Organization

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2012

Organization / Basis of Presentation [Abstract]

Organization

1 - Organization

Donegal Mutual Insurance Company (“Donegal Mutual”) organized us as an insurance holding company on August 26, 1986. Our insurance subsidiaries, Atlantic States Insurance Company (“Atlantic States”), Southern Insurance Company of Virginia (“Southern”), Le Mars Insurance Company (“Le Mars”), the Peninsula Insurance Group (“Peninsula”), which consists of Peninsula Indemnity Company and The Peninsula Insurance Company, Sheboygan Falls Insurance Company (“Sheboygan”) and Michigan Insurance Company (“MICO”), write personal and commercial lines of property and casualty insurance exclusively through a network of independent insurance agents in certain Mid-Atlantic, Midwestern, New England and Southern states. We have three operating segments: our investment function, our personal lines of insurance and our commercial lines of insurance. The personal lines products of our insurance subsidiaries consist primarily of homeowners and private passenger automobile policies. The commercial lines products of our insurance subsidiaries consist primarily of commercial automobile, commercial multi-peril and workers’ compensation policies. We also own 48.2% of the outstanding stock of Donegal Financial Services Corporation (“DFSC”), a grandfathered unitary savings and loan holding company that owns Union Community Bank FSB (“UCB”). Donegal Mutual owns the remaining 51.8% of the outstanding stock of DFSC.

At September 30, 2012, Donegal Mutual held approximately 39% of our outstanding Class A common stock and approximately 76% of our outstanding Class B common stock. This ownership provides Donegal Mutual with approximately two-thirds of the total voting power of our outstanding common stock. Our insurance subsidiaries and Donegal Mutual have interrelated operations. While each company maintains its separate corporate existence, our insurance subsidiaries and Donegal Mutual conduct business together as the Donegal Insurance Group. As such, Donegal Mutual and our insurance subsidiaries share the same business philosophy, the same management, the same employees and the same facilities and offer the same types of insurance products.

Atlantic States, our largest insurance subsidiary, participates in a pooling agreement with Donegal Mutual. Under the pooling agreement, the two companies pool their insurance business, and each company receives an allocated percentage of the pooled business. Atlantic States has an 80% share of the results of the pooled business, and Donegal Mutual has a 20% share of the results of the pooled business.

On February 23, 2009, our board of directors authorized a share repurchase program pursuant to which we may purchase up to 300,000 shares of our Class A common stock at prices prevailing from time to time in the open market subject to the provisions of applicable rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and in privately negotiated transactions. We purchased 92,364 and 115,257 shares of our Class A common stock under this program during the nine months ended September 30, 2012 and 2011, respectively. We have purchased a total of 228,992 shares of our Class A common stock under this program from its inception through September 30, 2012.