Bertiepottiegiet
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- Joined
- Mar 8, 2019
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*Bit of a long story but there is context here that probably matters
My wife had an incident last year where she drove over a piece of plastic on the highway and it got stuck underneath the car. She pulled off to the side of the road and removed it from underneath the car, but noticed some fluid leaking. We drove the car to an approved assessment centre and the assessor was beyond incompetent. I watched him as he struggled to figure out how the jack works and it was fairly obvious he had no idea what he was doing. He tuned us some story about stuff that got damaged and the car isn't safe to drive (after he spoke to his manager on the phone), but it was plain to see he was pulling that assessment out of his bum.
He told us we should initiate a claim. The excess was R4000. His assessment of the damage? R5000. A figure he pulled out after asking how much our excess is. I phoned the insurance and told them I don't feel comfortable claiming if their assessor can't give me even a ballpark figure of the damage. If it turns out to be a ruptured pipe that would cost R500 to fix, it doesn't make sense to claim. The insurance company then tells me that the assessor deemed the car unsafe to drive and if we remove the car from the premises they'd cancel our policy. I reiterated that I'm not initiating a claim unless they can provide me with a better estimate of the damage. No joy.
Two days later they lost the car. It got towed to a panelbeater by the insurance company, but no one could tell us which one. After 3 days of struggling to get a manager to phone me back so we could find out where our car is, I decided enough is enough and cancelled our policy. I went to pick the car up at the panelbeater and the guy told me it's been sitting there for a couple of days and they were waiting for a claim to be initiated so they could start stripping it to see what needs to be fixed. I told the guy what happened and he was kind enough to offer to quickly check it out before we left. He couldn't find anything wrong with the car.
I booked the car in at the dealership we bought it at just to double check. They told us there's nothing wrong with the car and the fluid my wife saw was probably the runoff from the aircon as the outlet matches where she saw the leak.
Was this logged as a claim with my previous insurance and will it influence my future insurance quotes? The reason why I'm asking is that I received a marketing call from my previous insurer yesterday and decided to go through the quote process with them. The best quote they could give me was double my previous insurance premium with them and the call agent notified me that the incident was logged on their system as a claim and it's causing the premium to jump.
So how does a claim work? Is a claim logged only after I formally initiate a claim and pay the excess or is the insurer justified in claiming this was a claim, even if there was no damage to the car?
My wife had an incident last year where she drove over a piece of plastic on the highway and it got stuck underneath the car. She pulled off to the side of the road and removed it from underneath the car, but noticed some fluid leaking. We drove the car to an approved assessment centre and the assessor was beyond incompetent. I watched him as he struggled to figure out how the jack works and it was fairly obvious he had no idea what he was doing. He tuned us some story about stuff that got damaged and the car isn't safe to drive (after he spoke to his manager on the phone), but it was plain to see he was pulling that assessment out of his bum.
He told us we should initiate a claim. The excess was R4000. His assessment of the damage? R5000. A figure he pulled out after asking how much our excess is. I phoned the insurance and told them I don't feel comfortable claiming if their assessor can't give me even a ballpark figure of the damage. If it turns out to be a ruptured pipe that would cost R500 to fix, it doesn't make sense to claim. The insurance company then tells me that the assessor deemed the car unsafe to drive and if we remove the car from the premises they'd cancel our policy. I reiterated that I'm not initiating a claim unless they can provide me with a better estimate of the damage. No joy.
Two days later they lost the car. It got towed to a panelbeater by the insurance company, but no one could tell us which one. After 3 days of struggling to get a manager to phone me back so we could find out where our car is, I decided enough is enough and cancelled our policy. I went to pick the car up at the panelbeater and the guy told me it's been sitting there for a couple of days and they were waiting for a claim to be initiated so they could start stripping it to see what needs to be fixed. I told the guy what happened and he was kind enough to offer to quickly check it out before we left. He couldn't find anything wrong with the car.
I booked the car in at the dealership we bought it at just to double check. They told us there's nothing wrong with the car and the fluid my wife saw was probably the runoff from the aircon as the outlet matches where she saw the leak.
Was this logged as a claim with my previous insurance and will it influence my future insurance quotes? The reason why I'm asking is that I received a marketing call from my previous insurer yesterday and decided to go through the quote process with them. The best quote they could give me was double my previous insurance premium with them and the call agent notified me that the incident was logged on their system as a claim and it's causing the premium to jump.
So how does a claim work? Is a claim logged only after I formally initiate a claim and pay the excess or is the insurer justified in claiming this was a claim, even if there was no damage to the car?
