Intact Insurance Home Insurance Reviews

Intact Insurance

Let down and disappointed, are the two words I would use to best describe my interactions and experience with Intact Insurance and particularly my adjuster John Beaver.

I am a new business owner in the Okanagan. Have a plan to provide a chain of Air BNB accommodations, carefully selected and thoughtfully decorated. I found a beautiful home on the North Westside of Okanagan Lake, in a small lakeside community named Valley of The Sun . Purchased in January of 2021, I spent the entire spring and a great deal of capital, renovating, landscaping, furnishing and decorating the entire homes two upper levels in order to have a great first season in the Air BnB Rentals. I hired a professional host to design, stage and host the property for the maximum guest experience. By doing all of the above I was fully booked up for most of June, July and August!
Being very concerned about the risk of a wildfire and also to have complete liability coverage for my Rentals and Guests. I enquired and upgraded my plan for Air BnB added liability coverage and loss of use and loss of fair rental income coverage for an additional charge. Believing I had covered all ends, I relaxed and got ready for the Season!
Then the White Rock Lake Fire began burning out of control. Smoke was the first reason for cancellations. Poor Air Quality drove some Guests to cancel. To the tune of almost $11, 000.00 dollars of lost income. I later enquired however the Insurance would not cover any of the smoke cancellations due to me not losing the use of my home. This was understood and I made no attempt to argue.
Aug 6th, 2021 the fire raged less than half a kilometre from my door and had now burnt over 80 000 hectares. I have filmed a video from my doorstep of an inferno coming over the hill which destroyed 85 homes in the surrounding area. Police and Fire trucks barreled through Valley of the Son and Emergency Evacuated everyone at 10 pm that night. The fire downed hydro poles, trees and cut out infrastructure on both roads leading to the only entrance to our community. Water and Hydro were disconnected to our community. Civil Authority deemed the damage and threat too severe to allow anyone to return to their homes for an entire month.
After one month of losing access and use, wondering if my home/business would survive, I was full of anxiety with the situation obviously and contacted my insurance to see what I can do to recoup. This led to me having my first interactions with John my adjuster who seemed thoughtful and empathetic.
Near the beginning of August, I informed him of being forbidden from returning with the Mass Evacuation Order and we discussed my coverage. He worked with me and had me submit all of my cancellations for August and my accommodations needed, agreeing that I was covered for Loss of Use and Fair Rental. All seemed well until John became very difficult to reach. For weeks I attempted to contact John numerous times via email. All concerning the situation I thought was finalized based on his initial dealings. Also, to have a $4500 dollar bill covered that I paid out of pocket to have accommodations while evacuated.
Not once was there an issue with this claim. He was not asking for any pictures of the damage of the fire. The damage was all over the news and in extremely close proximity to my residence, hence the reason for the Mass Evacuation of my area. However, after almost a month of unreturned emails, calls and voice messages. I had to contact the broker agency at Johnston Meyers to get Mr. Beaver to respond. My broker had to call Intact to have him respond. When he finally did respond he said that an email transfer for the bill of my stay of $4500 would finally be arranged. He then said that the cancellations totalling $17,800.00 for August were "in Accounting ", and I should have a cheque sent out later that week.
Add now a couple more weeks of shady treatment and vague reasons for the delay all ended on a phone call. I presume so no written evidence. John now saying after 3 months of an open claim with no signs of being denied. Is now being denied. With absolutely no grounds to deny based on their own Policy. His excuse my neighbors' house was not on fire! As if that matters with my Loss of Use under Mass Evacuation. After countless reviews, I and counsel have decided this was at best a reach to see if I would accept without any research their claim for denial. Well, I have done my research and expressed my concern to John and Intact.
I have been through enough this year and this was the final blow crushing my Air BnB expansion dream. I have now decided to sell my home and business and move on. I can retain a lawyer and sue for damages and possibly re coupe the retainer fee and the loss of income plus some extra damages. I do not enjoy confrontation and have been courteous and careful about all of my dealings to avoid them at all costs if preventable.
John Beaver and Intact will never have my business again. I do plan on purchasing new properties eventually and will do everything I can to make my dream come true. Intact will never receive one red cent or a referral from me for the remainder of my insurable life. By doing so I have also calculated they will miss out on approximately $150,000.00 in insurable property in my Lifetime not including whomever I deter from repeating the mistake I have by choosing their Services.
I hope that this forms as a caution for anyone attempting to receive coverage from Intact Insurance. Think elsewhere. Your claims will be denied so that the adjusters can earn a greater holiday bonus. I am not repeating this mistake ever again. I only work with like-minded individuals with morales, compassion and empathy.

