Wawanesa Home Insurance Reviews

A tree crashing through the roof of a B.C. couple's house set off a chain of events that left their dream home falling apart, infested with rodents, and the family and its pets living in a trailer parked on the driveway.

Sharon and Paul Gough, from Mission, B.C., are now locked in a battle with their insurance company after a routine claim ballooned into an all-out repair disaster.

They say contractors recommended by Wawanesa Mutual Insurance caused almost a million dollars worth of damage to their home, which they believe it is no longer safe to live in.

Paul Gough Paul Gough says he's had to take time off work to act as a contractor to make his home livable again. (CBC)

For the past eight months, the Goughs have been living in a 300-square-foot trailer with their teenage son, a 120-pound mastiff and two chihuahuas. It's a big adjustment from living in an 8,000-square-foot home with seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms they scrimped and saved for decades to own.

In order to enter part of their home, the Goughs say they have to don hazmat suits and masks.

"It went from a tree that fell on our home to mega-destruction," Sharon Gough told Go Public.

"How can anybody ever anticipate the nightmare that went on in our home?" Read more at cbc.ca

Wawanesa is hands down the worst insurance company I have ever had the displeasure to deal with. I have had them for my home and auto for over 15yrs. I have had to sue them twice now to get them to follow-through on their obligations. I should have learned the first time, i know. First experience was a damaged window from a hail storm. It took them a year (no exaggeration) to send their adjuster back to look at it - then denied the claim. We sued, they settled in mediation. This time around, there isn't enough room to tell the whole story. House fire in my neighbors townhouse spread to my unit, which was just the start to the fun. After 2 months of no communication from my adjuster at all, and being thousands of dollars in debt paying for a hotel, while I waited in limbo, they finally started talking to me, but would take a 1 month or more between contacts. I was in debt $15K before they cut me my first cheque. Then the terrible contractor they hired flooded the entire house after 4 months of waiting for them to do any repairs, by freezing a pipe. Contractor wouldn't do anything until the insurnace company stepped in, so it took them 3 days to finally do anything while the basement basted in water and freezing temperatures. They opened a NEW claim and charged me another deductible. Took them nearly a year to fix all the mess. I finally sign off on what I think is a fully repaired house, to find flooding and seepage in the basement within a month, where I had never had it before. INSANE. So I call, and they tell me its unrelated and it will be a new claim, and probably won't be covered. They send a contractor to look and says the same thing. I hear nothing from them for more than a month and I'm forced to now have my lawyer send them a threatening letter. They finally respond and tell me they are denying the claim. So I get my own contractor in to fix the mess and low and behold, we find the dirty secrets. The insurance companies contractor had taken no permits out. They left all of the original lumber in the wall. They must have known there was an additional water issue, but rather than disclosing it or fixing it, they used electrical tape and taped a piece of poly over a crack in the foundation, i suppose hoping it would solve the problem. Completely disgusting. They continue to deny the claim, and in fact refuse to release a cheque for my missing and damaged contents until I'm willing to sign their proof-of-loss form, that clearly states that I will have no further claim to damages. Suit #2 now filed. I wouldn't wish these clowns on my worst enemy.

One of our house cats turned on a kitchen tap in the middle of the night .originally the policy we got in the mail was about 12 pages . After 3 months of runaround they canceled our insurance and denied the claim .and saying they don't cover damage from domestic animals and to look at page 50 on our policy. This company needs to be investigated. Stay away

This April we installed new kitchen faucets, unfortunately they were too easy to operate and we woke to a flooded 1st floor and basement after our cat hit the handle and it had run all nighr. We called our broker and they confirmed we were covered so we made a claim. Adjusters came with a contractor who said the whole kitchen needed replaced along with the hardwood floor. Adjusters said it would most likely be paid out and we'd hear from them in a week. A month goes by with nothing from Wawanesa, we call and call and finally they arrange to meet and take a statement. Claim I'll get a copy to review, lies. A week later we get a letter saying they deny coverage based on an inclusion in my policy which excludes damages by pets and they cancelled the policy. I read the policy and this inclusion they denied us on wasn't in my policy so I contacted the broker for another copy to confirm, it was exactly the same. Now my lawyer is handling it. They have sent him a 50 page policy they claim is our policy but we never saw this version! We will be taking them to court, this is fraud. They old bait and switch. Avoid Wawanesa like the plague, they are crooks.

Not worth the premium. Do not want to pay anything when the time for claims! Just like to collect the premium.

I have hade two claims with wawanesa one flood two fire the cost now is out of this world ' up 80 per cent. every time you have a claim they wont there money back now there all the same

We pay around fourty five hundred dollars for farm insurance and many people we know dont pay half that. We are now looking for a new insurance provider

i called them last summer 2015 because i have water in the basement and they just jump to conclusion that its coming to the wall without checking, i said the water is on the middle , the wall is not wet put the lady never stop until i said okey, i called someone to fixed it put blue skin changed the walls and patches cracks, now winter time i have lots of water and i called wawanesa again but they only said if in sewage it might be from the three and they forward my concern to adjuster and now the adjuster said you dont have damaged i said my rolled carpet and the most of the part is carpeted, but he said its waste of time going to my house and checked because nothing is damaged. he said i need to call someone to check my sewer, i said your pretty much selling insurance. they are arrogant and un-polite , waste of time talking and paying them . no service you can get from them. they just want to collect moneys period

They cancelled my insurance because of a payment issue that I was unaware of. Four days after I checked that this month's payment had gone, which it had, my bank then NSF'd the payment! As it is my only financial outgoing per month on that account, I had no reason to check further. Today I received a "cancellation of insurance" notice. On the interim, my broker or myself did not receive any notice of a payment problem. Instead they hit my account every couple of days accumulating multiple $25 and $5 NSF charges on my account. Had I received a heads up that the payment had in fact not cleared in the first place, I would have ensured the money was there. Now there is no money left to fix the problem because of the multiple NSF charges. This is a dirty & rude way to conduct business!

I contacted them to submit a claim, the first guy who answered was very polite, he was willing to create the claim for me before I contact my broker. Since I didn’t have the policy # I had to call them back.

When I called again, a lady answered me, she didn’t want to hear me at all! She kept saying: call your broker! I asked for explanation since I don’t know the process but she kept saying that. I told her that the previous guy was going to create the claim for me, then she said: well then, call him back.

I called the reception again and she sent me to another lady, she was so inpatient this time, she created a claim for me but she was interrogation me! And in a voice close to yelling she was repeating her questions and saying, I need an answer…
And when I asked her a question she start blowing air!

So bad customer service!!! Too bad I didn’t take their names. I will do first thing next time.