poor service / workmanship

Bad overall service. I struggle to get a response either email/calls from my broker. As a result I end up having to contact the claims manager and claims administrator services, who are not always informed on the status of a claim/policy query. In 2018 when I needed to get insurance for my car, they did not provide a quote on time and I had to take ownership of my car using outsurance. My wife also had to change insurers when her insurer was about to close and they provided a quote very late. My broker has not called me even when I ask to be called and specify availability. The claims administrator operates in Cape Town and tends to assign jobs to contractors that are in Krugersdorp or Alberton which are both far and would result in the contractors facing JHB traffic causing significant delays. My recent experience was also poor where in June 2021 we had a third party crash into our palisade fence. It happened at around 3:30 pm. Momentum want me to settle. I called the call centre at about 16:40 and kept on getting transferred between Alex Forbes and Momentum teams with neither being able to initiate a claim before the call centre closes. I found out later that they still had some niggling issues after my policy was bought over from Alexander Forbes, even to this day you call the call centre to follow up and you would be transferred between the two systems/teams. I emailed my broker at momentum Adele Snyman and was only able to call the next day to log the claim. I have an issue with the assessment of the damage. I was told that an assessor would check the damage and the claim would be initiated. It seems that the only assessment that was done was by myself and Eagle Automation. I was not happy because only the part of the fence that I photographed was repaired by the insurer and that it would also be different to the existing palisade fence. They did not look at the brick municipal structure or the remainder of the fence which was quite near to the car. The municipal structure is leaning and eagle used it to support the fence which concerns me (I asked momentumif its legal to build on a municipal structure that is leaning). Momentum appointed Eagle Automation who were not professional. They came quite late and wanted to build the palisades on my grass in my backyard. The workmanship was poor and I complained. Only later I found out that their owner was sick and the qualified craftsmen were all on training. This was used as an excuse but the insurer were still allocating more work to the contractor during this time. Examples of poor workmanship include: pedestrian gate is *****ed and with a push of a finger one could open it, poles were *****ed, no primer was used, cement was not mixed correctly & crumbling. After complaining they sent a contractor to assess the workmanship. He looked at both the part that I paid for and the part the insurer paid for. He said he would send a report of issues to the insurer, the claims administrator said that they would send someone to check the follow up work to correct issues was satisfactory and only release payment once I was happy and the final assessment was favorable. I requested the report of issues that were wrong and did not get it. Eagle came back to fix up the issues. They asked me what my concerns were I said they need to consult the report, they said they not looking at that. I told Helen Mackay about this via email and called the claims admin team about it and nothing was done. This is a key point where if action was taken a lot of the errors would not have persosted. They kept on working and did what they thought was right. They send Helen a few pictures and payment was made. These pictures included a few poles that were *****ed which is disappointing. I had not said that I was happy with the repairs and the assessor did not come to assess the work. I complained about this and the team sent another assessor to look at the work done and they sent an assessor to look at the work in Jan 2023, I expected a report on what was wrong but got an invoice which was based on the 2021 prices and excluded primer and workmanship for applying primer. It excluded work to be done on the part of the fence that I paid off and any repairs to the brick municipal brick structure. The Assessor stated that the brick structure is leaning because of water flow. This does not make sense to me because it was built on a rockbed. The pole next to it was planted in the rock bed initially and when removed, Eagle Automation could not make another hole to plant it again and mounted it solely on the brick wall. I queried these (including inflation and primer / labour) and have not got responses. I asked if it is legal to build on the municipal structure and have not received a response from Momentum. Part of the the errors made by Eagle Automation was not insulating the wires for the gate motor (which moved position as part of the repairs) and they also damaged the gate isolator box, this resulted in my a short when water touched the area where the motor used to be. When I called Momentum about this issue they initiated a new claim and sent someone to look at it. The contractor came after a long time at which point the water had dried up and he could not find the fault. The contractor replaced the gate motor (this was still working). A few months later the rain came and as the wires remained uninsulated the water caused my DB board to trip. I called the insurer to say the same issue is occurring. They sent the same contractor who was defensive of his work saying his job is only from the motor and not before the motor. He looked at the isolator box which did not switch anymore and found that the box had been broken by Eagle Automation and that it wires were just pushed into the box and now fastened using the *****s. Behind the box Eagle Automation had not painted nor had they He did some tests and reported back to the insurer. The insurer said that they cannot help me anymore. I asked a few times why and they said that the contractor stated that my db board was not working. This made no sense as the contractor had not looked at my DB board. Furthermore there was no note on the isolator box not working, the wiring not being fasted or the rust on the back to the insurer (I had insisted that the contractor highlight that point). The contractor came back took pictures and created a report for the insurer which took a month. After calling Helen Mackay weekly she finally got back and said that I would need to initiate a new claim pay an excess and it would only include repairing the wiring. She kept insisting that the workmanship of Eagle had a 1 year warrantee only, I keep telling her that the claim happed in Jun 2021 and was finished a few months after. The motor wiring failed in May 2022 which meant that it was under warrantee. We are currently stuck in this loop, i.e. we both agree that its under warrantee then she needs to confirm something then I call and she says its out of warrantee. I would also like to have the report compiled as it will help me confirm what was considered and would therefore assist in closing the claim.

Recommendations 1. Please can I have a refund of my excess from the claim in 10 June 2021 paid with interest as outsurance paid Momentum in full. It has taken Momentum so long to try and find out if they recouped it, I had called Outsurance and their legal department emailed the proof of payment in 20 minutes. Please refund the excess for the replacement of the gatemotor. I also want new batteries for my gate motor and garage doors which have not been able to connect since the incident. Please also replace the isolator box. Please add in the cost of primer and labour which was not added. 2. Please compensate me for the part of the palisade fence that I paid for. If not please explain to me why the fence was not replaced entirely as my understanding is that this is an indemnity policy to put me in the same position that I was in. If Eagle could not find palisades that matched mine, they should have replaced all. Some of the Palisades that I replaced out of pocket were bent after the accident. The same thing happened to someone in our area and Santam paid for the whole fence replacement. 3. I need to get hold of the assessors reports, Ideal security looked at the palisade (both the part that I paid for and the part that Momentum paid for) in 2022 and they looked at the gate motor in 2023. I would also like a detailed report of the assessment that was done in January 2023. The reason is if I get someone to do the repairs myself there is a risk that they miss what was discovered in the reports. If I get a payout I need to know what needs to be repaired. Outsurance said that they share the documents to their clients. I looked at my policy documents and it does not say that I cant received them 3. I requested that compensation should take account of inflation and asked for this when I received the acknowledgement of loss. But this was not actioned by Helen Mackay even after many months.