Shaddi

I had Intact insurance on my cottage on Lake Huron for decades without ever having a claim. I had coverage that included wind, rain, hail, storm and an additional overland water policy. My cottage was damaged in a storm in November of 2020. I was denied any compensation because according to Intact the waves (that were caused by the wind) caused the water to wash up on shore during that storm (past the 100 year high water mark) and eroded the ground and erosion is not covered in my policy. The irony is they raised my rates for 2021 (the year insurance companies were raking in billions) which will now cost me almost $500 more a year!

I am headed to my broker's office shortly. Just got our home insurance renewal. They want $3614.00 per year for a home that is worth only $350,000.00.
We have never had a claim with them, or anyone else for over 30 years.
We have bundled coverage with them, (they have our car insurance), which supposedly will make the package cheaper. Our car insurance is another 1500 bucks per year for 3 cars, 2 drivers with totally clean records.
We have had our insurance with this broker since they were Robinson Agencies, many years ago, they are now Western Financial Group.
We have never had any water or sewer backup in our home, and have owned it as our primary residence for 18 years at this location.
So much for customer loyalty on their behalf. I would not recommend Intact insurance for anyone at this point in time. I am skeptical as to whether they will reduce our costs to comparable companies, so I am definitely shopping for another insurance company. I have heard in the past that it is prudent to change insurance companies every few years, as they become complacent with established customers and your rates just keep going up.
I am going to ask them when I go in this morning, to give me a quote as though I am a brand new customer.
My brother in law in Calgary has a 2 year old house that is worth a lot more than mine pays 1900 per year for his home insurance. Thanks for reading, and I hope it helps someone.

I had trees come down on my cottage property.....Intact Insurance did everything possible to give me the least amount of $ and made a promise of not charging me the $1000. deductable because I have never had a claim in 30 years. Then refused. Worst experience ever. I quickly changed companies and saved $300.00.

April 3 2017 we had a water leak. Intact had a contractor at my house the day after to look at damage. Day 3 we had emergency work done. TWO months later and we have had no resolution what so ever. Not one person is in communication with the other. The contractor says one thing the insurance company says the exact opposite. We are still stuck with this insurance company. Customer service has been awful and are not helpful at all. This company passes the buck from one to another. I feel this will be an all summer fight for what we pay for. Avoid at all costs. Go elsewhere for insurance it is not worth the hassle and stress this company puts its paying customers through. They make no extra effort into helping.

Intact would be a good investment to make money as they fail to pay out coverages. Had a claim once and it took one year to get payment. After threatening legal action and talking with management. Hire contractors to review claims that know nothing about policy.

Worst insurance I have ever dealt with. We had multiple rocks come completely through our roof of the house and garage. Took 6 months before they repaired the roof. The garage has been leaking since December and no word on when or if they are going to fix it. We have written email after email and no response. Then when we said we were getting our lawyer they were here the next day. Insurance to me is there so that if anything happens you have peace of mind. Not in this case. If you can avoid going with intact I recommend that you do.

Almost 2 years for me for a fixing up that should have taken 1 month at the most! My mom dealing with them indirectly and waiting on a check for a month with people waiting to start work she will lose her contractor because of it! Lies after lies! Horrible!

After water got into the basement of our rental intact gave us a small sum of money which cleaned up the basement with no replacements. Installed two pumps, did new electrical and kept heat of the floor just left the concrete basement. Now the issue is they increased the insurance to $3500 four years ago we paid $1437 I find as seniors we live in our cottage and rent out our property in town bought for an investment and tenants destroyed not cover we are out thousands of dollars had to go get a loan to cover the rebuild. Intact is pretty much-holding clients hostage you can't go elsewhere and this gouging is unacceptable. Given many have insurance and rebuilding cost millions such a small amount comes back to them in a couple of years. Worse experience ever...

My home was damaged in a hail storm in 2020, Intact sent out an adjuster and they have been trying to settle my claim for 1,800 dollars (ridiculous). I was finally able to get an independent contractor out for a quote that did want me to sign a contract before giving me the quote. Intact now comes back with an almost 17,000 cash settlement… Which is still not right as many things have been denied from my claim but my 2 years deadline is fast approaching. Interesting how I was being pressured to settle at such a low amount initially.