DISCOVERY INSURE NIGHTMARE CLAIM

One of my vehicles and my household goods are insured by Discovery Insure. On the 26th of April 2020 the said vehicle was damaged in a hail storm. I immediately submitted a claim using the Discovery App and this is where the nightmare started:

1. My claim was assigned to Olifile Majaka (Direct Claims Consultant – General Motor Claims), who contacted me several times to obtain details regarding my claim. Due to the national lockdown Olifile was working remotely and his connection was so bad that we could never have a telephone conversation. I offered to contact him directly on his cellphone in order to provide him with the required details, which he declined noting that they have to phone through their server in order to record the calls. This is somewhat understandable as not everyone is privileged enough to have decent internet access at their homes. We then opted to use email communication which went somewhat better although his response was poor.

2. Netassess was appointed to assess the damages, and they handled the situation superbly under the lockdown regulations. We tried to do the assessment through photographs but eventually gave up. They then sent an assessor to my residence on the 6th of May 2020 to assess the damage.

3. Olifile Majake from Discovery Insure contacted me on 19 May 2020 to discuss details of the claim. Unfortunately we had to revert to email correspondence for the same reason explained in 1 above. The email correspondence from Olifile was extremely poor as I would send detailed reports and questions wheras he would respond with one-liners raising more questions than providing answers. My claim was eventually approved on 1 July 2020 (66 days). This was already a red flag but I attributed the delays to the challenges associated with the national lockdown.

4. My vehicle was booked in with the panelbeaters (ARC Zambezi) on the 6th of July 2020 and they indicated that I will have my vehicle by the 17th of July 2020. They did not meet their own deadline and contacted me on 27th of July 2020 to collect the vehicle. I went to collect the vehicle on the 28th of July 2020 but decided not to take the vehicle as the repairs was not satisfactory. I requested the repairer to attend to the matter and they in turn engaged the assessor requesting more funds. The assessor apparently declined and the repairer requested me to take the matter up with my insurer.

4. Noting the difficulties experienced with the telephone calls I decided to send Olifile Majake a detailed report of the situation on the 18th of August 2020. I revived a read receipt but no response from Olifile Majake. I sent a followup email on 21 August 2020 and once again received a read receipt but no response from Olifile Majake. I sent another followup email on 25 August 2020 and to no surprise received a read receipt but no response from Olifile Majake. It was clear that Olifile Majake had no intention of responding to my emails and on the 27th of August 2020 I decided to contact the landline number displayed in the signature of Olifile's email. After 9 attempts the phone was eventually answered by non other than Olifile Majake. When I queried his lack of feedback he failed to provide any reason and only stated that he is awaiting information from the repairer. I requested him to send me the communication between him and the repairer which he agreed to do the same day. Guess what, he failed to send me the correspondence as agreed. On the 28th of August 2020 I tried to contact him again to followup on the matter. After numerous failed attempts to get hold of Olifile the phone was eventually answered by Silindile. I explained that I am awaiting feedback from Olifile and she said that he is on another call and cannot assist me at the moment. I explained the situation to Silindile and she eventually stated that she will not be able to assist as the claim is managed by Olifile. I explained that Olifile is not respondeing to my emails and Silindile stated that she will send him an internal email requesting him to contact me. I requested a copy of this email but Silindile declined noting that it is internal correspondence but she will copy Olifile's supervisor. To date (31 August 2020) I have not received feedback from Olifile. Again this morning at 5:00 am I sent a followup email to Olifile informing him that I am going to escalate the matter if I do not receive any response from him. My email was read at 07:26 and until now 19:00 I have not received any response.

It is now 126 days since the incident and the matter has not been resolved. I have also been without a vehicle for almost 2 months when I was informed that the repairs should be 2 weeks.

This is by far the worst service I have ever received from any insurance company and would strongly advise against dealing with Discovery Insure.

Anyone is welcome to contact me for more details as well as copies and recordings of all the emails and telephone calls mentioned in my review above.

Armand Basson