Insurance in Montreal

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m moving back to my home and native land later this month, and as I’m wading through all the stuff that has changed since I left a decade ago, I’m realizing that I just don’t have the time or expertise necessary to deal with some essential crap.

Namely insurance. I never actually owned a vehicle before in Quebec, only in Vancouver, where ICBC handled all my motorcycle insurance needs. Now I’m trying to find car insurance and growing increasingly frustrated by the sheer amount of information companies want before they’ll even call me back three days later with a quote. If they’ll call me at all since I don’t actually have a Canadian phone number yet…

So does anyone know a good car insurance broker in Montreal? I’m also going to need Tenant’s insurance (and motorcycle insurance when I buy one. And boy what a pain won’t that be once the SAAQ figures out what classifies as a ‘sport’ bike).

2

Does nobody in Montreal have insurance :wink:

3

I just went through the whole moving to Montreal process… it’s a pain, but totally worth it! My husband, cat, and I are quite happy living here!

We are with TD Meloche-Monnex for both our renters and auto insurance. We were with them for 2 years in Ontario, and just transfered to Québec when we got here. Their website, www.melochemonnex.com has a free quote function, which I found to be accurate for their Québec quotes, but over quoted for their Ontarian ones. My brother recently bought a car and opted to go with Essor (www.essor.ca) but their quote was about the same as MM - there was a couple of bucks difference.

If you get renter’s and auto together, you get a 5% discount on your auto with MM. They also have discounts if you are alumni of certain universities or a member of certain professional groups, such as a professional engineer, doctor, etc.

I’ve never had to put in a claim, so I don’t know about that aspect of them, but I’ve always received prompt, friendly service, with everything very well explained. You can pay by monthly direct withdrawls, no interest, which is very practical!

When you go get your driver’s license and plates from the SAAQ, do NOT go to a third-party service centre. Frankly, go directly to their Henri-Bourassa location - the third party locations can’t do all the transfers and you’ll just end up wasting your time (learned that the hard way…driving around town in 50 deg C heat/humidity in a car with no A/C!) Don’t be intimidated by the crowds… you’ll likely be given a number in the I or K series, not A or H with the hordes of teenagers trying to get their permits :smiley:

If you want cable, Videotron is your main option - their digital phone service is quite good, but you cannot get an ADT security system (in our case, left behind by previous tenants) because of a service agreement with Bell.

The monthly average Hydro-Quebec payment plan is quite popular. Then you aren’t stuck with huge bills in the winter and small ones in the summer and it’s easier to budget.

The proscuitto and goat cheese omelette at El Dorado on Mont-Royal is the best food I’ve ever had in my life.

Whereabouts in the city are you moving to? We’re on the Plateau.

If you have any more questions, I can try and answer them!

4

Oh, and you will need to get a safety inspection on your car - it’s about an 80$ fee.

You won’t be able to get your Carte Soleil until a 3 month waiting period is over, so either you need to still be covered under your current provincial plan (in our case, OHIP covers 6 months less a day out of province or something like that) or get something else in the meantime.

Gah - so much, I’m just going to keep coming back and posting whenever something pops into my head!

5

Holy dinah, you’re thorough! I needed someone like you for my last move!

He’s moving back to Montreal, he’s currently in NYC after living in Vancouver.

6

Gingy - like I said, I just did this move. I’ve only been in Montreal for about 2.5 weeks! I also have a notebook with all the phone numbers I’ve had to call (and notes!) and everything is near my computer anyways. Daughter of a teacher, can you tell?

While I’m here:
http://servicesenligne2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/sel/info/collectes/ServletRecherche

That site will tell you what days your garbage pickup and recycling is scheduled for. I have to say, I like evening garbage pickup - so much easier to remember to take care of it! That site will also tell you where you can pick up your recycling bins if your landlord/previous tenant didn’t leave them with your apartment.

http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=98,1482852&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

That links to the Plateau, but every neighbourhood has a section - you might want to get a parking sticker (“vignette”) if the streets where you live are labelled this way.

http://www.mont-royal.net/home.php

Again, Plateau-oriented, but interesting sites about the Main and Mont-Royal streets and shopping districts.

