Optimum West Insurance Company Home Insurance Reviews

I am a builder and have dealt with numerous insurance companies for the last 20 years on numerous claims and repairs for their clients and they were amazing to deal with and settled instantly with me to fix their clients damaged property telling me "We want you to do whatever it takes to make our clients happy."

Optimum West Insurance Company was exactly the opposite. I have never dealt with a more unprofessional and insensitive and inexperienced insurance company as Optimum West Insurance. They have absolutely no concern or care for their clients. I have had to fight to get a proper engineer report and proper quotes and write and call them daily for the past 2.5 months to push to get a fair settlement to my property which was severely damaged.

My basement flooded in June of 2020..In the fall of 2019 it rained a lot the ground was saturated then the deep frost hit. My basement was a cinder block foundation and with the expansion of the frozen ground my walls buckled and moved I had the best flood policy they offered, and they said that they would only pay for water damage which is I believe standard to only replace 2 feet from the floor. i priced it out and my cost was about $1,400.00 and my deductible was $1,000.00. Upon further investigation I noticed Black mold behind walls been there since before we purchased the property. so at that point I had no choice but to rip out every single wall in the basement that's when I discovered that the foundation had moved and buckled and that's how the water was getting in . the only fix was to replace the foundation. I got a quote of $134,000.00 to remove and replace with a cement foundation @ my cost so I decided to build a wood foundation I told the broker that this is what I plan to do and do they need pictures of the work being done she said no at that point. So I had to support the house on stilts and dig a perimeter put in drain tile and then remove cinder blocks and rebuild with a wood foundation I had a permit to do so from the local district and was inspected on a daily basis by the building inspector. My broker just called last week to inform me that insurance is due I again asked her if they needed to update the policy as I have a new foundation and redone the basement with upgraded electrical Etc Etc. at that point instantly she told me that Optimum West will not insure me because I have a wood foundation and she has just given me a new quote from another institution of double the cost to $4,000.00 a year Why would they not have told me this when I had told them what I had planned. I had done all the research and found that if done correctly a PWF Permanent Wood Foundation is by far better than cement and definitely cinderblock foundations . Optimum West did not cover any damages, Optimum West did not do anything to help, Optimum West did not inform me (after I disclosed my intentions) that if I put in a wood foundation that they would not insure me,.. They took my money promised me that I had a great policy and basically telling me now to get lost.

Absolute worst company to deal with. Had a flood in the main floor bathroom approx 2 years ago. They came and "fixed" the damage but did NOT remove the flooring at all. The flood went down into my basement and was quite substantial. How can you possibly not think to even check the subflooring for water damage??? Well, guess what, 2 years later I discovered black mold. Not just a little bit of black mold, the entire subflooring. Now they refuse to come back and do anything about the issue because there is a 2-year window apparently. Meanwhile, my son and I are just in here breathing black mold. I'm doing the repairs myself now because I can't afford anyone else to do it. I'm sure the lawsuit will be pretty substantial when we end up getting sick from the mold though. Don't choose this insurance company unless you want to deal with a headache after headache and them trying to save a buck through every possible technicality they can come up with.

I will never go here ever again. They have taken out so much money in one month, then took out money without even telling me! Then told me it was my fault! I don't have money - they never told me about it. Will never go ever again!

Optimum is a company that offers cheaper premiums. Their contracts are ambiguous, save your time and go to another provider. Will never deal with them again! We were robbed and they made us feel like the criminals.

I have home insurance with them. I cancelled, they were still taking out money from my account... when I notified them I put stop payment on it, they changed the amount and still took out the monthly payment... after many phone calls ignored, I had to file a legal document against them... Stay clear, they will definitely rip you off. Bad company...

A friend of mine had an awful experience with this insurance company. He made a claim after his neighbour's vehicle accidentally hit his house, damaged the siding and also created cracks in the interior walls. The neighbour's insurance is covering 50% of the claim but insurer is refusing to cover the other 50%. My friend is very worried for the deeper damage to the house structure. He is still paying off the mortgage for the house, and has suffered severe anxiety and health complication due to the stress of dealing with the insurance, which is, in turn, putting his income at risk. Beware of this company and their extremely unprofessional and subpar service before it damages your health too.

After waiting 6 months to get my floors replaced due to a small water leak under our fridge, we were responded to by our Claims Adjuster like we were doing something illegal! He spoke to me like I was trying to get away with something, my stress levels were through the roof. We had to be out of house but had nowhere in this small city to go to due to summer over-booking at hotels etc. So we stayed in our trailer for 6 weeks while the work was being done. He never returned my calls or emails and I had to contact our broker to get ahold of him for me. When he did call back, he was condescending and rude. He was pushy and drove me to settle when I didn't agree with the amount they owed us for out-of-home living expenses, just so I could put closure to the situation. And after a month I still have not received the reimbursement cheque and he doesn't seem capable of letting me know when it will be coming! WOW!

My fence was broken down by neighbouring construction, and the granite floor shows crack lines. I submitted a claim to Optimum. It has not intention to cover anything and indeed offer zero dollar coverage despite the fact that Optimum acknowledged that fact that the fence and the granite floor were damaged by this neighbour's construction. Its reply states that it will not cover any damages whatsoever ..... caused by external and natural causes, except damage to the building glasses. Now I am very worried for if my houses get burnt and damaged, it will just consider cover the building glasses, which again is very much subject to their definition of "building glasses" and the the mercy of of the company Optimum. I rated it the pooerest home insurance and unethical. Do not buy from them.