Desjardins Home Insurance Review (2026)
Desjardins home insurance: The basics
- Founded: 1900 (126 years in business)
- Parent company: The Desjardins Group
- Underwriting companies: Certas Home and Auto Insurance Company, Desjardins General Insurance Inc.
- Website: www.desjardins.com/on/en/insurance
- Phone number: 1-877-699-9923 (customer service) or 1-877-659-1570 (local agent)
- Availability: Alberta, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec
- Home insurance products: Home, condo, cottage, and tenant insurance
What does Desjardins home insurance cover?
Desjardins home insurance covers your home, personal property, and liability against a wide range of potential risks.
Standard coverage options
All Desjardins home insurance quotes include the following standard coverage options:
- Blanket amount: All Desjardins home insurance policies include a single limit of insurance that includes dwelling coverage, detached private structures, personal property, and additional living expenses. By default, your blanket amount is double the estimated replacement cost of your home.
- Dwelling coverage (Coverage A): Pays to repair or rebuild your home’s primary structure. You can raise your dwelling coverage amount online, but you can’t lower it.
- Detached private structures (Coverage B): Even if you didn’t list any detached structures in your application, this coverage is included in your blanket amount.
- Contents (Coverage C): Personal property such as furniture and personal belongings are covered for their replacement cost. Belongings kept permanently away from the insured premises are subject to a $2,000 limit, and special limits apply to valuables.
- Additional living expenses and fair rental value (Coverage D): This portion of your primary coverage pays for the difference between your regular living expenses and additional costs like hotel rooms and meals if your home is temporarily uninhabitable due to an insured loss.
- Guaranteed replacement cost (Endorsement 17): All Desjardins home insurance policies include this endorsement, which covers the full cost to rebuild your home if it exceeds the Coverage A amount.
- Replacement cost with no obligation to rebuild (Endorsement 50): Included by default, this endorsement means you can choose to receive a cash settlement and move into a different property rather than using your payout to rebuild your home.
- Personal liability (Coverage E): Liability coverage protects you and covers legal costs if you’re responsible for bodily injury or property damage to others anywhere in the world. You can choose between limits of $1 million and $2 million, or contact an advisor for higher limits.
- Voluntary medical or funeral payments (Coverage F): All Desjardins home insurance policies include $5,000 for funeral and medical expenses if you injure someone unintentionally, or if they're accidentally injured on your property.
- Voluntary payment for damage to property (Coverage G): All Desjardins home insurance policies include $1,000 for property repairs if you unintentionally damage someone else’s property or a child in your household aged 12 or younger intentionally damages property.
- Voluntary compensation for residence employees (Coverage H): This basic coverage pays for injuries to a residence employee, such as a house cleaner, if they’re accidentally injured while working in your home.
- Fire, explosion, and smoke damage resulting from an earthquake (Endorsement 22b): While direct earthquake damage is excluded from Desjardins policies by default, your policy will cover damage caused by fire, explosion, and smoke caused by an earthquake or other earth movement.
- Depreciation – Roof damage caused by wind or hail (Endorsement 53): For roofs that are at least 15 years old, this endorsement applies a depreciation percentage up to 75% to claims for wind or hail damage, reducing the overall amount that can be claimed.
In addition to the included coverage above, all Desjardins home insurance policies include special limits for specific types of personal property:
The standard home insurance policy from Desjardins is an all-risk policy, which covers a wide range of perils except those specifically excluded in your policy.
Optional coverage and endorsements
In additional to the extensive coverage included by default in all standard Desjardins home insurance policies, you can choose to add or remove the following coverage options:
- Ground water and sewer backup (Endorsement 16c): Included by default, this coverage covers sudden and accidental damage caused by water backing up from sewers and septic tanks as well as seepage through basement walls, foundations, and openings. You can choose coverage amounts from $10,000 to $200,000 or remove it entirely.
- Overland flood (Endorsement 16d): Tied to sewer backup coverage, this endorsement covers damage caused by the rising or overflow of any body of water. Your coverage limit and deductible match whatever you chose for sewer backup coverage.
- Above ground water (Endorsement 42): Included by default, this endorsement covers sudden and accidental damage caused by rain, snow, snowmelt, overflowing eavestroughs and downspouts, and the weight of snow, ice, or sleet.
