Be afraid, very afraid of 'chips and dents' policies.

I have been a client of DialDirect - specifically their 'Dents and scratches policy'. During this time I have had only one claim. This month I decided to lodge a claim for a number of small chips that had become evident to me. I sent in the pictures as requested, and to my horror I received a call and an email stating quite bluntly that my claim had been rejected as it exceed 'double my insured value'. This is part of the T's and C's.

However what is quite incredible is that the amount quoted by DialDirects' 'approved repairer' was R10 100 - R100 above the qualifying limit. Being an insurer who claims to have my interests at heart surely a second quote could have been obtained which may have been in my favour (by R100!!) Prior to approaching DialDirect I received a quote for the same repair work of R8 500 by a reputable panel beater in my area (he did not refer to photos, but did a physical appraisal! (Regrettably this panel beater also resprays panels rather than attending to basic chip repairs!)

I was led to a dispute resolution form on DialDirect's site which I duly submitted. According to the site I would receive feedback within 24 hours - alas not! A long time ago I was caution by a number of friends and Panel Beaters that these kinds of policies are not worth the amount one pays, and claiming is a nightmare. I sadly disregarded them. My waste of money policy costs be R501 per month and covers my vehicle (kind of) for R5000 per claim. Clearly if I had put my R510 in a holding account, every 10 months I'd have enough to fix minor chips!

My caution to everyone is be very careful when taking out such a policy with any insurer. Seems the only winner is the insurance company, in my experiential opinion!

It seems instead of attending to the individual chips, panel beaters choose to respray entire panels. This results in one's vehicle being out commission for many days at a time.

So I wait (hopefully not in vain) for my insurer to 'be there for me!