Beware of Discovery Insure - the promises and perks are great, but the service is absolutely non-existent,

I would like to start this review by stating that I love the Discovery brand. I have been a loyal Discovery Medical client for many years, without any problems, and hoped that I would have the same experience with Discovery Insure.

Unfortunately, I can honestly say, my experiences with Discovery Insure has been less than ideal, and I have to conclude that Discovery Insure is, without a doubt, one of the worst service providers I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with.

I was required to submit four claims with Discovery Insure during the year of 2022, and none of the claims were resolved in a satisfactory or expedient manner.

The first claim was for accidental damage to a building, where a window was broken. Discovery took so long to respond to the claim, that I cancelled the claim and simply repaired the broken window at my own expense.

The remaining three claims, were for vehicle collisions that I was involved in. In the first two, it took Discovery Insure well over a month to finally resolve the claims and repair my vehicle.

The fourth claim, also for a vehicle collision, has still not been resolved, and I doubt that it will be resolved anytime soon, since Discovery Insure does not seem to care about its clients or believe that it is in any way necessary to respond to their queries.

Herewith is my recount of the fourth claim, which has, after a whole month, still not been finalised, and my description of Discovery Insure’s absolute failure to finalise the matter in an efficient and timely manner which indicates a willingness to address its clients’ needs:

On 8 December 2022, I was involved in a vehicle collision, where a vehicle rear-ended me. On 9 December 2022, I reported the matter to the SAPS, and then lodged a claim with Discovery Insure.

At 11:01 on Friday 9 December 2022, I received an email from Discovery Insure that my claim was logged and would be handled by Nqobile Mthethwa. I took this as a good sign, but unfortunately it was not.

11 days later, on 20 December 2022, at 07:07, I received an email that an assessor was finally appointed to assess the vehicle. By this time, I expected the claim to be fully resolved.

16 days after this, on 5 January 2023, at 23:04, I received an email informing me that the vehicle was declared a write off. This is, what, 27 days after the collision? And the claim still was not finalised. This mail informed me that certain documents were needed to finalise the claim. I forwarded some of the required documents, and on 7 January 2023, at 10:29, I was informed that the claim was authorised. On Sunday 8 January 2023, I forwarded the final scanned document, at 15:12, and expected Discovery Insure to make arrangement for a courier to collect the original documents from me.

On Monday, 9 January 2023, at 202:21, I sent an email to Nqobile Mthethwa, asking when arrangement would be made for the documents to be collected, as I had by then still received no response from Discovery Insure. To date I have received no response from Nqobile or Discovery Insure to this mail.

Due to the lack of response from Nqobile and Discovery Insure, I phoned the Discovery Helpline, ***, on Wednesday 11 January 2023 at 11:17, (a call which lasted me 9 minutes and 15 seconds). I was informed by the consultant that a courier would be arranged and contact me to arrange collection of the documents.

Of the writing of this review, Thursday 12 January 2023, 22:44, no courier has contacted me to arrange collection of the documents.

More than a month after submitting my claim, it still has not been finalised, and it seems that Discovery Insure has no interest in finalising the claim.

I urgently need to purchase a new vehicle and require my pay out from Discovery Insure to put down as a deposit. But it seems Discovery Insure has absolutely zero regard for me and my immediate needs and couldn’t be bothered to help me in my time of need.

I was without a car as of the evening of 8 December 2022, but being without a car does not mean that I do not have any need of transport.

Since I did not have a vehicle at my disposal, I was required to make use of Uber.

Since 9 December 2022, I have undertaken the following trips with Uber:

09 12 2022 134.10 10 12 2022 114.30 10 12 2022 98.10 11 12 2022 112.50 11 12 2022 109.80 12 12 2022 95.40 13 12 2022 73.80 13 12 2022 73.80 14 12 2022 72.90 14 12 2022 65.70 15 12 2022 119.70 16 12 2022 113.40 16 12 2022 81.00 17 12 2022 81.00 17 12 2022 81.00 18 12 2022 105.00 18 12 2022 107.00 18 12 2022 121.00 20 12 2022 58.00 20 12 2022 56.00 21 12 2022 32.00 21 12 2022 113.00 21 12 2022 108.00 22 12 2022 49.00 22 12 2022 47.00 23 12 2022 102.00 24 12 2022 151.00 25 12 2022 129.00 26 12 2022 123.00 26 12 2022 103.00 27 12 2022 218.00 27 12 2022 98.00 27 12 2022 98.00 28 12 2022 91.00 28 12 2022 99.00 30 12 2022 43.00 30 12 2022 110.00 01 01 2023 116.10 01 01 2023 98.10 02 01 2023 139.50 02 01 2023 93.60 03 01 2023 139.50 03 01 2023 90.00 04 01 2023 104.40 04 01 2023 37.80 04 01 2023 103.50 05 01 2023 118.80 05 01 2023 90.00 06 01 2023 104.40 06 01 2023 92.70 07 01 2023 94.50 07 01 2023 90.90 08 01 2023 116.00 08 01 2023 98.00 10 01 2023 107.00 10 01 2023 112.00 11 01 2023 78.00 11 01 2023 75.00 12 01 2023 87.00 12 01 2023 90.00 5,864.30

As can be seen, due to Discovery Insure’s failure to act efficiently and resolve my claim in a timely manner, I have been forced to spend almost R 6,000.00 on Uber. This is ridiculous and scandalous from a brand that claims to care about its clients and about how quickly it resolves claims.

My experience thus far indicates that I have no reason to believe that anyone from Discovery Insure would even bother to read this review or take any action on it. If Discovery Insure does care about its reputation and clients, I have no doubt that Discovery Insure would act quickly to finalise my claim and refund me every cent I’ve had to spend on Uber due to their inefficiency, incompetence, and delay in finalising my claim.

What I’ve spent in Uber fees in over the month of Discovery Insure not finalising my claim, could rather have been used as a deposit with a new vehicle which I would’ve insured with Discovery Insure, but after four horrid claim attempts with Discovery Insure, I doubt I’ll be insuring with them for much longer.

All I want is for Discovery Insure to cooperate and finalise my claim. This is not an unreasonable expectation, especially after more than a month of uncer*****y.

Beware of Discovery Insure - the promises and perks are great, but the service is absolutely non-existent,