Terrible Customer Service
by BCAA customer on Feb 4, 2016
1 out of 5 stars
Being a member of BCAA for many years, you have built trust in their insurance policies. Sure their home insurance premiums were very competitive 3 years ago as I was told by a competitive insurance broker in person. However, every year when I went to the BCAA office for home insurance renewal, the staff would assessed the policy for savings. Not true, the staff always found discrepancies in previous policies and increased the premiums. My last home insurance premium was just increased by $ 200.00. So if you are happy with current premium, renew the policy online and do not go in for an office renewal.
After being a BCAA home insurance customer for nearly 30 years, our home was destroyed in a fire. ( BCAA contracts out it’s adjusting to a 3rd party in our area.). We had full replacement insurance for our contents. Our experience has been poor, especially in the area of getting reimbursed for our contents. Without rhyme or reason, they will pay for some things, and not for others, even if such things are on our schedule. We have submitted detailed purchase details as requested for items (same “like, kind, and quality” as we were instructed), including receipts - only to have many not paid for with no explanation. We often don’t get replies to inquiries for several weeks, and tried contacting the assigned BCAA “examiner” for assistance when we were being stonewalled by the adjuster. No help what so ever. Home restoration - BCAA has not held the restoration company accountable to the timeline they promised (we were given a choice of 3 different restoration companies and told that we had the “choice“ to select one, but that BCAA would only go with the lowest bidder). The restoration company we chose proposed a timeline that would have us back in our house 6 months after the home was destroyed. We weren’t back in for almost 17 months. The insurance company has no problem holding it over your head (as a claimant) that you must keep your purchases to a “reasonable” minimum (we were even coached to look for replacement contents at a garage sale. Yet they are not willing to hold a restoration company accountable to a timeline, even though it is costing the insurer thousands of $$$ in additional living expenses to keep us in rental housing while out of our home. I wish that I had engaged a lawyer from the beginning, but being naive, I thought that BCAA would be truly there to help us and that the adjuster was on our side. In hindsight, I should have engaged a lawyer's assistance immediately. Would not recommend this company at all.
I have been a BCAA member for 45 years. With all the premiums, house, auto and membership, I think I have already paid for my own claim. During a winter ice storm about a year and a half ago, a large tree fell over our pool maintenance house and into the pool. Due to cold and snow, I had no idea what equipment etc, was damaged and the pool house was flat. They recommended a contractor. I'm 72 now, my husband was dying at the time, so I thought they knew the best. Turns out about 8 months later that it was more than obvious these guys had never dealt with pools before. What a waste of time and money. By the way, no adjuster ever showed up to review the damage. So, by the Spring of this year, I had a new, relatively local contractor who was fabulous! Done and done. The big problem is that neither he nor I could ever reach the adjuster. No calls back etc. This contractor knew exactly what he was doing and did it. There turned out to be an additional 2700. Due to unseen damage, the pool was still looking like a frog pond. After 2 months since completion, he has not been paid the balance and as usual, neither he nor I can reach the claims person. This is just a brief overview as you have no idea of the horror I went through with their recommended contractor while trying to be in the hospital every day for my husband, who eventually passed last September. As I say, I've more than paid my own claim. What do I do now?
I don't normally leave reviews but this company NEEDS to be held accountable for their shady underhanded business. They have ZERO issues being cavalier about your home and your investment and your peace of mind and future. I believe this company is very quickly becoming scam artists. We chose BCAA for our home insurance in 2016. Seemed easy and the price was fair... at first. They kept requesting our signatures on the original paperwork (something we did at least twice) and still claimed they never received, even though we mailed it twice (which is what we were told had to happen as they needed the originals). There was an issue with nonpayment for 1 month, which is fair enough. The only way we were notified was by a registered letter telling us we were going to have our policy cancelled. NO PHONE CALL, NO EMAIL. Fast forward to current date, we phoned to get a copy of our insurance policy and were told there was no policy in place - there were notes on the account but the person who answered the phone did not say anything about it being lapsed, WHICH IT WAS, just wanted to get off the phone ASAP. Phoned back again a week later and got a different person who informed us the policy had lapsed at the beginning of 2018 BECAUSE OF NO SIGNATURES!?!?!?! Again, a supposed registered letter was stated to have been sent. AGAIN, NO PHONE CALL, NO EMAIL followup, just leave you high and dry and do the bare minimum. No home insurance for an entire YEAR due to BCAA. Applied to get reinstated and now we have to jump through hoops. Quoted a yearly price DOUBLE than what we had been paying initially. Told we were declined because according to them it had been cancelled 3 TIMES?!?!?! AT NO POINT WERE WE MADE AWARE OF THIS. Here's the kicker, they only had ONE contact phone number. My partner and I have 2 different phone numbers and they did not even have MY NUMBER ON FILE and I am on the title to the house. I would think this would be baseline information that you NEED in order to provide insurance. This company is not out to provide a service for their customers. They are looking for angles and not taking accountability for the service they need to provide. I hope very soon we demand our government take action on insurance companies like this much like they had to do in Alberta years ago because how we were treated needs to be ILLEGAL.
