Desjardins Insurance Home Insurance Reviews

Called to get a quote and they couldn't complete it via 1 call. Said they would call back and didn't. Sat on hold again to be told same thing. Gave up, went to a better company

Hello everyone. I'm not used to posting this type of post but I have no choice and I don't want any other person to be deceived and go through the same unfortunate events that my family went through with @DesjardinsInsurance.

On February 10, 2023, we had a fire in our home, which we were luckily able to put out, although the damage was great due to the fire being in the kitchen and the smoke affected the entire first and second floor, as well as the entire ventilation system throughout the home.

We took the first step and called Desjardins and reported the incident immediately. Once the report was written up, the officer who would be in charge of my process was assigned to me.

The next day the emergency cleaning team that was put in charge showed up and removed everything that was affected by the fire and smoke. So far everything seemed to be going ok.

After the cleanup crew came by, there was almost no communication as my "affected party" called the office of the assigned officer and I was given the unpleasant news that he was on vacation and I had no choice but to wait for him to return (a whole week went by without an answer and without any person working on the deep cleaning stage of our home.)

After the officer returned from his vacation, he showed up at my home with another representative of the company who presented the budget and how the work will be carried out. After several attempts and persistence to get a hold of someone, after a week they finally sent me the budget and this is where the problems and the nightmares begin, which I will list and summarize for you so as not to make this too wordy:

1. The person they assigned and sent to prepare the budget does not have the slightest idea of the extremity of damage that was caused and all the things that must be done to repair it.
2. The date they gave me to start the repair was May 1st (which was 3 months away). And due to the safety of my family who was still living in the home, I decided I couldn't wait 3 months and found my own contractor who was willing to do the work much sooner so my family can resume our lives in a clean home.
3. Every time I spoke with the Desjardins representative, I explained to him the severe respiratory problems that one of my daughters and wife have, to which he completely ignored and refused to take into account the safety and well-being of my family.
4. Once they finally gave me the budget (and this is where I want everyone to pay close attention) because it is where they end up with us, the prices they used to come up with the budget are contractor-only prices because they consult with the contractors that work for them. For example (one of the many pricing issues) they quoted painting at $0.74 /sqft and it is well known to anyone that the average price of interior paint in Toronto and Barrie is between $3 and $4.50/sqft. They refused to budge and offer a fair amount and they maintained their position until the very end and we were not even given the opportunity to negotiate or revise this.

It’s very evident that the personnel who work for @Desjardins Insurance in the Claim Services department do not possess the proper knowledge or common sense to diligently and fairly perform their duties, and unfortunately the same goes for the contractors who work directly for them.

Further to exemplify Desjardins’ inefficiency and ineffectiveness, after doing some research and investigating I came to find out that the repair of the kitchen (including cabinets, replacement of damaged equipment and painting) had an approximate cost of $14,000, however, Desjardins paid contractor roughly $13,000 for cleaning up my home for 7 days of work which was not even done correctly.

I escalated this situation to the highest authority of Desjardins, hoping for a positive and helpful response during this very stressful and tragic time.
Nevertheless, the response that I received was that their offer was final without the opportunity for professional analysis of repair costs or even having called me to discuss my reasoning and points.

In short, I highly recommend that you think twice before signing with Desjardins insurance, in my case I would never trust the safety of my home and family under Desjardins and I would never recommend such a company to any of my family or friends. This has been an absolute nightmare that simply doesn’t seem to end and unfortunately, my family and my home are the ones who ultimately suffer.

I do however want to thank the brokers who served me as a client and guided me through this difficult process and assisted as much as they possibly could have.

My partner had his mountain bike stolen along with a child chariot carrier back in June '22 and by August we were able to claim the loss if the police were not able to locate it. Anyways, it has been weeks now and no insurance agent has followed up with my partner in regards to the claim, not following up on calls and left messages and my partner even went down to the location to speak to an advisor, rang the bell for someone to answer the door and no one in the building bothered to attend to him. Very unprofessional and may be looking into transferring insurance companies.

