Desjardins car insurance claim: photo estimate and choosing a shop

Desjardins may ask you to photograph the damage yourself, and the clock is 48 hours

Desjardins takes auto claims online, in the Desjardins Insurance Home-Auto app or by phone, at any hour. It estimates the online or app route at about 20 minutes and the phone route at about 30. Once the claim is in, eligible claims receive a text or an email inviting you to send photos of the damage through the Home-Auto app within 48 hours, in place of having the car assessed in person.

Two words in that description matter. “Eligible” means not every claim gets the photo route; Desjardins decides which claims qualify, and the rest are assessed in person. And “48 hours” means the invitation will not wait for a quiet weekend. If it arrives on a Friday evening, plan to take the photos on Saturday.

The photo route and the choice of shop are separate questions. Sending photos does not commit the car to any particular shop, and skipping them does not stop you choosing one; it only changes how Desjardins gets its first look at the damage.

Take the Desjardins photos so the first estimate does not come up short

A photo estimate can only price what the photos show. The goal is to give the person reading them every clue a technician would see standing at the car, so the first figure is as close as possible before teardown adds anything.

The most common mistake is the single close-up. A tight shot of a crease shows the crease, but it hides whether the gap between the bumper and the fender has opened, which is often the sign that a bracket behind it is broken.

• Shoot outside in daylight; an underground lot or a dusk driveway hides the shape of a dent.
• Stand back for one photo of each whole side, then step in for the damaged area.
• Photograph the panel gaps around the damage: bumper to fender, hood to headlamp, door to quarter.
• Take one shot with the lights on, so a cracked lens or a warning lamp on the dash is recorded.
• Include the odometer and the VIN plate on the windshield corner if the app asks for vehicle details.
• After a winter crash on salty roads, rinse the area first; grey slush can hide scrapes in the paint.

A Desjardins-recommended shop and an independent shop get the car assessed in different ways

Desjardins describes its recommended shops as businesses that have passed its screening, communicate directly with Desjardins and offer a limited warranty on their repairs. That direct line is the convenience: the shop and the claim file talk to each other without anyone else relaying messages.

At any other shop, Desjardins sends an appraiser to assess the damage at that location. In practice that means the car sits at the shop you chose, the shop has its estimate ready, and the appraiser works from both the car and the paperwork. Neither route changes your deductible, your coverage or the fault decision.

Note the wording on the warranty. Desjardins says “limited”, and the terms are worth reading before you decide, because a limited warranty can mean a fixed period or particular items. An independent shop writes its own warranty. Ours is a written lifetime warranty on paint and refinish, and we will show it to you before the car goes in.

Crash Consultant is not a Desjardins-recommended shop. A Desjardins customer who brings the car to us gets the appraiser route, and our estimator meets the appraiser and sends Desjardins a supplement for anything that turns up during teardown.

If your policy started with State Farm, your claim now runs through Desjardins

Desjardins bought State Farm’s Canadian business in 2015. Some drivers who first bought their policy from a State Farm agent still think of it that way. In Ontario those customers are now served by Desjardins Insurance agents, and their auto policies are underwritten by Certas Home and Auto Insurance Company. The declarations page shows the exact underwriting company for your policy.

For the claim itself, that history changes little. You report through Desjardins or through your agent, you get a claim number, and the photo-estimate invitation and the shop choice work the same way. If a form asks for the insurance company’s name, copy it from the declarations page rather than from memory.

Rental on a Desjardins claim in Ontario comes from OPCF 20

Desjardins also writes policies in Quebec, and Quebec’s rental endorsement uses a different number and wording. In Ontario the form that pays for a replacement vehicle while yours is repaired is OPCF 20, Transportation Replacement, which has a per-day limit and a per-occurrence limit. A not-at-fault collision can also bring a rental through the claim.

Check which limits your Ontario policy carries before booking anything. Then time the drop-off to the parts. A car that sits at the shop waiting for a door shell uses up rental days, while a car booked in once the parts are confirmed spends those days being repaired.