Even after overpaying for home insurance and in spite of giving advanced notice they charged me an additional $62 for some trumped up reasons. Would not recommend this company to anyone. Overpriced, poor customer service (Jennifer G. offered no support), very little empathy. Stay clear!
I had a sewage backup flood in November - December while away from home for 9 weeks. Christmas weekend December 24 - 25, 2016 I reported the claim. CanStar Restoration arrived and did some damage control but their team missed a significant part of the damage in walls and floors and subfloors. This is being dealt with by BCAA afresh to address the extent of the damage. More on that when I know result but I have spent $1000's to fix the full extent of the damage myself. CLAIMSPRO adjuster Ms A.D. did not give me any information in writing or provide forms, processes, contact information. When I went up the line to her manager, Mr. J.L. I got no help. I was seriously ill so not dealing with the situation effectively. On July 18th, approx., I engaged the assistance of the Vice President of ClaimsPro (found name and number on Google) and by Friday that week, the insurance payout cheque was in my hands. That day I learned via email comment from MS A.D. on July 22, 2017 that there was a BCAA representative assigned to my Claim who would "cut the cheque". Today, July 24, I phoned BCAA for advice on the extensive (missed) damage and was informed that the BCAA rep should have been involved by ClaimsPro, engaging me in the information loop with my (unknown) BCAA claim examiner. Had I known she existed, I'd have met with her and got my questions and concerns dealt with. Instead, several months of serious distress, no communication, nothing in writing, no answers, and serious financial costs associated with waiting several months for a cheque that should have been released in April 2017 latest. With information about what to do about the "missed" sewage damage.
We have had home insurance with BCAA for 8 years with no claims.
1) They increase premiums so much every year I am now pay almost DOUBLE what our policy started at.
2) I am trying to cancel my insurance with BCAA as we are moving out of province. BCAA is demanding (over the phone) an early cancellation fee and will not send us anything in writing. The rep has only advised us we can pay her over the phone or in person at their office. We have repeatedly asked for something in writing and to speak with a Supervisor and have not received a call.
I will never use BCAA again!
Have been with BCCA insurance for over 40 years and had one small claim in 1976 which was very well handled. Now we have a claim for water damage and they are awful. Sloooowwwwww. I wish they would get on with it. Been without a kitchen for 4 months.
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Canadian Veteran permanently disabled with PTSD since 2006, with symptoms that include significant memory and concentration loss. I was late renewing my home insurance in 2010 and again in 2017 which was an oversight due to my medical condition. They sent a registered letter advising me my insurance was cancelled and would not let me make the payment within 30 days of the renewal date to continue with my home insurance plan as it was the second time in 7 years. BCAA is aware of my mental health condition and the reason for missing the renewal date but remained unwilling to let me continue with my insurance coverage or renewal. I did find another company but without the discounts for membership, it is costing me about $300 dollars more a year home insurance.
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My wife and I had our apartment damaged by water and were put into a new home for 7 months. Had a 3rd party insurance company (ClaimsPro) involved. BCAA was awful from the very beginning. No one ever contacted us directly, everything went thru ClaimsPro. Took months to get reimbursed. We would have to put down hundreds, even thousands of our own money and wait months to get it back, no matter how often we reached out to them. The customer service was terrible. Deadlines were never met. No matter how many complaints were made with the adjuster or the manager, nothing improved throughout the process. The claim is coming to an end in a couple weeks and I can't be happier to not have to deal with BCAA again.