Aviva Home Insurance Reviews

Giving this company a 1 star rating (minimum required) is over rating Aviva Insurance. MINUS 5 would be more appropriate for the bad experience we had with this company.

The short story:

We had a roof issue this summer that caused a leak in the house and subsequent damage to our ceiling. After contacting Aviva, their own roofer (biased?) gave a repair cost to the six year old roof of $2,000.00 and blamed the failure of the roof to workmanship by the initial roofer, that said, Aviva denied our claim totally, even the ceiling repair. For the $2,000.00 Aviva’s roofer assured us it was an easy repair. After three attempts to repair this “easy repair”, the roof was still leaking (workmanship?). On the fourth attempt the roofer did an overkill repair which drove the bill to $6,200.00 of which Aviva denied all and of course the repair to the ceiling of $800.00 (we called in an independent contractor for this as Aviva’s contractor wanted over $2,000.00). Now we’re out approximately $7,000.00. After escalating this to Aviva’s CEO, his Assistant Vice President contacted us, but didn’t seem all that anxious to help either, trivializing it all by suggesting to us that it’s ONLY $7,000.00…EXCUSE ME???...if it’s ONLY $7,000.00 why does Aviva refuse to pay any part or all of it?

Needless to say we cancelled our policy and found another company that knows the meaning of customer care.

If you’re still going with this company, may you have better luck.

P.S. While waiting for the roofer to find a time to do the repair, we asked him to put up a temporary tarp. Another $350.00 and the tarp leaked as well (workmanship?).

Apt. flooded by the upstairs tenant, she admitted liability---I have FULL REPLACEMENT, ALL PERILS...they have not honoured that. Also paid for coverage to put me up in a hotel if my residence was not liveable during flood mitigation...Aviva did not secure a hotel/motel...excuse--they do not have a direct billing account service or company credit card for that service; my friend used their credit card. Aviva maintains that abnormal destructive humidity levels are not caused by water, pictures, witnesses and expenses verified by a commissioner of oaths, made no difference...badgering, intimidation tactics - phone call after phone call---this company used to be Pilot, named by Readers Digest as "Insurers from Hell"--Pilot is Aviva....Leopard does not change it's spots

Worst experience of my life was and still is dealing with Aviva. They made so many mistakes, disposed of all my hard contents without my consent and the original adjuster was fired. It's been one and a half years and my claim is still not settled. They did not take pictures of the contents that were removed from the house or at the warehouse. The soft contents were evaluated by a man who is not qualified to assess the damage of textiles. He strictly writes in his reports whatever Aviva tells him to and is extremely biased. The way Aviva conducts itself as a company and the staff employed should be sued and their incompetence dealt with by an entity with the financial power that they do. The little people get screwed, insulted, made to wait. The way they conduct themselves should be considered criminal by the proper channels!!! Extremely disappointed with Aviva and the HELL they have put me through as a single mother of 3. I lost my Job due to the emotional stress and trauma caused by the original adjuster whose main goal was to patronize and instigate conflict with me!

One disaster after another. A flood that clearly happened outside my unit and my insurance company not only does not support me, they make my life a living hell. Take well over 8 weeks to repair flooring that was sitting in my unit 2 weeks after the flood. The approval process is ridiculous. And the claims adjuster I had did not know the meaning of customer service. Worse yet, I put in a complaint to their head office and to the supervisor of the claims adjuster I had. 2 and a half months later I have not heard from either of them. Aviva doesn't even handle their own claims. They contracted me out to someone in Ontario. I live in BC. the 3 hour time difference made it impossible to get any real customer service out of him. He didn't even visit my home to see the damage.

The worst part about this, the flood not only effected my unit, but my neighbour's unit. As I was going through hell to try to get my claim approved, her adjuster approved her claim and her place was repaired and back to normal in 3 weeks. It did not cost her a penny, not even initially. I am out almost $8,000 as my adjuster would only pay 60% up front, then he said he would reimburse me the rest once he received proof of payment. I sent that along many moons ago... still have not been paid anything - who's ever even heard of someone having to pay out of pocket for an insurance claim anyway?

I would never ever in a million years recommend Aviva to anyone. Save yourself the hassle and go elsewhere.

Very disappointing, my case was considered urgent, through Aviva it took two weeks to let me know that there was one clause in the contract stating that I was not qualified for a claim. Meantime, no help for helping me to clean up the water or giving any hints on how to proceed specially from their specialists, when i was two weeks after the claim doesn`t qualify because of a detail. The specialists for floods. wanted to recuperate their machines right away half hour after i hung up with Aviva, so no furniture was compensated for the damage either meanwhile, there were mushrooms growing in my walls. It was smelling very humid in the house, but Aviva doesn`t care about their customers, they want your business and nothing else… I have two houses with them, and two cars also…

My house caught fire in February 2016 and we just moved back in over one year later in March. It is a large house just under 4000sq ft. The majority of the house was completely gutted but key areas were not, including the master bedroom and bath and a couple other areas. The insurance adjustor, Geoff, gave low ball and unfair budgets throughout the process. The insurance company refused to gut the remaining portion of the house and now after only living in the house for a few days we are suffering through flooding damage due to plumbing issues. The insurance adjustor has extremely poor communication with me but I'm sure this is part of his strategy. The cabinet maker Sandy Beach cabinetry installed warped cabinets and in their attempt to rectify the defectives cabinet draws keep reinstalling the same warped drawers. In addition, the values given to our contents are completely inaccurate. For example, the list will correctly identify an item but will assign an extremely low and inaccurate value. These are just some of the issues we've faced and the process is not over yet.

My townhouse got water damage due to a leak in the outer wall, aviva refused to pay just to fix the floor, our condo mgmt company took responsibility for the rest of the damage. I should note, our neighbour had the same issue, he had no problem with his insurance company. It was a struggle even to get someone out to look at the problem (several weeks and many phone calls and emails). Even the contractor and broker are baffled that they refuse to pay. It's been a frustrating experience overall, I feel like there is no recourse to challenge them at all. I wish I had never signed on with them.