Marché Jean Talon is apparently amazing (we have yet to go) though we have been to Atwater Market, and I’m in love with the cheese shop there.

7

Damn, you are thorough! We’ll have to meet for a pint at Brutopia – or maybe Saint-Sulpice :slight_smile:

The funny thing is I have family with vehicles, and they’re all like “We have this company because we’ve always had this company.” When I ask if they have competitive rates, their eyes get rather round…

I have yet to make an appointment to swap my driver’s license, but I am familiar with the Henri-Bourassa SAAQ, since that’s where I got my license. I’ll be buying a car, because as Gingy notes, I live in the States, and importing a vehicle requires converting it to Canadian use… about $300-600 depending on the car.

I have found that I have evening garbage collection, which given the skewed hours I tend to work may not be feasible. And I got the following fabulous email about recycling.

I don’t have to worry about health care, thanks to the company that convinced us to return to Canada a year or two ahead of schedule.

But I am wrassling with buying a washer and dryer and getting 'em installed. The exchange rate between the two countries really points out some extreme price differerentials.

8

I just might take you up on that pint! Always good to make new friends!

We had to buy all five of our appliances. There are currently (or at least, as of last week) some pretty good sales pretty much everywhere. We price checked a bunch of stores for new appliances, then looked at a well-reputed used store nearby, and finally settled for refurbished but new appliances.

If you are looking for used, the two recommendations we received were “Elvis”, on the corner of Papineau and Mary-Anne, and Electros ML (they have several locations - we opted for the Saint-Dominique one, but other locations will have different stock). ML sells new, used, and refurbished or manufacture returned appliances. Our stove and washer/dryer are all Kennmore, and they were sent to ML because of a few dents from manufacture or deliviery (the washer was refurbished, it didn’t work on delivery). We saved about 50-100$ compared to the current sale price of each item at Sears. Our fridge and dishwasher are Haier, and though the dishwasher is brand new, the fridge saved us anywhere from 100-300$ depending on which stores sale/list price you look at!

Elvis was mostly older stuff, anywhere from 3-20 years old from what I could tell! With the one exception of a manufacture-returned Amana fridge that probably sold immediately but was quite nice! A good 700$ savings on that one. We just weren’t satisfied with the other items. A lot of good, fully functional things, but in the end, we wanted something newer and prettier for our first ever appliances that we own! We actually ended up spending more at ML overall - we could have had all 5 appliances from Elvis for about 1200$ but ended up spending 2000$. We are appliance snobs, apparently. I never thought, though, that I’d be so proud to own an oven!

Interesting email from eco-cartier! Ours was obvious, since it was just down the road from us, but you might have better luck simply calling the city/neighbourhood waste phone number and having them tell you directly where to go get your bins. In our area, recycling is morning pickup.

9

Man, it’s shocking how little I know about all of this.

Uh… when there’s evening garbage pick up, it’s okay to bring it out in the morning.

10

Only in practise. Our pickup starts at 8pm today, so they tell us to put it out between 4-7. Officially, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Recycling pickup, at 9 am, allows for 5-8am placing on the curb. Stupid, really, because everyone puts it out at night anyways and it doesn’t appear to be enforced, but them’s the rules! We basically do as we’re told for garbage, but damn if the recycling isn’t hitting the curb right before bedtime like everyone else!

30 seconds after leaving the recycling out, the odd item on which you can get your deposit back gets picked out of there by some starving student/homeless person/enviro-friendly person. Everything else gets knocked over by industrious little squirrels.

11

mnemosyne! I didn’t realize you were in MTL yet! You have to email me so we can get together with the other Doperealers! EEEE!

12

Huh, I had no idea. I’ve been putting it out in the morning for years. I hope my compulsive rule-following personality doesn’t force me to change my habits!

13

I’ll have to wait and see what my neighbours do about trash and recycling. Knowing my luck I’d be fined.

My alumni magazine arrived, and it turns out Meloche has a deal for my alma mater, so I’ll make sure to check them out.