MiWay taking advantage of #KZNFlood Claims by choosing to pay cash so they can pay less

I am insured with MiWay for building insurance and during the 11th April 2022 floods in KwaZulu Natal our house was affected.

The whole back yard was damaged and collapsed and damaged the fencing. I lodged the claim with MiWay who then sent an independent assessor to come and assess the damage. Was then told upon receipt of the report from the assessor, the insurance will finalise the claim. Then another assessor from MiWay gave me a call to come and assess the damage and also check the impact to the property and see if it is safe to stay in it.

The assessor declared the property safe to live in.

Then another assessor from MiWay was sent to the property to come and take further pictures.

The Claims Technician then called me to provide a copy of building plans, which I responded that I do not have as those were never requested from me in the past. Then my claim was finalised.

MiWay settled my claim at R30,291.59 less R2,000 excess.

An agreement of loss was sent to me for my approval, I signed it and returned it back to MiWay for payment.

Money was deposited into my account, then I started looking for local service providers to do the repair work as per the instruction from the insurer that repairs must be done according structural engineer specifications.

Upon receipt of quotations, I was shocked to learn that the repairs can actually cost anything between R250,000 to R450,000 depending on the engineers structural design (which cannot be specific until is paid for services).

I immediately approached MiWay to ask how can short change me by settling at R30,000 when the actual job is costing up to R450,000 and that is when I realised that putting my trust on MiWay, that because they have sent so many assessors, the R30,000 was a realistic figure was actually a thing I was not supposed to do because MiWay never had my interest in settling this claim.

I brought to MiWay’s attention that I am disputing the claim because as per page 7 of the schedule I am covered for Movement of ground/landslip with no exceptions whatsoever.

MiWay has so far disallowed my dispute and are not responding to my main points.

However, I see MiWay not being fair in this situation as they are saying I am not covered, yet they paid R30,000 which is not enough. I find it strange that MiWay is just giving away R30,000 to someone who is not covered for the claim. I feel my way is robbing me and running away from paying the real value of the claim.

Further, after the claim was settled MiWay wrote me a letter to ask me to minimise claims, which really confirms that MiWay did not pay in full for this claim in purpose because I cannot understand why are they connecting 3 different situation claims (TV, Geyser and this one) to threaten me that I am claiming too much.

Since then I have been asking MiWay to either: 1. Send their own contractor on site to come and do the repairs as per their specifications/ requirements and I will gladly transfer the R30,000 they gave ne to that contractor because their settlement amount must have been based to certain quotations 2. Failure to do 1 above, MiWay must pay the real value of the claim which is up to R450,000 depending on the design by a structural engineer.