Unfair treatment from Intact
by vancustomer on Apr 20, 2014
1 out of 5 stars
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My mother and my in-laws both had the very unfortunate experience of having Intact insurance covering their homes, when they were flooded last summer.
Insurance is supposed to be for peace of mind, in case something goes wrong. Both my mother and my in-laws never missed any payments, and have been paying insurance for decades and decades with no claims. Then they experienced severe flooding this past summer. That's when the horrible problems began.
We all understood that there were probably thousands of homes flooded so everyone was trying to be very sympathetic. Nonetheless, BOTH sets of my relatives are STILL waiting for completion of the repairs (April '14) and the flooding happened 9 months ago (July).
Work didn't even begin until after Christmas. Work crews appear for a day or two and then disappear. The work is shoddy. The products (like the replacement carpeting) is very inferior. The assessments of the damage were unbelievably ridiculous. At my mother's house, I was walking around in water above my knees in her fully finished basement. Walls, doors, washing machine, dryer, gas fireplace insert, wash basin, shelving, the furnace - all was destroyed or damaged. Can you believe that the estimate for all repairs (including supplies) was $5,000. How ridiculous is that?? Then to keep within this absurd budget, corners are being cut left and right. The work crew keeps trying to foist left over materials onto my mom. Most recently, she found out that the replacement knobs on the doors had been allocated an amount of $1 (no this is NOT a typo). I don't have a clue where you get a replacement knob for $1 unless you are getting knobs from a demolition of another house. My mother's original knobs were fancy, relatively new and certainly were at least $30 to $40 to replace (conservatively). With my in-laws, though the bathroom in the basement was destroyed (the actual floor beneath the bathroom actually completely warped) the insurance company refused to repair the bathroom and told my in-laws they must pay extra. My in-laws (far too nice folks) agreed and despite that, the crew didn't let them select their own tiles. They just showed up with some tiles (seriously) and my kindly relatives let them install the times. (You'd better believe they wouldn't have gotten away with that with me.) My mother's crew tried the same thing - showing up with paint in a colour she hadn't chosen.
It is really unbelievable.
Because all of the neighbours are equally fed up, all these folks are just agreeing to anything in sheer desperation to finally wrap this trauma up, and to get their homes back and the crews out of their lives.
In the meantime, Intact Insurance posted a $100 million dollar profit in the last quarter of last year. They sure aren't suffering. They are making that profit on the backs of seniors like my in-laws (who are in their 90's for goodness sake) and my mother who is simultaneously fighting cancer while she tries to get her home back.
I have never seen anything so shameful and you'd better believe I shall never, ever insure with Intact after witnessing what my family has gone through.
Find someone else folks. Intact is really happy to take your money, but when the unthinkable happens, you'll be facing a terrible battle to get a fair settlement out of this insurance company.
I would have given hem a 0.5 star rating, but the Claim Exerience doesn't have a 0 star.
I have been with them 20+ years - never made a claim before. Tenant above my condo left window open, froze water pipes which burst and 1000+ liters of water entered my condo. My large furniture got hit and Intact said they would replace it.
Event though it's not my fault, Intact says that I have to pay $500 deductible because tenant had no insurance / fled the province so Intact can't find them (or so they say) and the owner of the condo above me is an intact customer - they don't sue themselves.
Have been waiting for 2 weeks now on an estimate for replacement cost of one couch, one cloth chair and bed. Gave them brand info and what I paid for them before as I have replacement cost insurance. All I get is a run around so they don't have to pay out. Not one expense has been paid as of yet and I am in a hotel on my dime - with mounting credit card bills coming due soon.
Had made a small claim with Co-Op and Wawanesa insurance 20+ years ago, which were dealt with immediately and quickly. Once this ordeal is over, will never deal with Intact again - regardless of the premiums I have to pay - Intact is cheap - but you get what you pay for and they have ZERO Service when you need them.
Are you a condo unit tenant? Remember that neither your condominium corporations' policy nor your landlord's insurance policy protects you as a tenant (3rd part liability, contents, etc.). If you do not have your own insurance policy, get your condominium insurance quote today.
I was insured with INTACT for 12 years in a home in a high end neighbourhood. During this time we did not have a single claim. We recently decided to put the house up for sale and moved into our new home. Because the house was vacant they decided to cancel the insurance. We confirmed them the water was turned off and the house was being checked on on a weekly basis. Didn't matter to them...
Anyhow enough said. Thank you Intact for 12 years of insurance but next time I am going elsewhere. Not used of being treated like that as a good customer.
Do yourself a favor and don't use Intact. They don't care about you indeed.
