Thinking of using BIDVEST scratch and dent cover ? Don't before your read this.

So Bidvest called me a few months ago and although I don't normally accept products over the phone from cold calling I thought I'd give the agent a chance to speak. The product and cover sounded very good, or maybe too good.

Jumping to the cleverly worded - Section 2 of the policy.

In a nutshell , what they are basically not telling you is that when you claim the assessment centre needs to make a note of all damage on the car past and present. So even though you are not claiming for an old scratch on your bumper you still need to let them quote you for it and provide pictures of all damage/s.

They then decline your claim on the basis that the damage on your car is more than your cover amount which is usually R2500 - R3500 per claim. You then argue that you are not claiming for the old damages and they tell you that you cannot select which repairs you want to make and therefore the total damage exceeds your claim amount. Haha very smart hey and all legal and binding. Clever wording and obviously left out by the sales person - deliberately.

So this means that the only person that can benefit from such a policy is someone with a brand new car who has one or two new dents and zero other scuff makes and then when they claim there is no other damage on the car. Yet they still sell this same policy to people with 5yr , 10yr old cars who most likely has some scars due to age of the vehicle.

The question is to how many people are they selling this policy and how many people use it immediately and follow their full very lengthy claims procedure and then end up paying Bidvest for a few months or more? They then very easily accept your cancellation without any objections because they already have your money and benefit more by not repairing your vehicles scratches and dents.

Mind you , there is a 3month exclusion period of 3months on the R99 package before you claim which means they already have R300 of your money. I tried claiming after 5months and was declined because I only wanted to fix two small little dents that happened over the Dec.2017 holidays. Now I realize that I could have just as well have fixed the dents myself with that money.

I just threw away R500 , I hope you don't make the same mistake with them - Bidvest (********)

So to Bidvest, well done and a round of applause, you have my money but I hope this post makes you lose money. All in all I don't lose because I have become wiser :D