- Water service line and sewer line breakage (Endorsement 51): This endorsement, which can be added for a small premium, covers up to $15,000 to pay for labor and repair necessary if your water service pipe or sewer line malfunctions or breaks.
- Earthquake (Endorsement 22): While it’s not included by default, you can choose to add earthquake coverage with deductibles from $3,000 to $95,000 to cover damage to your home caused directly by earth movement.
- Enhanced value protection (Endorsement 25v): For a $25 premium, this package adds extended limits and unique perks to your existing coverage, such as a higher limit for off-premises property and waived deductibles for losses over $50,000.
- Theft or vandalism during construction (Endorsement 10): This endorsement ensures coverage for building materials stolen from the premises while your home is under construction. You’ll have to speak with an advisor to add it to your policy.
- Pool and hot tub coverage (Endorsements 33a and 33b): If you have an inground, semi-inground, or above-ground pool or hot tub on your property, you’ll need one or both of these endorsements to cover it.
- Home-based business coverage: If you are a freelance worker or run a home-based business, you must inform Desjardins and may need an endorsement to cover damage related to business uses.
- Short-term rental coverage: If you rent out your home on a short-term basis, such as through Airbnb, you’ll need to inform Desjardins and add this endorsement to your policy.
- Escape of fuel oil (Endorsements 46b and 46c): Homes heated by fuel oil may need multiple endorsement to cover damage and liability associated with fuel leaks.
Desjardins collects a lot of information when issuing quotes online. Be prepared to provide the following:
- Address of the home you want to insure
- Your personal and contact information
- Year your home was built
- Year you bought your home
- Number of floors, excluding basement
- Number of shared walls (e.g., detached or semi-detached)
- Basement information (finished or unfinished)
- Unique home features like smart home, custom wine cellar, or home addition
- Garage (attached or detached)
- Square footage of your home
- Roof and exterior siding material
- Year roof was last completely replaced
- Heating systems
- Year your water heater was installed
- Sump pump information
- Distance to a fire hydrant or fire station
- Detached buildings on premises
- Swimming pools or hot tubs on premises
- Employment status and field of work
- Dogs at home
- Number of mortgage lenders
- Current insurer
- Security systems installed in your home (e.g. fire alarm, burglar alarm, water shut-off system, leak detector)
- Smokers living in the home
- Past home insurance claims
- Past water damage events (with or without damage to your home)
Desjardins home insurance discounts
Desjardins offers at least seven distinct discounts for home insurance:
- Multi-line (bundling) discount: Customers who bundle home and auto insurance with Desjardins may receive a discount of up to 35% on their home insurance premium.
- Leak detection system: You could get a discount of up to 10% if you install a leak detection system with an automatic water shutoff valve.
- Pneumatic backflow system: Installing a pneumatic backflow system can prevent sewer backups and earn you a discount of up to 10% off your premium.
- Leak detector system: If you install at least five leak detectors connected to a central monitoring system, you could reduce your home insurance costs by up to 5%.
- Alarm system: If your home is protected by a fire and burglar alarm connected to a central monitoring system, you could save 10%.
- Claim-free discount: Desjardins awards a discount of up to 20% to customers with no claims on file.
- Credit check: Customers who agree to a soft credit check can save up to 35%.
Most carriers offer more discounts than they advertise publicly, and discount amounts may vary by location and eligibility. Working with a licensed insurance advisor or broker can help you compare the discounts available from Desjardins with other insurers’ offers.
How much does Desjardins home insurance cost?
Home insurance from Desjardins costs an average of $173/month in Ontario, with quotes as low as $120/month for basic coverage and as high as $270/month or more for high coverage policies.
The exact cost of Desjardins home insurance depends on a wide variety of factors, including:
- Province: Desjardins sells home insurance in Alberta, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec. Rates vary by province, with higher rates in provinces with serious climate risks or high construction costs.
- Home location: Your home’s proximity to fire hydrants and stations, bodies of water, property crime hotspots, and other risk factors impact your rates, along with the home’s elevation.
- Home age: Older homes may cost more to insure as they’re more likely to sustain serious damage in the event of a claim.
