vehicle and sounds like its gonna be longer.

We switched ALL our insurance coverage to Erie so we could consolidate, auto, home & 2 Landlord policies with one insurer so we could also get an umbrella liability policy. I had been insured with State Farm for 36 years without an accident - just a couple of glass claims for cracked windshields. The Erie policies saved us lots of money over our previous policies.

In May 2011, I was accused of hitting another driver. It didn't happen. My car doesn't have as much as a scratch. I hired my own attorney to defend me against the false claim despite telling Erie that it never happened because the other driver wanted my insurance information. Insurance scams are common & the accused driver was a 23 year old with numerous "accidents" and the car looked like it had been through a riot according to my attorney who sent an investigator to photo the vehicle. I am over 50 years old with a perfect driving record & have NEVER had an accident or ticket.

I disputed the claim. Erie told me not to worry about it - that was what vehicle insurance was for & in the end, they paid out nothing to me or the other driver. Last week, I received a notice of cancellation for my auto policy!!!! I wrote a letter refreshing their memory of the events & told them that they did not pay a dime for this incident, so I was seriously questioning why they were cancelling the policy.

Today I got their response they have determined because of this incident that I am "a higher risk driver than they want to do business with" according to some Administrative Assistant to the President. I have news for them - I have full glass coverage & they will pay for my new windshield that is cracked. I am pulling all our homeowners & will NEVER do business with Erie again!

CHARLOTTE, NC -- Erie is the worst. I am located in North Carolina and have wind and hail damage to my home. I have had four different companies to report to Erie that I have the damage. I even had a roofing engineering company come out and say wind and hail damage. Erie adjuster sent AAA Roof Technologies out and they claim that it is not wind damage but stress and the hail damage is mechanical markings.

I contacted the insurance commissioner office about the report that Erie is doing. I got a reinspection and Erie sent the same AAA technology company and the same guy back out. They even called the roof engineer that I had hired. I had called another roofing company to come out only to find that Erie had tried to be slick by getting my roofing engineer out to try to get him to say different.

I knew Erie had something in their bag of lies so I went on the roof with them. I heard both my roofing engineer and the roofing company tell the adjuster and AAA Roof Technology that I have wind damage yet Erie insurance and AAA tried their best to say that it was stress not wind damage. Finally at the end we all came down and I told the adjuster that I felt what Erie was doing to people was not right and that they needed to be investigated for unfair practices on claims and making false reports to deny the claims.

I even told the adjuster that if it was his roof that he would get it fixed but wants to deny other people. I even told him that Erie wants the money but do not want to pay claims. DO NOT GET ERIE INSURANCE and if you have them DROP them FAST. I am going back to the insurance commissioner office as well as contact a lawyer. Erie is causing me too much undue stress over this.

ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA -- Background: I have been a policyholder of Erie Insurance since I bought my Virginia home in 2004. We left Virginia last year to move to Texas. The house is for sale, but empty (which means we have been carrying two mortgages for a year).

Rain Damage: In May, there were torrential downpours. Apparently, the gutter came loose from the downspout and water came into the basement stairway and entered under the basement door. We had inches of standing water throughout the basement that the realtor found when she was showing the home.

Problem: Erie is refusing the pay the claim calling it "groundwater" and saying that it is an exclusion the same as a flood (but even if we had flood insurance they say this wouldn't be covered). They say that as soon as water touches the ground it becomes groundwater. It was more like "roof water" that would have been diverted to the city sewer system. An ordinary person would consider groundwater some kind of standing water--the house sits on a hill so water is not standing anywhere nearby.

Anyway, they have tied up the claim with their review for 6 weeks so far and are now trying to deny the claim. One supervisor actually claimed that it is "company policy" to deny this type of claim and that several similar policyholders have had their claims denied. (Can you say class action??? Any hungry lawyers out there???)

No reasonable policyholder would read that this kind of damage would not be covered under the policy. This is why insurance companies get a bad name. Apparently the reason their fiscal index rating is so high is because they don't pay claims - they just collect premiums.

Current Status: We are fighting hard and it looks like another executive is going to "review the file." I think this is just terminology for making us wait longer. What they don't know yet is that we have a pending sale if the insurance goes through. If it doesn't I may be taking them to court not only for the damages they should cover, but try for loss of sale as well! BEWARE!

CANTON -- I've been dealing with Ms ** at Erie Insurance for a year and a half, waiting on a check for medical. At this point I'm getting my lawyer involved. The wreck was at fault and they are responsible for paying for the 5k in ER bills from the wreck. I asked for 10k so I could simply seek chiropractic help and am now getting the runaround. I would advise seeking a different insurance company for any of your needs. Progressive helped me get my money for the car, but according to Ohio law they can't help me more with the medical claim. So what do you have to do to get money from Erie Insurance when they owe you money? CALL A LAWYER!!!

ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA -- It has been almost 3 years since the famous east coast Blizzard of 2010 damaged our metal roof. Erie is still in delay/deny mode and has refused to settle our claim. After sending a check for partial payment directly to a contractor instead of sending the payment to us, and then that contractor refusing to do the work and later being arrested for fraud (other cases, not even ours) we had to file a claim with the Insurance Commission, and only after the Insurance Commission ORDERED Erie to send us this amount (as they should have initially) did they send us this PARTIAL payment.

The damage to the roof was more extensive than they will admit despite 3 visits to our home, and now they are telling us that the damage to our house is our own fault for not "mitigating" and protecting our house from further damage, despite the fact that we had to spend $20K out of our own pocket to install a temporary shingle roof in order to keep our entire house from being destroyed.

We had paid premiums to Erie for 16 years for metal roof replacement coverage. Our best estimate to replace the metal roof was $30K. Ins. Comm. ordered them to pay $11K and they think they are done?!?! We've had many other out of pocket expenses due to damage that occurred as a direct result of their delay/deny tactics. WE WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER OFF WITH NO INSURANCE AT ALL, but legally that is not an option. Whatever you do, DON'T PURCHASE INSURANCE FROM ERIE.