Trying to settle hail claim. The roof was replaced with minor issues. Took a while for the adjuster to approve the quote claiming doubling up of charges. Was frustrating, but got resolved. Our current siding has been discontinued, and we are fighting to get Desjardins to replace the siding on the entire house. We have significant damage on one side and very minor damage on two sides. They feel that the wording, “direct damage only” in the fine print protects them from having to replace all the siding. According to the adjuster, my options are to pay out of pocket to replace the siding on the undamaged areas or have a house with mismatched siding!! Unbelievable!! I’m still waiting to hear from the management team to see if this can be resolved appropriately. First time I have ever heard of an insurance company taking this position! Really wish I had chosen differently! Two close friends in the area have their homes back to the condition it was in prior to the hail damage. Both had to get a full siding replacement because the colour was discontinued. Both had insurance companies that took care of it for them hassle-free.

I have a claim and Desjardins insurance handled it terribly! I had absolutely no contact with my claims advisor and when I requested my claim be assigned to a new advisor my request was rejected. Desjardins refused to contact me and respond to any of my emails. The claim is still open at this time and a settlement has not been reached as there is no communication on their end. I would NOT recommend Desjardins to anyone! Absolutely terrible insurance company filled with incompetent humans!

Don't even wanna give them a star. Hard to contact. On hold for more than 3 hours and the line just cut out. The agent gave me the wrong information ended up cancelling my account with them for peace of mind.

I claimed a home theft with Desjardins and no one would get back to me for months. I have now contacted 3 different agents and I cannot get an answer back. I think they try to make it as difficult as possible with the hopes that you will just go away.

There was water damage in my condo. The building is insured by Desjardins. The claim was made in September 2019. Desjardins recommended a company called Langevin Gus for the repairs. The estimation before the pandemic was $10,000. Langevin's project manager is the one who hires the contractors. That project manager is not courteous and he's not pleasant to deal with. Is that why all the contractors he hired ended up missing in action? One, the repairs were cancelled one week before the starting date, supposedly because the floor person was not available anymore. The moving company and the temporary condo were booked and I had to cancel them last minute. Then another contractor came to my place. It looked like he was definitely going to do the work. But I never heard again from him. The project manager told me that he too was unable to reach him. All that time, months were passing by. Desjardins kept telling me things were slow because of the pandemic. I suspected that there was a money issue and sure enough when I asked, Desjardins's agent told me that they didn't want to go one cent over the original estimate which was made in 2019! Everyone knows that construction prices have gone drastically up since then. A month ago, I decided to put pressure on Desjardins; I felt I had been way too patient. All of a sudden, the project manager found a contractor. Yesterday I went to my condo; they ruined my hardwood floor. It was a beautiful cherry wood floor with a lightly tinted sealant to unify the colour and a semi-lustrous varnish. They sanded it so badly that there are now waves in certain parts. Then they put a super matte varnish, without any toner to unify. My floor now looks like a cheap floating floor! Furthermore, they put pale beige putty between some of the planks and it looks horrible. Not surprising since these guys were probably paid peanuts. I called Desjardins's agent, and he wasn't receptive at all. Looks like I am going to have to sue them. I did leave a message with Desjardins's customer service. We'll see how that goes. But do you want to know the worst? Desjardins augmented our insurance by 19.5% last year, and 19.5% this year, and they say it will keep going up for the next four years!!! Had we known, we wouldn't have made that claim. The franchise was $5000 and the estimation was $10,000 for the work, which means that it would have been cheaper for the co-owners to pay from their pockets for the repairs.

We had water damage in our basement, which was covered by insurance. Desjardins sent their emergency recovery team out within 24 hours of contacting them, however, that's where the problems began. When they brought the fans and equipment downstairs they damaged the walls. When we requested to keep the damaged wood flooring for firewood, they didn't listen and took it with them when we weren't looking (in virtual work meetings). Based on this experience we wanted to use our own contractor rather than the Desjardins contractor and this is where it got really sketchy - they insisted that they would give us $1000 less if we used our own contractor rather than their's, then they started hanging up on us when we called and not answering our calls. Not sure how this will end but it's bad enough that we will loudly tell everyone we know to never use Desjardins!