Meloche Monnex – TD Insurance

Review #21 of Unilocal’s 30 Day Challenge 2012
I really enjoy Meloche Monnex. I’ve always liked the customer service representatives, the speedy service, and the fairly short call wait times.
I use Monnex for both my car and home insurance. My rate is actually exceptional, and about 50% of what AMA or State Farm quotes offer for the exact same coverage. Not only that, but there is Accident Forgiveness, and hopefully I don’t get into an accident, but I can have the peace of mind that my insurance won’t skyrocket after my first accident either. If you are a member of APEGA, you pretty much get incomparably low insurance… almost unbelievable! I have a 2011 AWD SUV so I thought my insurance would skyrocket when I got that and I was still paying under $ 60 monthly, though it’s owned by the bank (financed) and therefore requires maximum coverage. I think that AMA quoted me $ 130…
I’ve heard that Monnex can be very frustrating to deal with if you ever have a claim. I personally have not had a claim, but it’s definitely a point that I don’t want to have to assess in the future.
There are a lot and a lot of pros about going with Meloche… they send your insurance out right away via e-​mail, they send your insurance super quickly (sometimes I have to change things more than three times in a month and I get a new insurance package within days each time).
I don’t think I’d ever switch from Meloche unless I had a really horrible experience with their claims service, just because the customer service so far has been very good and my rates have been unbeatable…

I have been with TD Meloche Monnex for a long time. I’ve never had any problems although I’ve never had to make any claim. Last summer, I called them to get motorcycle insurance. Because I only had my learners, they would not insure me. That’s crap. Other companies will. I was a bit pissed off because I’d been a long time client and they would not bend the rules at all. So I was forced to go elsewhere.
This summer when my motorcycle insurance came up for renewal, I went online and got a quote. The results gave me two options: one was full everything and over $ 450 the other was the basic which was what I had on the bike the past year. It was under $ 200. So I called them up to say I want to switch over my insurance. The customer service agent was friendly and didn’t try to rush even though it was close to quitting time. She was able to find my quote in the system. Then she asked if I wanted collision which she said wasn’t that much more. For some reason, she gave me an extra discount so with the collision, it was pretty much the same as what I was quoted online without collision. Good deal! She asked me some questions about the bike and verified my personal information. Then which day I wanted the payment to come out of my bank account. Soon I had it all complete. She offered to email me a pink card while I was waiting for the original to come in the mail.
Simple, quick, painless, and no line ups to deal with.
My pink card arrived in the mail shortly after this great experience.

My experience with Meloche Monnex has been mixed. Initially they started out very good. My initially consultation back in 2008 was very positive. The agent took the time to understand our car insurance needs and offer us a number of options as well as let us know about their renters insurance. They were reasonably priced and as I recall had a discount for graduates of the UofA.
Recently (since 2010), however, I’ve had to make a number of inquiries due to changes in my life. Dealing with the customer representatives on the phone has been challenging. I find I almost always get someone who is inexperienced and often has to talk to their supervisor about questions that I have regarding polices. I have had to make a number of changes and it always seemed like they were looking for ways to charge me more rather than save me money. Also, I guess grading systems for insurance have changed recently and it was pretty confusing having this explained to me. It is also annoying to have to wait for an answer every 5 minutes. They are nice about it though. Friendly and polite.
In addition, they never sent me a renewal package in the mail this year. Because of this I feel they put me at risk to receive a fine for not have an insurance card to produce as proof of insurance should a policeman stop me. Luckily I remembered approximately when my insurance expired and called Meloche Monnex to send me a package with those little pink paper cards. They did email me a temporary one while I wait for the hard copies to come to me by mail, but I felt like they left me vulnerable for a couple of days. And I still have no reason as to why they missed me.
I never had these problems with AMA who I dealt with prior to Meloche. Fortunately, I’ve been blessed to not have to use the coverage so I can’t really give insight as to Meloche’s post-​accident service. Meloche is still cheaper though, but I am now definitely looking at other options.

In early 2008, we were just buying a new home. I did a poll over e-​mail at my work for a good insurance provider. In the end there were an over-​whelming amount of votes for TD.
Calling them I found their customer services/​sales people to be very helpful. In the end we switched our auto insurance over and saved a good chunk of coin.
It came out to be around the same price as other quotes, but the service, level of knowledge, and general non-​sleazyness of their approach to helping me won me over.
— Enter two weeks ago, Mid March 2009.
My girl friend hit some black ice, something happened, ended up hitting a guard rail, spinning a bunch. Generally unpleasant, and the car was wrecked.
From the moment I called them I was treated with absolute professionalism and respect. I was assigned a claims agent, and 2 days later a damage auditor (or whatever) came down to my house where the car had been towed.
The car was a write off, the only downside was that we didn’t have the option which gave us a rental (that sucked, though we have it now).
They bought the car from us at a very fair price, and everything was finalized in under 2 weeks.
Sorry to write so much, totally blown away, I sent a letter to TD thanking them as well (which actually got a response from a manager their re-​thanking me for my appreciation).
Can’t recommend these guys enough, I only wish they didn’t require an alarm on motorbikes, otherwise all my vehicles would be insured through them.
~mike