Belairdirect Auto Insurance Reviews

We have been a Belair client for years and have never been in an accident. Unfortunately, about 6 weeks ago, we got into our first accident and have had the displeasure of having to go through the Belair claims process. The initial intake process was smooth and relatively painless and the customer service was friendly. That is when things took a terrible turn. After a week and a half, it was determined that the vehicle was a “total loss” meaning it was being written-off and it was determined (wrongfully) by our adjuster that we were “at-fault”, despite the police report stating the opposite (there was an officer on-scene who happened to witness the accident). This is when the nightmare began. First, they rushed to send us an email settlement offer (which we did not receive as it ended up in the junk folder) and terminated our rental vehicle coverage on the same day the settlement was “presented” without notifying us. We learned that the rental car coverage had been terminated 3 days afterwards, only because we called to follow-up on the status of our claim. It was on this call that we were advised that a settlement offer had been made, and had to search through our junk mail to find it. After reviewing the offer it took three emails and three phone calls to our adjuster to FINALLY get a call back on the issue of ‘fault’. Both the police that attended on the scene and at the collision reporting centre agreed that it was the other driver’s fault. However, Belair, when prompted for an explanation, simply said the other driver’s statement was the reason for their determination. Rather than choosing to follow the police report and represent our best interests as their client, they decided to take the other insurance company’s position. We have escalated this to a ‘manager’ and were supposed to get a call back in 24 to 48 hours. We are going on three days now and have yet to receive a call back on this point. With respect to the settlement, the offer was woefully below ‘fair market value’. We have been back and forth over twenty emails now, providing them with comparables for sale in addition to values calculated through both Kelley Blue Book and Canadian Black Book's total loss evaluation tool and have only managed to get them to go from about $2,600 to $3,600 (all comparables are in the $4800-5800 range). We are only asking for $4,600, but they are deciding to dig in their heels over less than $1,000. Finally, I asked them to provide their valuation methodology and comparables. They provided me with a list of 5 "comparables" all of which have between 55,000-65,000 kms more than my vehicle (not to mention one of the vehicles has a manual transmission where ours was an automatic). The moral of this story is that if you are looking for an insurance company that, in the rare instance of an accident which is an understandably very stressful time, will support you and help alleviate some of the stress, do NOT consider Belair as an option. They will add ten times more stress than the initial incident itself and drag out the process and do whatever it takes to pay out as little as possible, hoping that you just give up and accept their low-ball offer out of frustration. Save yourself the stress and aggravation and run as far away from this company as possible. The online reviews do not lie. You are better off paying higher premiums and actually having an insurance company that looks after you and offers superior customer service and a proper payout in the unlikely event of an accident.

Belair representatives are not fair, honest, friendly nor did they solve my claim in a timely manner. I gave all info needed within 2 days of filing my claim. It took them over 3 months to send me a letter stating I was not at fault in the accident. I then obtained insurance with different company and the file said the status of claim was still pending. I was not receiving info in timely fashion, I was getting continuous incorrect information sent to me (date of claim etc), continuous misspelling when communicating which made it very hard to get the correct spelling of thier chosen appraisers name (biased appraiser). Reps ignored my questions about my claims and complaints. The same rep that called me about information I had already sent to her days prior that she somehow couldn't find but was most definitely sent. Toddlers are better at communication then this woman. I found a complaint service called ombudsman online and went through them to solve the rest of my claim. After i hired an independent appraiser and accepted a settlement, a rep from toronto office lied to me saying she recieved one document but not the others(ownership and key). She said that because she made a mistake(forgot to say sign back of ownership) i sent everything together in one envelope 45 min prior to the call so i knew she was lying. I cancelled policy due to mistreatment.

The WORST! If I could switch out of my car insurance policy right now I would.

I was charged an $35 for being short 0.50 cents for my car insurance which I had never missed a payment (perfect record). transferred from person to person just to hear that the fee could not be waived. I was then given false recollection dates which they charged another $35 and $25. I happen to missed the recollection date because I was advised false dates provided by a belair direct rep. They did an investigation basically saying nothing of the sort was said. SO i basically missed my recollection date on purpose because I wanted to pay an extra $75. When asked to provide said transcript they could not produce it. They basically threatened me to pay the $75 stating if i don't pay I would it would go on record. They basically stated that I lied about the whole conversation. I'll never do business with them again or recommend them to any enemy. They do not care about their customers they might as well showed me the door.
NO CUSTOMER SERVICE FROM THIS COMPANY. no accommodations from them to even waive the fee which is missed only 50 cents.

