Belairdirect Auto Insurance Reviews

I've been a customer with Belair (home and auto) for more than 20 years. Never had a home claim. But I've had a few claims on the car. In each case, the other party was at-fault. My PAST experiences were all good but ... Recently, a fellow damaged my car in a parking lot. A church parking lot. He confessed at the rectory. The honourable gentleman decided to put it through insurance (he was also with Belair.)
I got a fool for an adjuster and the others I had to deal with were rude and insulting.
Asked by the insurance rep if my car had damage other than from the accident, I said 'no.' Four year old car, 30,000 km, kept in a private garage, my car was spotless. Customer 'service' rep said dismissively 'yeah, everyone says that.' Has she ever seen my car?
Several days into the process, I was asked if I thought the other guy had been injured! Gee, let me check my medical degree! Furthermore, I wasn't there, I was in the church. Furthermore, he's a Belair client, too. Surely they had his contact info already, why ask me?! Utterly irrational.
Nearly a week later, I was told I should go to the Collision Reporting Centre, which flabbergasted the officer on duty. Hearing the details, he said any other insurance company would not have wasted time on such a thing.
A technician at a repair place (insurance company approved) told me they have a lot of trouble taking care of cases for Belair (and Intact - same company) now that they pad their bottom line by hiring cheap, less qualified adjusters. The adjusters do not listen and, apparently, don't think they need to.
Another insurer informed me that Belair had assigned me some blame for this incident even though Belair's MyProfile page indicates otherwise! Sneaky Belair tells ME one thing while committing deceit and attempting to sabotage me so that I wouldn't change insurers or would have to pay much higher rates. Nice duplicity buddy, but my police report says otherwise. And so does my witness, the Reverend.
And so does my new insurer.
Beware reviews from people who are happy with Belair and have never had a claim. Remember why you have insurance? Consider what happened to me with what must be the simplest of cases.
p.s. I don't pay more with my new insurer (despite Belair's conniving and their trying to raise my rates this year, undoubtedly because I dared to complain to them about the way this claim was handled). Also cancellation fees are a pro-rated percentage of your premium. It cost me $35 (6%) to get rid of Belair. A bargain!

I was moving from Hamilton to Whitby and I called to get a quote as to what my premium would look like after, quote said it would go down 40$/month - great - moved called a week later to change address - got a guy named Trevor L. who actually had the worst phone manners I have ever encountered in my adult life at one point telling me "I have had a hard day" after snapping at me more than once. He tells me my rate is only going down by 4$ with no explanation why - I call back get another agent who fixes what he did and apologized for Trevor's behavior. However next day Trevor himself calls me says he doesn't appreciate me going 'above his head' and put my account back to the premium he set it at take it or leave it….makes no sense.

I was a happy customer for 3 years.
Because of this, I decided to quote tenant insurance with Belair Direct.
Note: I was moving out of my parents house, leaving my car at home for times when I visited and eventually sell the car when it was no longer useful.
Belair Direct processed my quote request for tenant insurance, then called to inform me my car insurance would be increasing by $500 because I was moving to a different neighbourhood. I told them that I had no intention of moving the car, it would actually be driven less, I had not leased a parking spot at my new location and would sign any documentation necessary to avoid the increase. I was told that I had "implied the vehicle was moving" through my quote request, and there was nothing they could do.
Instead of providing them with additional money for an additional service, they tried to force me to pay more for the service I started with.
I ended up paying to cancel my car insurance because I was so frustrated, and I sold my car much earlier than I had expected to.
Now, they continue to email, mail and phone my parents house to discuss "important updates to my car insurance", even though it's been 2 years since I've cancelled.
They're a great company until you have any type of problem. Then, you can't get the same person on the phone no matter what you try, and you have to explain your situation to every new person.

Stay away. Far, far away.

Just received my renewal documents, my annual rate is going up by $200 for no reason. I called and they couldn't even explain why, just said that their rates must have increased. The icing on the cake is that when I called they increased my rate even MORE when I said my usage of the car had increased by a few thousand km (vs what I estimated when I first bought the policy). So now it's a $300 annual increase. And I'm accident, claim free etc. I thought Ontario is supposed to lowering auto insurance rates??? I am shopping around for a new company.

I have never felt so taken advantage of in my life. What I was originally quoted at almost tripled because of a clerical error by my previous insurer – not even my fault. And by the time I found this out it was too late, I was already enrolled and had no choice but to accept their increase. I spent A LOT of time on the phone to try and get the problem fixed and ended up canceling the policy… not surprisingly even the cancelation process was frustrating. I personally cannot in good conscious recommend this provider to anyone after my experience with the company.

I may just be another internet review but my advice is: Avoid at all costs. If you give them a crumb they will take a pound of flesh. I shudder to think what they must be like when you have an actual claim.

We switched to belairdirect in Sep. 2013 because their rates were lower than the competition. We're now in Aug. 2014 and were just notified our premium was going up by over $350/year for bogus reason ("the company increased the premium due to where we live, the kind of car we have; blah, blah,blah").

Needless to say we're shopping around for a new insurance company.

Terrible customer service. I would never recommend this ditch pig company to anyone. Spend the extra $10-20/mth to deal with a real agent and at real insurance company.

After 5 years payment to Belair at the time of Renewal I would expect to see the rate going down because of no accident ,no fine and no claim !
BE Lier increase my car insurance more than 30% !!!!
one customer said :I’d guess, someone has to pay for people who get into accidents on the road, and that someone is You, not Belair.

I wish I could give them a 0 star rating.
Everyone that is so happy with their insurance, just wait till you have a claim. For an accident that wasn't even my fault (someone ran a red light) I had originally thought everything was going to be easy our first insurance adjuster was fantastic everything was moving along. And a few weeks in she quit. (I Wonder why) We were assigned a new adjuster who to say was (is) incompetent is an understatement. Not sending proper documentation, saying he never received paper work when it was sent so many times. It's at the point now that we are faxing the documents daily, the same ones over and over again. Because it's been 10 months. He was caught in lies with our chiropractor and physiotherapist. Saying he never received paper work, when she had called 20 minutes prior and talked to another person who said yes all the paper work has been documented and is in the file, blatantly 20 minutes later he said no it wasn't there. It wasn't until she said well that's funny because i talked to so and so 20 minutes ago and says its in the file on the computer. They also got told the cheque was in the mail. A month later, no cheque still. Never returns calls, it literaly takes weeks and weeks of calling and leaving voicemails, and talking to other representatives to get this guy to do his job. This is just the short jist of the run around Belair has been giving me. I wish I could be this incompetent at my profession and still maintain a job. The only reason I haven't cancelled yet is because i cannot afford the cancellation fee since I've had to pay out of pocket for all treatments from this car accident. This is how they treat a 10 year customer.

Side note i moved across the town ( same town outside the GTA) and my insurance went up 92 dollars a month. For the same insurance policy I still drive to the same place of employment the car is still parked in a private driveway. Another person who lives in the house is with another company and insurance didn't move a penny. Talk about a scam.

November 1st Belair is being cancelled in this house.