- Roof age: Your home’s roof is its primary defense against a wide range of perils, and an aging roof can spell larger claim amounts.
Desjardins home insurance rates in Ontario
* All quotes are for a 45-year-old male applicant with a detached or semi-detached two-storey home built between 2000 and 2015 with a roof upgraded in 2020.
Desjardins home insurance bundled rates
To evaluate the strength of Desjardins’s home and auto insurance bundled, we requested bundled quotes for comprehensive home insurance bundled with quotes for a 2019 Honda Civic Sport.
* Quotes represent the monthly cost of comprehensive coverage with the standard auto package for a 2019 Honda Civic Sport.
Overall, Desjardins’s multi-line discount reduced home insurance premiums by $20–25/month, or about 12–14%. While that’s a decent discount, it’s considerably lower than the maximum 35% bundling discount Desjardins advertises, as well as the 20% discount it claims as the average homeowner bundle discount.
Over the course of a 25-year mortgage, Desjardins’s bundling discounts could save you between $6,000 and $7,500 on home insurance premiums.
The Desjardins home insurance claims process
To file a home insurance claim with Desjardins, you’ll need to follow the process outlined below:
- Fill out a claim form or contact your agent: Expect the process to take about 30 minutes. When filing your claim, provide as much information as possible about when, where, and how the loss occurred. If you have photos of your lost or damaged property, include them in your claim file.
- Choose a service provider: When you submit your claim, Desjardins will send you a list of recommended contractors to assess your property and provide a repair estimate. You don’t have to work with one of Desjardins’s preferred contractors; you can choose your own.
- Wait for your claim decision: Desjardins’s claims team will work with your chosen service provider as well as any other relevant parties to analyze the damage to your home and arrange a settlement.
- Review your settlement: You’ll have the chance to review your settlement offer before authorizing repairs to your home.
- Receive payment: If you chose a recommended service provider, Desjardins will submit payment equal to your loss settlement directly to that contractor. If you chose another contractor or did the repairs yourself, you’ll be reimbursed directly in accordance with your policy terms and the adjuster’s determination.
Desjardins allows home insurance customers to file claims 24/7 using three channels:
- Online: You can use your Desjardins customer online services portal to file a claim.
- Mobile app: If you have the Desjardins mobile app, you’ll see the option to file a claim digitally via your smartphone.
- By phone: For policy numbers starting with X, F, R, and Z, the main claims number is 1-855-209-9549. Customers with policy numbers beginning with D, A, C, or J should call 1-888-785-5502.
Is Desjardins good for claims?
To get a sense of what it actually looks like to file a home insurance claim with Desjardins, we turned to Reddit, looking for discussion threads where current and former Desjardins customers shared their experience. The results were mixed: few customers had stories to share, and there was a fairly even split between positive and negative reviews.
How Desjardins home insurance compares to other providers
Here’s how Desjardins compares to other popular home insurers in Canada.
* Average monthly cost of comprehensive home insurance.
** Online quoting not available in Alberta.
Is Desjardins home insurance right for you?
Desjardins is a strong mid-size home insurance provider for Canadians in the provinces where it does business, with competitive coverage options. It may be an especially good choice for older homes, including century homes, which may be difficult to insure elsewhere.
Overall, Desjardins falls in the middle of the pack when it comes to costs, bundling discounts, and other key metrics of customer satisfaction. While customers online have fewer complaints about Desjardins than other insurers, there’s also a shortage of glowing reviews; Desjardins is neither loved or hated by its clients. For new homeowners, Desjardins may offer a minor advantage: its online quote flow is extremely simple to use, with clear explanations of coverage and underwriting metrics, making it easy to understand what you’re paying for and why.
If you’re considering home insurance from Desjardins, don’t forget to compare its coverage and pricing with quotes from at least three to four other insurance providers.
FAQ: Desjardins home insurance
This article is for general information only and is not insurance or legal advice. Examples and any sample quotes or rate ranges are illustrative and do not constitute an offer or guarantee of coverage, price, or eligibility. Actual coverage, discounts, and premiums depend on your individual circumstances and the insurer provider; if there is any discrepancy, your policy and insurer documentation govern. For advice about your situation, speak with one of our licensed insurance professionals.