Canadian Direct Insurance Auto Insurance Reviews

Hi CDI, on Thursday I had a follow up call on my email below. The manager was really glad to advise me that CDI will make a “BIG EXCEPTION” for me and drop my currently increased premium back to 0%?? I thought that this is sort of joke, but she was serious!? When I asked her how is that possible since I just opened the claim, but CDI never paid a penny for my repair since it was all paid by Impark, the reply was that this is your typical CDI policy. Then I asked her why my claim was opened as me being in-fault? The reply was again: that this is your typical CDI policy. Finally, she disclosed that the claims rep who took my claim should have been advising me that if Impark accept the fault, I would be in no-fault. Obviously, the rep wasn’t trained properly or just didn’t care or probably again: that was your typical CDI policy. Because I could see it is much easier for CDI to just put me in fault and increase my policy – more $$ coming your way. So just to summarize: 1. I am with CDI for over than 15 years insuring house and several cars – to me this is a loyal customer 2. I never ever had a claim all those years 3. The first claim I had was my front bumper damaged on impark lot a month ago 4. I sent a full set up pictures showing what cause the damage 5. Your claims rep took all of the info, open the claim but never advised me that I shall contact impark and check if they will accept the fault. 6. Instated she just put me “in fault” regardless the pictures clearly indicating otherwise 7. I decided to check with impark myself and they surely accepted the fault – it was so obvious just looking at the pictures! 8. Impark pay the full repair and my car was fixed. 9. When I emailed the claim rep asking her why she put me in fault she replied quite arrogant and ignorant – see her email below 10. Finally, CDI didn’t pay a penny!! 11. Regardless CDI still increases my premium because CDI opened a claim. And all of your employee are hiding behind the words: that this is your typical CDI policy. Wow, it looks like CDI became worse than the government-owned ICBC. This is so SAD! No surprised your reviews are going drastically low at 2 stars currently but majority of your FORMER clients are giving you ONE star only !! Be sure that my other review is to follow, unfortunately my rating will be 0 (zero) stars And I am aware that CDI have been purchased by Belairdirect, but reading the vast majority of those 1 star reviews – your problems started long time ago. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware before last month of your so poor services and customer treatment. Now I know and will make sure everybody else is aware!

I recently received a notice in the mail that Canadian Direct is merging with Belair Insurance as of 2017 coverages. Doing a bit of research on Belair does NOT give me hope that this will be beneficial to customers. Belair seems to have a very spotty reputation when it comes to rate changes - as in 'increases'.

Canadian Direct was okay for rates until I needed them for a small collision repair. Then they took a back seat to any decision on fault for accident - and allowed ICBC to make the full decision even though ICBC didn't have photos of the damage - just 'he said she said' reports.

I'm seriously looking for an alternative optional coverage company since Belair is coming onto the scene.

I have used this insurance for past 10+ years in Alberta without too big an issue however for the recent two years their services have come down drastically, the agents' poor knowledge on their own rules are appalling. One of my four policies with them was screwed up so badly and they cancelled my policy by mistake and without informing me - we drove without a valid insurance. When I found out and challenged them, they simply stated it was an error, and reinstated my policy on the same day, then charged my credit card. The other times, one agent quoted me the premium and charged my credit card, but merely 20 days later another agent called me and said I needed to pay extra $1050 because they had calculation error. Now Belair Insurance has taken over this company, it is a total mess now during the transition - they could not even tell me what my policies are!

I called their customer services trying to complain, they put me on hold for 30 minutes. I hang up and came here to complain. If they don’t care about their own customers, perhaps it is time for customers to dump them.

I didn't have any problems with Canadian Direct Insurance until I tried to pay my premiums up for the whole year instead of monthly debit, I gave my payment details over the phone and they just never took the payment, so I followed it up and then took the wrong amount and cancelled one of our policies in the mean time. I had wrong information from almost every person I spoke to and the last time I spoke to them one lady said that they are going to start monthly debits again and she transferred me to another lady who said they wouldn't debit my account ?!?! They acknowledged fault the whole way and when I asked if there would be any recompense for all the mistakes or if this is just how they treat their customers they said they would get back to me and never did, SHOCKING customer service! Their cheaper premiums are not worth the hassle!!

The other insurance company said it was my fault, according to their client. An adjuster never looked at my car, my side of the event weren't taken seriously or checked in any way.
The repair shop was given a very limited time and funds to make the repairs (both driver and passenger doors had to be replaced).
Had a monumental struggle to get CDI to pay for a rental even though I had insurance to cover that.
Now I'm stuck because the accident was settled at 50/50, and my rates have nearly doubled - if I go to another insurance co. CDI maintained my rate, but I can't get that anywhere else due to this accident -which occurred because the other driver didn't check rear view mirror or shoulder check.

It is true when they say you get what you pay for. Canadian Direct Insurance cancelled my policy when I applied to add my son to my policy, as I was disabled by a fall off a roof, and had to be driven to physio a couple days a month.
They refused to add my son to my policy because of his driving record (he had made a claim with ICBC and had a speeding ticket) but also felt that they should also cancel my policy because my son has a drivers license and lives in the same household, basically accusing me of allowing him to drive even though he was refused coverage. If I would allow my son to drive without insurance I would not have bothered trying to get coverage. Canadian Direct is cheaper than ICBC but you better not have a claim.

I went with them because they were the cheapest, but not by much. Sometimes, you get what you pay for.

I got auto insurance from them a year ago, and made the unfortunate decision to pay by credit card. Apparently, if you elect to do this they will not renew your policy automatically the next year, even though the credit card is still good. I was unaware of this factoid, but more importantly I was not told this, and I know I wasn't because when I do renegotiate insurance of any kind I keep detailed notes in a word document. To be fair, I did receive an e-mail 2 days before my insurance was due to expire, but I didn't read it carefully assuming that it was the typical friendly notice that it's coming due, and that if I did nothing it would continue...like it has for the past 28 years I've been driving! I ignored it, which was my fault but...they CANCELLED my insurance without telling me! I was eventually informed 2 weeks later via a snail-mail letter that I've been without insurance for the entire time. No phone call, no further e-mail, and if I had been in an accident or even pulled over it would have been at least a 10K fine!

Some of the above is attributable to me in part, though I think it should be illegal to cancel auto insurance without telling a customer, given the legal ramifications in Alberta. However, trying to regain the insurance was a nightmare. I called 7 times, was place on hold repeatedly for unreasonably long periods of time, tried to use their callback feature twice and actually spoke to no less than 4 people, of which only one was helpful (he was awesome). All others passed the buck and stated that it wasn't their department, and couldn't (wouldn't) help. The bottom line is this: customer service is absolutely horrible for the most part. I feel they are understaffed and undertrained. God help you if you actually need some help with something more pressing, like an accident claim. After two days of trying, I gave up and went with a competing insurance provider...no wait time and much, much easier.