If you are insuring your home with Intact, beware that there is the reason why they are the cheapest insurance around. They will be as cheap when they have to pay for your repairs as well. After hail demage on our house they would only replace parts of eavesdrops that have damage on them tying them upwith old ones so colour diference is clearly visible, instead doing all around house. Also for that took them 6 months to do. Save your self a haedaches and aggravation, pay few dollars a month more and have a proper company insure you, I most certanly will after this hard learned lesson. I only give them one star on rating because there is no zero available
I have had two claims with Intact. First was when my car was broken into and all of my music gear was stolen. The cost was substantial with a $3200 guitar, $2200 amplifier, $1000 microphone and a lot more for accessories. My auto insurance (comprehensive) had to take care of the smashed rear window, but minus the deductible, Intact cut a check for the rest, asking only for quotes for replacement. For most, I was able to provide receipts and those values were covered. For my guitar, I showed online prices in Canada from music shops and that was covered as well, all with the amount for sales tax and GST. The adjuster was polite, stayed in contact and the whole process was over with very quickly. The 2nd was a water damage claim. When replacing my carpets, I was installing new carpet rack strips where the old ones were but had to put the nails in the concrete sun-floor about an inch from the holes left by the old ones. On the LAST strip, the nail hit a water line, sending a stream of water up like a fountain. In my condo, the water shut off valve was hard to get to, with my hand too big to reach between the wall stud and another pipe between the opening and the valve. By the time I forced my hand through by dislocating three fingers at the top knuckle, my hall was under inches of water and the two suites below me were just disaster areas. I have done everything from building condos from the foundation up to roofing, flooring/tiling, carpentry, drywall, electrical and owner's side plumbing. What I found when the subflooring was chipped away to repair the water line was that it was left free-floating when the sun floor was poured and was only less than a 1/4 of an inch under the floor. The nails for carpet tack strips are 5/16" long, with just the tip puncturing the line. How the original installers never hit the line is beyond me, but at that exact spot, it crossed the line where the strips are and was raised just enough in that spot to create that flukey situation. I described this scenario because Intact could have been total assholes, looking for negligence to skirt their involvement. Instead, they went to bat for me. They sent crews and an adjuster immediately, said they would cover the costs of food, hotel, pay me for any work I did, cut me a $1000 check for the condo's $10k deductible I had to pay a thousand of, reimbursed me for the ruined carpet and underlay I just installed and compensated me and my son for each hour we had to move things around and get the house back to normal. They even calculated an amount for my inconvenience that covered my $1000 deductible. All funds were paid quickly and they kept my file open until everything was settled just in case there were any further out of pocket costs. The crews and plumber were paid directly as well. So, in both experiences, I have very little to complain about. One minor disagreement on value, but a far cry from getting ripped off by them. Remember, out of millions of consumers, only a few with bad experiences are usually motivated to post their experiences, usually out of spite. If everyone with good experiences posted, the few with complaints would be lost in the shuffle. My previous insurance company was terrible and their lack of value to me led to the switch to Intact, where I have been very pleased by their rates (in comparison of course), customer service and their follow-through during both claims. My second claim adjuster was brand new to the business and offering her a little patience didn't hurt while she consulted her way through the job and in the end, she did fantastically. The first was just pro all the way through.
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In May 2017 a car went through our fence and we tried to go through Autopac which was a nightmare. We were told to go through our home insurance. We had been with Wawanesa Insurance for 15 years never had a claim then we had hail damage and someone came out to check the roof. He said Wawanesa will not cover it. I told him that both neighbors either side had new roofs from their insurance and he said: "well, they probably didn't have Wawanesa because their criteria are high". They did not, they both had Intact Insurance. So I changed immediately. Two years later a car goes through my fence and I contacted my Intact adjuster and he had someone come out and look at the fence, got 3 quotes and gave us the price of the middle quote. They replaced my whole fence 145 feet. They were fast, efficient and professional. I am very surprised at all these negative reviews. But my experience was excellent and I would highly recommend them.
Been with Intact for over 25 years, and in 2012 had hail damage on house, was very dissatisfied with their adjuster and was a fight. Now on top of that have increased deductables on hail and water damage, in checking around seems only company to do this. Have checked with TD, and a couple others, yearly price about the same but for better coverage and lower deductables. Going to change.
On the auto side, fantastic service and coverage, but since are polices are bundled will also be changing.
I had been with ING for years and years and actually had my claim with them. I had a break-in and the adjustor was there within an hour and worked with me to get necessary items quickly. The break-in didn't even leave any shoes or cleaning supplies - they cleaned the place out. A few years later I had a flood from a really quick thaw. All work done quickly and professionally.
Rates went up when they changed to Intact, and I haven't been as happy with the service, but only minor things like trying to get policy information by phone - no claims with them.
However, I do see that all the reviews were very good until 2012, when they dropped like a rocket. What on earth happened? New management?
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I have just started to be covered by Intact. So far they have made reductions on my previous premiums and seem to be able to give the best coverage for the money spent. So far I am satisfied with Intact and the agent who did all the leg work to make the change to this company.
We've been insured with Intact for over 5 years. Homeowner's coverage has included a city home, a vacation home, and a small home-based business. Both homes were covered under identical, comprehensive policies.
In December 2010 we had a burglary at our vacation property and the claim of $3000 was paid out without any hassle. We were then promised that we would not be penalized with higher rates because of this single claim.
However, consider the following table that shows our total premium each year over the past 5:
2010 - $1349
2011 - $1790
2012 - $2162
2013 - $2201
2014 - $2742
You can see that in 5 years the total premium doubled. Two insurance agents told us that Intact had huge claims losses over the Calgary flooding in 2013 and had raised premiums for all customers in Canada as a result. That alone seems unfair; yet it doesn't explain the huge increases, far above the inflation rate, between spring 2010 and spring 2013.
We were prepared to pay the exorbitant premium of $2742 this year because it is very difficult to find companies that would include liability on our home-based business in the regular homeowner's policy. However, the Intact underwriter was obviously intent on getting rid of us because he told our insurance agent that the company would only insure us if we could prove that we were living in our vacation home 2 days out of every week in the year. That was an absolutely ridiculous request so we switched to another insurance company.
The moral of this story: Beware if you are offered homeowner's insurance with Intact. They do a lot of TV advertising and everything sounds rosy. However, we have never been treated so unfairly by an insurance company in 45 years of owing a home.