ABSA Building Insurance - Rejection of Claim

<p>On Thursday evening the 10th of November 2016 we experienced a massive storm that flooded a neighbours house and proceeded to demolish three boundary walls, two of them being our walls along with damaging on of our Wendy houses that contains a completed bath, toilet, basin, geyser unit.</p> <p> </p> <p>After submitting our claim (Claim number ********** ), a contractor was sent out to assess the damage, this gentleman was extremely unprofessional but he did mention that the boundary wall by law could only be a single brick wide and not higher than 1.8m high, the wall does run down a slope. I put in a complaint to both my broker who doesnt deal with the building insurance at all and she then in turn managed to get someone to contact me directly, and I also emailed a formal complaint to ABSA, but did not get a single reply, as expected. After my broker stepped in a lady by the name of Annetjie de Beer contacted me and promptly reassigned a new contractor to come out along with the Assessor, and this is where all our problems started. Annetjie has since been on leave and has not bothered answering any of my emails and is always on the phone when i do try to contact her since returning.</p> <p> </p> <p>The assessor on arrival, proceeded to tell us that he could see that the damage was due to flooding, but our wall should of been built as a retaining wall due to the sand build up and the fact that our neighbour had built his pool 2 metres from the wall, this wall was built at least 15 years ago if not longer, we live at the bottom of a hill, so sand building up against a wall is normal and especially after a massive flood. And the pool to me did not seem to be a issue.</p> <p> </p> <p>Our claim was then rejected on the principles that by law the wall should not be higher than 1.2 metres high, he measured it as 1.9 metres and should of been built as a retaining wall, I have never seen a boundary wall only 1.2 metres high, most of them are at least 1.8 metres high. The wall was not built according to regulations and was therefore of poor quality, keep in mind the house has been standing for 30 years and the wall most probably as well, and due to the wall being built before our policy start date, they would not be covering the damage, we bought this house 4 months ago, and a ABSA assessor came out to the house before the bond could be approved. The wendy house was not on a foundation although it was connected to a sewerage line, electricity and water, therefore the damage was not covered, my understanding with this is as soon as the wendy is on a foundation, it needs be part of the building plans otherwise as it is, it is legal.</p> <p> </p> <p>We were also FORCED to take the building insurance out with our home loan as to cancel it and look for another insurance company would of delayed our bond application, how pathetic is that.</p> <p> </p> <p>We have taken this matter to the insurance ombudsman, but one thing i do know is that ABSA will go out of their way to not cover any claims and will come up with with the most pathetic excuses to get away with ****** as such, and by the way, we have comprehensive cover, but this also means ********** <p> </p> <p>As soon as the ombudsman have finished with their investigation, we will be cancelling our insurance with ABSA, along with any other insurance, bank accounts, investments we have with this pathetic institution, I have heard good things about Outsurance and Discovery, so these will be my two options going forward.</p> <p> </p> <p>As a warning to everyone going forward, please do not support ABSA home loans or be coerced into taking out building insurance with them with your bonds, we are now completely sitting with no security with two walls that have fallen down and four propeties dogs running around, we have had to build a fence in the meantime which when asked to be refunded the cost of this, the consultants laughed. What a completely unprofessional service provider, because this is what they are, an *********** service provider.</p>