CNS - Canadian Northern Shield (RSA) Home Insurance Reviews

Worst experience with an insurer ever. I have paid policies for decades and then claimed on a $2500 bike which I had verbally confirmed: "do I need a rider" and was told 'no - you have $2000 coverage' as in all of my prior years. The bike was stolen and well-documented by the police report and property manager with full receipts, and photos of the sawed-off heavy steel locks. CNS paid out a half and could not have cared less about my documentation or any further dialogue. "Take it or leave it". Apparently, coverage was now $1000 but I wasn't notified and the agent didn't automatically mail the policy to the new address that they were covering. The CNS agent was very difficult to get hold of, wasn't interested at all. The message I got was 'just go away - try to get your money from the broker'. This was my son's main transportation and was deeply important to him. CNS made a devastating loss much worse and it's still dragging on 10 months later. I would avoid CNS at all costs - it wasn't worth the bit of savings - we're still upset about it. I truly feel that they are in the 'payout avoidance business' rather than helping valued customers recover from a loss in an economic win/win over time.

We've been paying premiums for decades but had never made an insurance claim until last year when we had a fire that seriously damaged our home. At that point CNS sent their team of preferred suppliers in to assist us. We found ourselves facing off against brokers, adjusters, contractors and suppliers who directly represent CNS interests. We have no one to represent our interests other than ourselves - but we've got no expertise in dealing with insurance or construction issues. How would we know whether the two reconstruction quotes their adjuster had two of their reconstruction contractors come up with is adequate or appropriate? One of their contractors came in and removed our belongings when we weren't there and didn't provide a receipt for the things taken. Our claims for additional living costs were arbitrarily rejected and we have a lawyer who will be pursuing them on that. More than anything we've found them to be bullies who use delays as a means of pressuring and punishing policy holders who don't agree with them. They've consistently shied away from any kind of dialogue that would explain their position. It's not just CNS - their broker, Sea-first, has been no use to us whatsoever and their adjuster, Lindsey, is one of the most obnoxious and offensive people we've ever met. They've gone out of their way to cause us anguish and uncertainty - you have to wonder how they can stay in business.

We had a fire in our home. Not a complete write off mind you but significant smoke and water damage. The company who came to take everything away and make it better, wrote everything off except the kitchen pots and pans, plates and cups. In their haste they left out pieces of furniture on their lists of write offs and failed to include specific details about what they were writing off. ie. " ziploc bag of maps", or X number of books, X number of DVDs. So there was no record of what we actually lost. Then the insurance company takes this incomeplete and vague list of write offs and sends the list to another company who uses a random write down / depreciation formula to further reduce the insurance companies liability in the replacement costs. The formulas were very random and did not allow for the fact that in Canada a swim suit or pair of shorts might only get worn once or twice a year and sometimes not even. But the formula says the life of that garment is 3 years. Anything over 3 years old has no value, according to this company who specializes in assessing values for the insuarnce company.
So first the write down company has incomplete lists and descriptions from the clean up company and secondly their criteria for a write down is completely random and irrelevant to the average home owner. Yes companies do write down assets and depreciate items for valuation purposes but families wear and use things until they wear out, at which time they become painting or work clothes. They still have use and value. Not so with this insuarnce companies process. They write down the home owners write offs to reduce their liability, leaving the home owner to bear the loss. It has been over 60 days since our fire and all we have seen is write off lists and now this multipage " assessment list" where they want us to tell them how old the items on our write off list is. Do you remember when you bought that striped wool neck scarf that you still wear once in a while when it really blows? Of course not.... we can't remember when we bought all our clothes. The insurance company saves money by using bad information calculated with bad formulas and decision criteria. They call this customer service? I don't think so.

Had a jewellery loss claim that was covered by a rider. Found out 2 things. The company had nicely stated they would adjust the insured value yearly (based on market conditions we assumed) so that we would not need to provide yearly appraisals. Thought this was good as we believed an insurance company would have intimate knowledge of the market fluctuations. Turned out this is not true as they claim they have no idea of the market. They increased the insured value of the item every year and hence the premium, from some $7,000 insured value to over $20,000 over those years. When it was lost, all they would cough up was $2,500. When questioned they stated they were not gemologists and had no idea of market conditions. Next was the fact that they stated if we decided to go ahead with the claim, they would not renew our policy. This was due to a previous claim some 2 years prior for a break in, which after the deductible, cost them roughly $2,000. They would not budge from that position even when I stated we had mitigated the loss because of a monitored alarm system which had the police responding in less than 5 minutes. The attitude was that they could care less. Going ahead with the jewellery claim would have seen us blackballed due to 2 claims in less than 3 years. We had no choice but to withdraw the claim and cover the loss ourselves. Given their attitude with regards to a long and previously loyal customer, we insured with another company. I will also be pulling our commercial policy from CNS's parent RSA. A move that will cost them over $9,000 a year in combined billed premiums. The kicker to the above was that even after the multiple emails with CNS regarding the jewellery claim and premium issue, they still sent us a renewal form further increasing the insured value of the lost item by another 7%.
Appears obvious to me that internal communication is completely lacking and that the bottom line report to head office is all that matters.