Aviva Insurance - has anyone heard of them?

[Disney Addicted]

My husband hands me today's mail and our auto insurance and home insurance payments (made March 6th) were returned to us by cheque.

I phoned P.C. Financial to find out why (I'm thinking did I double-pay them by mistake??) and she told me our insurance was changed to Aviva! Apparently PC Financial is no longer a broker and my payments to Traveller's insurance were not valid.

WHAT THE HECK?? How? What? Why? I didn't receive any notification.

Apparently we have been without home & car insurance (3 drivers, one of which hasn't even had his license for 1 year!) for 5 days.

I'm currently on hold (18 minutes in) to speak to someone at Aviva.

I'm so angry right now

 

[kittyab]

We have Aviva for our travel trailer. It is actually a good company. We use CAA for our house and cars.

 

[Disney Addicted]

Thanks @kittyab I'm on the phone with them now. Well, I was. I'm back on hold while he pulls up information about our account. If we even have one at this point. Sigh...

 

[ottawamom]

We have used AVIVA insurance for years for our home and auto insurance. They are very easy to deal with.

 

[Disney Addicted]

Thanks OttawaMom!

So it turns out our insurance was not actually cancelled! Yay!! The person I spoke with a PC Insurance made it sound like it was cancelled since we didn't pay Aviva but sent payment to our Travellers' account.

Aviva said it was only 5 days and still valid. Everything was reviewed and payments will start coming out, twice in April though - one for March and one for April.

However.. while our house insurance only went up $4 - our auto insurance went up $140!! From $361 to $500! When I asked for the breakdown, my husband's car/ins is fine at $1,281 a year ($116.45/month). But he said they don't go by driver but by car. So my car has 2 drivers (myself and my son) and he said it's $4,225 a year!! ($384 a month!). That's crazy. I've been driving for 26 years without an accident! No speeding tickets since 2010. Apparently because my son hasn't even had his G2 for a full year yet; is listed as the primary driver (since he uses it to get to work and I work from home); and because it was put down as business use (for his work). But that doesn't explain why it increased $140! Why such a high difference he could not really explain.

It might be time to look around. We were with PC Financial/Traveller's for 15 years.

Maybe CAA? Costco? We have memberships with both for years.

Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[bababear_50]

This past Fall I was with Royal Bank Ins and without notice my Ins. policy was changed to AVIVA.
My policies were sent via email which sent me on hold to Royal Bank to try and figure out what happened.
Yes AVIVA Insurance is part of a connection the two companies have ,,,ok I said but how about some type of notice.
No response.
Then I ask about the policies and am told I must print my own copies out and sign and return certain pages. NO not happening,,,,, I told them you will send me the printed documents for my review and then I will decide if I am signing.

I did receive the documents via snail mail and reviewed them.
I get a small discount via my employer but still got hit up with an increase for auto Insurance. My house Ins. stayed the same.
Their (AVIVA) professionalism is lacking.

I am going to check out CAA for the future.

Best wishes
Mel

 

[Disney Addicted]

Thanks for the information Mel. It looks like I'll need to take a day off work to call around and see what is out there price-wise these days.

 

[mort1331]

was with AVIVA for over 20years, then one renewal it almost doubled. Just the postal code, sucks but happens to all. Since then I have bounced around. This year we have CAA for car and Allstate for home. Just works out the best for us. Yes some give discounts for having both at one, but look at the bottom line total. Even with the discount this was the cheapest by about 400 per year.

 

[Donald - my hero]

we've been with Aviva for as long as they've been Aviva (early 2000's they merged with a bunch of others and took on this name? ) and honestly, unless there's some incredible change in policy price we won't move. We've had a few claims and they were all seamless, very responsive, excellent customer service and even offered to pay for things that we didn't know our policies didn't cover! Both house and auto and had claims on both. Sometimes service will tip the scales for us

 

[Pumpkin1172]

Just make sure when you change....it's oranges to oranges. Dig deep and find out what they cover and DON'T cover.

We found out our auto insurance covers a rental vehicle if it's in an accident - BUT it doesn't cover you if the other person chooses to sue you. We didn't know that previously. So now we buy the extra insurance. Especially driving around the US and it being such a litigious country - I don't need to know someone is going to sue me to whatever reason.

We also found out with different home policies - that some don't cover having things like RV's or boats under the home policy. There were a few other little things that some did cover or didn't cover.

I hope you find a policy that works for you!

 

[WDWkristin]

I have Aviva for house and car though a broker. We have never had any issues with them.

 

[samsteele]

It pays to take the time to contact at least 4 different auto and home insurers every year before your automatic renewal to crunch the numbers. Rarely is parking both your auto and home insurance with one insurer guaranteed to yield a lower combined premium. Years ago, that was true. Not today. My experience is that almost every insurer routinely increases premiums at the 2 year anniversary mark regardless of claim history or market. It usually never pays to be loyal to one insurer for years as premiums continually increase often outstripping market creep. When speaking with Ontario insurers, the mindset is not that a customer is loyal, it is the customer is complacent and prepared to pay more each successive year for less. And with both auto and home insurance, more routine coverage is being dropped on a regular basis. For example, with Ontario auto insurance, the standard coverage for accident benefits we all received 10 years ago has been pared back dramatically. It is important to look at purchasing optional coverage for med-rehab benefits, income replacement and more. Often that additional coverage is less than $20 for the year and the benefits when you are in a crash are huge. Brokers should be explaining this but either fail to take the time or are shut down by the consumer who refuses to pay more than the base premium. At the moment, CAA works very well for my auto needs as I have low annual mileage and the tracker is not an issue for me. Home insurance can be tricky as water seepage and sewer backup are critical but I've experienced at least 2 different home insurers unilaterally canceling my coverage for those perils mid year with no adjustment to the premium. Even if the numbers and fine print hurt your brain, it is necessary to spend the hours to ensure you have coverage within your budget. Relying on a broker isn't good enough anymore as so many have become storefronts and websites for one large bannered insurance company. Only the consumer is motivated to teach themselves to compare policies.

 

[WDWkristin]

I just had a minor accident (not ant fault) and Aviva has been lovely with me. I could not have been happier with the service.