I have had so many poor experiences over the years with this insurance Bellair/Intact/Canadian Direct, I could write 20 pages about how they mistreat customers. I will try to list a couple of the most important and keep short.

Claims: If you are at fault, they will fight you to the death before they payout anything of what you are due. I had to take them to court to get them to pay a standard claim. Despite them hiring a lawyer, flying out their Claims mgr. to testify in court, the judge gave me a full judgement, plus ALL my legal costs and I have no legal background whatsoever. Please believe me, you don't want the stress of fighting for what you are due with a poor insurance company. I don't care how cheap your policy is, ITS JUST NOT WORTH IT.

Trust: Automatic monthly debit. Just like a shady gym membership company, do not give them automatic debit access to your money. They will take whatever they deem they are entitled to and cite that your insurance policy states that they can and without notice. Which it does and they take full advantage of. Good luck trying to get a fair remedy when they already have your money.

Obnoxious, bullying and Rude staff. The way they resolve complaints is to be threatening and unreasonable.

Bottom line, there are many insurance companies available and I don't think any have a stellar reputation. But this one is the worst. Save yourself the headache and being ripped off. I am now 8 years claims free and counted down everyone of those days. to the day that I could be free of them and take my business elsewhere.

After being unable to provide both my roommate and I with tenant insurance (for the sole reason that we were roommates), I was forced to take my business to another company that could package my home and auto insurance together.
I was charged 200 dollars as a cancellation fee for administrative costs. I'm assuming this is to mitigate any money I might save by moving to another insurance company? When I asked if I could speak with someone who could explain the charge in depth, the operator informed me that no exceptions would be made and the fee was to be paid or I would be put into collections.
A really overall unpleasant experience with a company that I not only felt I could trust, but in whose hands I had been placing my livelihood in the case of an accident. Yuck.

Canceled after 5 days when we realized the coverage was half of what we had with the other company. They charged 200 cancellation fee didn’t care rude and patronizing representatives we will never deal or recommend this horrible company!

Was a loyal Belair customer for 10 years. When I split up with my spouse I called them to remove him from my insurance policy and a month later they informed me that my upcoming renewal would actually be more money than when we had two cars and 2 drivers. They also informed me that my personal 10-star rating would be dropped to a four-star to "accommodate the change". This made no sense so, I spoke to two different representatives who could not get any logical explanation of what they were talking about and ended up just cancelling going elsewhere and saving over half. I don't recommend this company! They are unethical and they will jack your rates with absolutely no explanation or reason. I also cancelled well within my policy guidelines and they are trying to take a cancellation fee from me.

I was tired of Belair's constantly rising rates, so I started shopping around. I found insurance with a well-known company, that was almost $600 a year less expensive as well as FULL COVERAGE and 1/2 the rate for deductible as Belair. Before jumping, I called Belair to confirm how much the cancellation fees are going to be. I was told a certain price if I did so before a specific date in Oct. If I waited until after that date, the rate would be almost 3 TIMES AS MUCH! So I cancelled immediately and signed up for the other company right away. I discovered that Belair still took out the fee for Oct/Nov! I called them and had to speak to 2 different people. Both people insisted that the cancellation fee was now the price, 3 times as much as I was quoted. Not only did they ILLEGALLY take out more money than agreed, but STILL EXPECT more! Supposedly a manager will call tomorrow, but I've dealt with the same companies before, so I know how that will go. I am investigating the steps I need to do to lodge an official complaint with IBC, Insurance Bureau of Canada as well as FSCO, Financial Services Commission of Ontario. I'm also going to investigate just how many complaints are lodged about Belair. While they are ripping me off, it will be the last and I'm so glad to get away from this corrupt company!!!

First, they wanted to update our claims history (there were none) and our points (again none), then because we had a windshield claim, they downgraded our glass coverage. We had ONE glass claim and they downgraded our coverage because "there have been a lot of claims in your postal code". What tripe. Bye bye Belair, I hope you go broke!

It's funny how they "renew" your insurance for another year, when you clearly told them to cancel it before it expires. I called many times to make sure it's cancelled. They keep insisting and asking why am I cancelling it. 5th times that I called, Why did I receive a new insurance card and it looks like it's been renewed, so then I asked, why is this? He said he does not have any access to the account, try calling again tomorrow. Called again for the 6th time, finally a nicer person picked up and called me back the next day to fix the issue (hopefully). Still waiting for them to give me my money back (deposit) and the answer and a confirmation that my insurance has been cancelled. Overall, the answer was "THEY MADE A MISTAKE" of cancelling my insurance, they renewed it instead. This has been almost a month, until now.