Belairdirect Auto Insurance Reviews

Unbelievable. Today I called to tell them that I will no longer be driving my car to work. The customer service person readjusted my pending July renewal to reflect this and gave me the new number. It was higher! I said, "Why is the new rate higher than when I drove to work?" She says that my car is at greater risk sitting in West Hamilton in my driveway, than if I drove 25k to work, and that the conversation has been recorded when I said that I would not be driving to work, so I can't change my mind and say otherwise now. Drive to work -higher rates. Don't drive to work -higher rates. Does this make any sense? I'm not making this up.
I'll be pursuing this with a supervisor tomorrow. I've been a 30 year customer with a less than $200 in total claims over that time. House insurance -up 10% every year for the last 4 years, no claims ever in 30 years. I'll be shopping both policies if I can't hear something that makes more sense than what I heard today..

I have been with Belair Direct for at least 5 years, ever since I have had a car. They are easy enough to get a hold of, especially with the online chat feature. However, I have made the decision to remove my policy with them as of recent due to the lack of customer service. When I began my policy with them I had added the winter tire discount to my policy. However, in 2015 apparently this discount was removed, but then added back in January 2016. Since my policy was pretty much automatically renewed each year, there was no reason for me to share all of the minuscule details with them such as winter tires, nor did they ask. That means I went 16 months without having this available discount applied to my policy when I had originally told them I had the tires. Belairdirect also refuses to refund me all of the missed time. There is no reason why I shouldn't have been asked whether I had winter tires or not every single time I communicated with them and they looked into my policy. This is just another company that doesn't care for its customers.

I had been an accident free driver since gaining my insurance. However I was hit by someone on their phone in a parking lot. I was backing out of a spot, saw someone coming and stopped. As she approached I could see she was on her phone and the front passenger headlight went under my right rear fender. She struck me, admitted she wasnt paying attention at the scene. So I though "its a minor fender bender, she's ok, but I'm going to report it anyways just in case". I come to find out she completely lied on the police report, Belair said they would 'investigate'. Well, their investigation took all of 45 minutes and assigned the fault to me. No explanation, nothing. I had come to a complete stop, to allow her right of way(technically I was entering the 'roadway'), and she just drove straight into me.
My claims person was less than helpful, the sales said my insurance was going to up 250$ a year(which I've spoken to police, and they agree that she struck me). I have told them I will be fighting the decision. I was paying 134$/month total. Now remember the 250$ increase? Somehow their math that equates to 184$/month. Needless to say I am jumping ship ASAP.

If your reading this youve done the right thing and looked up reviews on Bel Air before anything. Let me start off by saying i should of done the same. So i got a quote given by bel air direct (canada $1670 or 144/month)insurance i can finally afford! so i buy a truck. bought it used and private sale so i had to transfer the truck into my name and needed to have it safetied and etested (understandable)but in canada u need 10day temp plates to get it home and around to different shops that can have the safety and e test done. I go to the ministry and they tell me i need insurance to be able to 1. Get real plates and 2. Get the 10 day temp pass. Lady at the ministry said call my insurance company it takes 2 seconds.. 30mins on the phone later apparently bel air doesnt do that. (LoL what!?!) Yea we dont know if other companies do that but we dont do that "we need to see a safety cert from a mechanic before we can provide any policy numbers" and then suggested i have my car towed to from the guys house to a safety shop and then to an e test shop.. well lone behold the truck fails safety and needs a little work.. safety shop isnt a repair shop so towed it off to repair shop. 1500$ later and bunch of non sense later i got my safety and e test done and my truck in my name and keys in hand only thing left was to send in my paperwork and banking info to the insurance company and get that policy number sobi can get my plates! ..so i call them and they said the typical whats ur number ill look up your file and then when i cut her off from asking questions that ive been asked 5 times over to ask her if they have a fax number so i can fax over all nessiciary paperwork. She goes "well hang on a minute we can get u finalized before all that", at this point im happy im at this stage but mindblasted at what she just said. I asked her "finalize what? Everything your asking me was already asked of me and was marked on file and even recorded the phone call for reference" and her reply was simply "Oh well it says here u got a claim?" Long story short apparently the other quote guy forgot to add on an accident to my quote.. but in the phone call had mentioned all about the claim she was saying wasnt added on.. in the end they want $2460a year or 204/month like man im so pissed. Basically because of a mistake on Bel Air Directs end that they are not willing to honor i have to sell my truck.. after Bel Air Direct had me dragging it all over town with a tow truck to try and save a buck on insurance i should of known to go with a better company one that stands behind they employees and their mistakes. And for the people still reading get this! She even had told me exactly what i was going to be paying per month down to the last cent on the new quote but then even had the nerve to say the new quote might not be the final price..dont waste your time people and your money. Just go somewhere you trust these people tryed to rip me off hard.. after i worked so hard to bring them safety certificate it doesnt even mean nothing now like cmon.. worst insurance company there is.. its now wonder they had to run an ad on Omni Tv 35,000x over.. no good word of mouth spreading from me only my experiences with the company.

