House / car insurance - which company is trustworthy?

None of them are trustworthy basically lol.....but they are all bound to act pretty much the same way as per the law and regulations so you should be OK with anyone of them.

I have used Johnson, ING, Economical and Travellers so far and haven't had any issues

Is this a rhetorical question?

vkizzle wrote: ↑ Is this a rhetorical question?

Exactly. OP might as well ask where we can find an honest politician too.

Bottom line is that every insurance company is the best one...until you need to make a claim. That's the only time you're going to find out for sure just how good they aren't.

I can say I had a decent experience with TD. They sent out a crew very quickly when I had a sewer backup, my basement got cleaned very well and the fans were in place. That wasn't any issue at all. The only issue I had with them was my adjuster just wasn't quick to respond to phone calls and at one point went on vacation for a week without telling me or any other clients I'm sure. This was when everyone in Canada was getting flooded so I'm sure they were getting hammered with claims.

The person who came to do the inspection at my house at first didn't want to replace my washer, dryer and furnace but because she was skeptical they actually got wet and she couldn't see any water damage on them. As soon as I showed her the photos from my phone showing that they were indeed partially under water we moved on and all was good.

They gave me the option to payout 80% of my claim and on receipts required or 100% of my claim and I'd have to show my receipts.

Overall, they covered the damaged and cleaned my house without too much fuss, they were just a bit slow.

That is my purely anecdotal experience with TD.

My quote from Sonnet (Economical Insurance is the parent company) is like $600/year cheaper than my current quote from The Personal that we have right now. I am a bit skeptical why it’s so much different, is Sonnet an OK company to get insurance from?

Would some of them attract *new* clients with lower premium for the first year only to catch up in later years ? My premiums ( property+auto ) are increasing non-linearly in the past several years.

mkl38s wrote: ↑ My quote from Sonnet (Economical Insurance is the parent company) is like $600/year cheaper than my current quote from The Personal that we have right now. I am a bit skeptical why it’s so much different, is Sonnet an OK company to get insurance from?

Principal residence or rental property? I Sonnet for past 22 months for my rental houses. 2nd yr rates have gone up from 1st yr but still quite a bit cheaper. I couldn't believe how cheap they were first yr. Their rate is higher for my principal residence though.

Their website and customer service are good. But again, you never know until you make a claim. I was initially skeptical and did as much research as I could.

hwyc2007 wrote: ↑ Would some of them attract *new* clients with lower premium for the first year only to catch up in later years ? My premiums ( property+auto ) are increasing non-linearly in the past several years.

Yes, I found that to be the case as well.

Do a search in CBC, CTV and Global for news on Insurance.
A few companies definitely in the bottom rotting.

Conquistador wrote: ↑ Exactly. OP might as well ask where we can find an honest politician too.

Bottom line is that every insurance company is the best one...until you need to make a claim. That's the only time you're going to find out for sure just how good they aren't.

You can use canlii.org to search for any insurance company you are considering going with to see how many times they have been sued for not honouring a claim.