Bidvest Scratch and Dent Policy a waste of time!

If you are looking for a scratch and dent policy don't even think of taking one out with Bidvest, they are a big bunch of ************.

My husband and I each took a policy out on our vehicles over a year ago because the sales person who spoke to us made it sound too good to be true, which of course it ended up being!

We already have comprehensive insurance but wanted to be able to fix minor dents and scratches on our vehicles without the huge excess and no claim bonus being affected.

The Bidvest consultant said we would be able to claim immediately and every month thereafter indefinitely up to the value of R3500 per month per claim. There was no mention of existing damage on the vehicle and we were told that we could select the damage that we wanted repaired, as long as it doesn't exceed R3500.

Over a year later and we decided to claim. By the way, they also increased the premium from R99 to R139 in January 2018, which is an absolutely ludicrous increase. We took a vehicle in for assessment for repairs to a dent in the back bumper and after 2 weeks got an email saying it had been rejected due to the claim exceeding the maximum indemnity amount of R3500.

When we queried this they said that they had seen from the photos another small dent in the left front fender and they requested the panel shop to revise their quotation to include these repairs.

They then sent a letter rejecting the claim and stating the following: "The above amounts are not cumulative. When the Vehicle is brought in for repairs under this policy you may not select to have repairs carried out on only certain damages on the motor Vehicle, as all damage to the Vehicle will be taken into account when calculating the total cost of repair. The total cost of repairs shall not exceed the Maximum Indemnity amount as shown below for each policy, which is inclusive of VAT."

So, unless you have a brand new car just out the showroom with no minor damage whatsoever, this is a useless policy, as they will only let you claim for one small dent or scratch. But if they find any other damage they will load the existing claim so that they don't have to honour it.

We've just wasted almost R3000 on these useless policies, don't make the same mistake... BTW, my claim number is B ********** 5831