I'm now well into my second year with this company. I just recently moved and switched over my address. Apparently, my new address is such a high risk area that my premium has gone up $860 per year.. Are you kidding me?! My policy expires in February and there's no way I'll renew. My insurance went from under $2100 a year up to $2900. I was thinking about adding a second vehicle, but I quickly changed my mind when I was quoted almost $5000 per year for two vehicles. Where's the multi-vehicle discount they tout on about so much? (Full coverage on one and just liability on the other)

I was also informed that I don't have accident forgiveness unless I pay extra to add it to my policy now before anything happens. They never bothered to tell me this when I signed up.

In addition, I had a speeding ticket for 15 KM/H over about 3 and a half years ago. I was told that it's still on my record with Belair until my policy renewal? What?! So they can increase my rates through the roof for a change of address, but they can't remove the ticket until renewal? What a scam.

I highly recommend avoiding this company at all costs.

Mistakes after mistakes- First they kept my old car insured instead of my new one, so I was driving an uninsured care- then when is time for me to change cars they advise that they don't do classic cars (20 years old or older) and send me to a broker (Powell) who literally wants to grab your wallet - the price was triple that what I receive from another insurance 20 minutes later- Bell Air is a rip off and have no accountability for their business practice - If you value your car/ house and want a respectable insurance that can do what they supposed to do when you have a claim stay away from Bell Air - find yourself a different one.

Absolute garbage customer service, they will be prompt and aggressive trying to obtain your insurance, but when you are making inquiries and claims... good luck.
The total insurance charged amount might be very cheap, but the cheap cost results in garbage customer service.
I made a claim on June 27th and it's been over a month and it is still not settled. Melissa J.-G. was my claim specialist, but I only got one voicemail and one email from her in one month, I had to make several calls to see what was going on and never received any updates.
I had to make complaints all over their facebook page and twitter to get any action done, I got a call from their complaint department and only then something has happened and apparently now I have a new claim specialist. My car has finally been evaluated and it has taken over a month, I was JUST sideswiped resulting in some big scratches on the car and they have a large estimate and it is literally $200 over the value of my car, so they are considered the car as totaled, what the hell is that?
The scratches can be buffed out and repainted.
The car is old, but very drivable, never had any engine or transmission problems.

Do not get belair direct insurance, you may pay a bit more, but you will 1000 times more better customer service and communication with a competitor.

Former Grey Power client. I was on a monthly payment plan. When I got my new policy documents from Grey Power I called to say I just wanted lump sum because of the new surcharge for monthly. Then Grey Power rolled over to BelAir. Didn't think it would be a big deal but was in for a surprise this month to find BelAir has charged my visa for a month of both home and auto insurance one month my policy is set to renew. I called to get the charges reversed and was told the charges were for my previous year's policy - after 10 minutes of going through my policy info with the BelAir rep that was finally cleared up. Then he suggested the pre-payment could just be charged to my policy renewal. I told him I had no intention of pre-paying anything and had not decided if I would renew with them. I was promised the charges would be reversed. Just back from a week of holidays and still no reversal. Will see what happens with the next phone call but thus far I am not impressed with the way BelAir is doing business.

The worst company I have ever dealt with. Never get insurance here! They tried taking a double payment, when my policy started on a new billing cycle they still took money from my account for the previous month that I did not have insurance for. Try calling and speaking to an agent to change my payment date, and they advised it would be a double payment as it is a month-to-month contract. Call back to cancel as I found better insurance for over 1200.00 cheaper per year, and now it’s a year's contract, even though I spent over 45 minutes the day before with the agent telling me several times it’s a month by month contract. Was advised that I would have to pay 175.00 to cancel, advised I wouldn’t pay that they put me on hold to speak to their manager who refused to waive the fee when I asked to speak with him about his decision I was told oh he doesn’t talk to the consumer. This company is not worried about the consumer, just about the money. Such a lack in customer service and empathy. Advised them to listen to the taped conversation before he decided not to waive the cancellation fee, and was advised that’s not his job? So now have to wait up to 48 hrs to speak to someone else to get the fee waived, which we know will be denied! Worst company when it comes to service and the consumer, they only care about money!!!!