Author Topic: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....  (Read 5240 times)

oneyearfromnow

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Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« on: July 16, 2019, 10:29:24 AM »
I realize not technically related - but related as a place for general  Canada related discussions.


Friends - keep an eye out on your next Car Insurance Renewal as the shysters have hit a new low.

Our renewal came in the mail this week.    Apparently, the “Accident Forgiveness”, that was previously offered to us as complimentary - is no longer complimentary.

If we wish to have this perk back - the Insurance company wishes to charge us $40 per year, as insurance, that our insurance might not go up(*) should we have a claim.   

Really!   I had fun chatting with them about their money grabbing ways.

(*) Of course the Insurance company always reserves the right to increase your insurance in other surreptitious ways – or find ways to simply deny claims.  They are profitable businesses after all.



On the Home insurance front - I have heard rumblings that Home Insurance in the Eastern Ontario area is going up due to floods / tornadoes.   Has anyone experienced this yet?

Novik

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2019, 10:46:02 AM »
I don't have the breakdown in front of me, but I got my renewal paperwork last week and the combined home/auto premium went up >250$/year, which is ~15%.  Which seems nuts, especially for a year in which I moved into a "less accident prone" age band as well.

I need to dig into the details of which parts cost more now, but this is also serving as my impetus to reduce coverage with the age of the car, and look at other insurance providers. So far, seems like jumping ship will be helpful.

oneyearfromnow

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2019, 10:55:18 AM »
Novik,   It is possible to save some money by removing the Collision Coverage. (Liability is mandatory - collision is not)

Before you do - see if you can find out in your policy just how much they will give you should your car be totaled.  Keep in mind that this number has absolutely nothing to do with how much you may or may not have left on a car loan, or how much you might get in Kijjiji / Blue Book.

All policies have a floor price, usually between $2K or $2.5K as a nominal amount for having a car that was (before the accident) operable.  Factor the costs for the premium vs. the floor price of the car.

If you don't have a car loan - double check that they have removed the third party loan provider from your policy too.

It goes without saying to check your deductible limits.   For several years the insurance company would automatically reduce our deductible upon renewal, and therefore charge us more for the premium.  Every year we had to call to bring it back up to our desired deductible.

Lews Therin

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2019, 12:39:05 PM »
The River flooding 2x in 3 years means they need to make back a lot of money.

Sadly, the car insurance companies are the same as the housing ones, so bumping each up helps more than making large increases to housing.

Novik

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2019, 06:42:42 PM »
Looking into this more tonight, and guess what? The insurance company lists out the payments for the policy term, and the "monthly" payment was how I got the 15% increase I mentioned earlier. Now I see that's actually only listing *11* payments to pay the annual bill (why??), so the increase is a much more reasonable 2%.

But since I've already looked elsewhere, I'm going to keep working on that, since I should be able to decrease our costs a fair bit.

oneyearfromnow

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #5 on: July 20, 2019, 11:11:52 AM »
Looking into this more tonight, and guess what? The insurance company lists out the payments for the policy term, and the "monthly" payment was how I got the 15% increase I mentioned earlier. Now I see that's actually only listing *11* payments to pay the annual bill (why??), so the increase is a much more reasonable 2%.

But since I've already looked elsewhere, I'm going to keep working on that, since I should be able to decrease our costs a fair bit.

Our Insurance provider did that too - but it really was 12 payments - they did two the first month  (I am guessing that you pay for insurance "in advance" rather than "in arrears", so they take a payment, and then another at the start of the second month of insurance.   

Since all of our expenses are yearly now, we switched it to a yearly payment on the credit card - at least it is some travel points....

ETA - I should note that they take this payment on the first day that the insurance is in force.

Novik

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2019, 12:45:45 PM »
It's probably related to the timing of payment, but there's no double payment that I can see. The "total annual premium" / 11 = "the payment they show 11 times". And the annual premium is only 2% higher than last year.  It's doing them no favours with any customers who just skimmed it like I did the first time!

We pay ours by CC as well, but monthly since it's the same cost, and I can move the payment around between cards throughout the year to hit spending targets.

julia

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #7 on: September 23, 2019, 06:44:54 PM »
Our car insurance went up 30$ a month (18%?!). I thought it should be going down given we turned 25.

Metalcat

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2019, 04:44:05 AM »
Our car insurance went up 30$ a month (18%?!). I thought it should be going down given we turned 25.

Call your broker.
Mine goes up significantly every year and my broker is usually able to get it back down for me.

julia

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2019, 06:43:02 AM »
Our car insurance went up 30$ a month (18%?!). I thought it should be going down given we turned 25.

Call your broker.
Mine goes up significantly every year and my broker is usually able to get it back down for me.

I did - she said there is nothing she can do. We did some quote comparisons online and they were all quoting at least 2k more a year than we pay now.

Lews Therin

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #10 on: September 24, 2019, 07:06:08 AM »
Any chance you work for the governement? johnson insurance + the NAFR group rebates has been the best is ontario for a lot of people.

UndergroundDaytimeDad

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #11 on: October 08, 2019, 10:19:22 AM »
CAA for us was dramatically cheaper for nearly equivalent policies. Aside from their generous bundling discounts, they allowed for much higher deductibles than another insurers I got quotes from.  One insisted that if I had to spend $3k on my house due to some issue, I would absolutely be filing a claim, and wondered why would anyone even want a high deductible.  Ummm, because I pay for it either way, more if you front me the cash now...

Metalcat

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2019, 10:23:10 AM »
Our car insurance went up 30$ a month (18%?!). I thought it should be going down given we turned 25.

Call your broker.
Mine goes up significantly every year and my broker is usually able to get it back down for me.

I did - she said there is nothing she can do. We did some quote comparisons online and they were all quoting at least 2k more a year than we pay now.

But why? There must be some kind of explanation???

julia

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Re: Canadian Insurance (Car and Home) - A new level of low....
« Reply #13 on: October 09, 2019, 01:41:08 PM »

But why? There must be some kind of explanation???

Her explanation was "everyones insurance went up this year". She also said that for our first year, we received a 10% discount that no longer applies.