A Car Insurance Story

Funny Story, you gotta love hearing these! I just wanted to add that I am also with Meloche Monnex, and had the same top-notch service you mentioned when we were hit head on in December 09. No problems with anything, got the loaner for an extra week during holidays, they bought me a new GPS, and even offered to repair my wifes Jacket that had been damaged when she squeezed out of car. The issue I had was that after I returned the rental they continued to bill my normal insurance, even though we were 1 car less. A simple call and they fixed it, backdated, and aree sending me a cheque for the difference.

I have TD insurance also, and recently had my car broken in. Other than that they wouldn’t replace the GPS that was stolen because it was covered under our house insurance, TD was very good about selecting a repair place. We didn’t need any money and got the thing repaired in one day.

TD is good — although this was my only claim with them.

I am thinking of switching my insurance company, maybe going to TD at least to see their prices because my school has an affiliation with Meloche (just like your friend).

But right now I am with Desjardins, we claimed once for the car (délit de fuite), they let me choose my garage, acknowledged the estimate in about 2 days and I got the check 2 days later. If my garage was in their directly approved list, the transaction could have been finished in about 2 days instead of 4.

But they let me choose my own garage, wich I appreciated.

Man, hitting your friend’s car- that makes for good memories- fun times fun times!
I wish here in BC we didn’t have Crown Corporation ICBC running the show. We pay so much in car insurance and don’t get very much. So your thought of paying for cheap insurance= poor service is opposite for us! we pay for $$ insurance and get cheap service! =)

I am with BelAir and had great experience fllowing a claim for a fender bender. After I called they connected me with the nearest garage they do businees with, booked my appointement got there and got a loaner for the duration of the work.

Well to give an alternate opinion…. My girlfriends car got hit over the holidays. It was the other drivers fault so we called our TD insurance and the adjuster was based in Toronto (we live in Alberta). The adjuster rarely returned calls, and was almost never at work. Other adjusters could never help us as they couldn’t “access our file”. We were told to take it to a specific garage, they kept the car for 2 weeks before they could take a look at it. Our TD plan does not cover the rental while your car is being inspected, only after the inspection do they cover the rental while it is being repaired.

A TD agent in Alberta called us to let us know the car “was a total write off, not even close”. Three days later the original agent from Toronto called and told us our car would be done in 5 business days. The insurance repair quote was $300 more than the blue book value for our car, and $1300 more than what we could reasonably assume to get for it through a private sale.

Picked up the car today and was shocked that many of the parts were “remanufactured”. Basically they are either old parts that have been repaired, or they are pulled off junk yard cars, so you are not getting new parts, most of them in fact were used. The repair place said they did not like using these parts as they are substandard quality, but that is what the insurance company instructed them to use (this varies from company to company apparently).

To top it all off, they did not agree that our bent hood was a result of the accident (eventhough it is bent right where the headlight, bumper, and front quarter panel were smashed) so they did not repair it. The hood is visibly crooked/bent and the paint is scratched so rust is just around the corner.

Through all of this the repair shop was great and excellent to deal with, however as stated above, TD was hard to get a hold of, and not very good at keeping us informed or even returning our calls.

Needless to say we’ll be finding a new insurance provider right away.

@ DanCab,

thx for your feedback. I guess that we can find bad stories about any companies!

I would look into GMAC. We’ve had them going on roughly 7 years and when we tried to leave, they matched the quote the Geico was offering us at the time.

As good as TD Insurance is, my key concern with TD insurance is its phone-only contact policy. They don’t have any retail branches where we can go to talk to a client service rep.

DanCab’s comment kind of reinforced that.

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