DO NOT INSURE WITH DISCOVERY

I have had a dispute with Discovery for months now. They just do not get back to you and even senior managers like Viksha Rajkumar-Narraidu stated that she will get back to me the very next day, which was almost a week ago, but she never did. In fact when she said she will call me the next day I said to her that is the problem I have with Discovery, they say they will get back to you, but they never do. She then proceeded to guarantee me that she will call me. I am not surprised that I have still not heard from her.

DO NOT INSURE ANYTHING WITH DISCOVERY. They are great at giving you service when you enquire about taking out insurance with them, but as soon as you have a dispute, they ignore you for months. Now my son who is writing matric, is not just without transport because they wrote the motorbike off, there is also no chance of us getting him transport as they have not paid us out or settled our dispute.

My son had his first accident with his motorbike on 28 July 2018. When the assessment was done, Discovery wrote the motorbike off as the costs to repair would be more than the value of the bike. The bike was just over a year old with about 3000km on the clock. It was in mint condition as my son is a careful rider. There was not much wrong with the bike, but they told us it is too costly to repair. Then we got the offer of settlement. It was over 20% less than what we bought it for. I disputed it, stating that they need to look at the circumstances here and not just go strictly according to their system.

The circumstances are that the bike only had 3000km on the clock. It was in mint condition. I have called every single Yamaha dealer in South Africa to see if I could purchase a bike that is in mint condition and only 3000km on the clock for the R 18,800 they offered me and all of them point blank declined. They explained that this type of bike retails for nothing less than R 20,000 if it is in mint condition with 3000km on the clock.

Secondly when I insured the bike I insured it for R 25,900 Discovery advised me to insure it for. How do they justify that when I am paying the premium I need to pay as if the value of the bike is R 25,900, but when I claim, suddenly the value is only R 18,800.

There is no logic in what they are doing. I called on 2 October to also drop the value of my vehicles and I was told that they cannot drop the value as my vehicles are insured according to their retail value and if I want retail value I need to ensure that it is insured for the amounts they stipulate. Now I cannot help but wonder what will happen if one of these vehicles are written off....... Will I once again get more than 20% less than retail value when they have to pay me out????

But the worst thing is that when there is a dispute there is not one person that you can talk it over with as the call centre just read off a script and management seems to be paid NOT to speak to their customers.

So if you want to be insured by a company that treats you like a number, please go ahead and insure with them, but if not, stay away from Discovery. They just want your premiums and they have no interest of building a relationship with their customers.