Death claim payout to beneficiaries on saving policy taking more than six month's

I contacted Momentum early June 2018 regarding a death claim on a savings product that has four beneficiaries. I was instructed to send claim forms for all four beneficiaries to **********

All necessary documents were sent on 25 and 29 June 2018. After submission of documents Momentum failed to make contact with me. I followed up on 20 and 30 July 2018 and again on 10 August 2018 without any success. Only receive a generic auto reply.

I searched for additional correspondence and forwarded the previous correspondence to ********** on 10 August 2018 to see if I will receive any reply from them.

On 15 November 2018 I phoned Momentum once again since I still haven’t received any feedback. I was instructed to send the documentation to ********** once again.

On 21 November 2018 I received an email indicating that we must complete an additional document and thereafter the funds will be transferred to the clients’ estate late account. I rep**** to this email requesting a reason why Momentum wants to deposit the funds into the estate late account as the policy has beneficiaries. The funds therefore need to be paid directly to the beneficiaries, not to the estate late account. I have not received any reply on my request for clarification.

10 January 2019 I received an email indicating Momentum closed the pay-out request since I have not submitted the documentation. I didn’t submit the newly requested documentation as I haven’t received clarification on why Momentum wants to pay funds to the estate late account.

After receipt of this last email I phoned Momentum once again and spoke to Frans le Roux. He suggested I contact management at claims department as he agrees since there are beneficiaries on the policy, it is supposed to be a simple procedure to pay out the funds to the four beneficiaries.

Frans transferred me to the claims department at roughly 15:40 on Thursday 10 January 2019. At 15:57 I was informed that management is on their way out (still there, but on their way out) and therefore cannot take my call. The lady I talked to asked whether the manager could phone me back the next morning. I asked her to rather give me his/her email address instead as I lost all confidence in Momentum. Apparently the manager who doesn’t want to take my call at 15:57 is Philemon Beckett. The line quality was bad, so I asked her to repeat the email address three times and read it back to her two times to confirm the email address is correct. I sent an email Thursday night. Wonder of all wonders I received an email failure notification the next morning...

I sincerely hope this message helps to draw Momentum’s attention. My family is on the brink of going to the Ombud and frankly I feel the same but said we must first use hellopeter as a last resort. I have always held Momentum in high regard, but the service we have received thus far is appalling to say the least. My grandfather had three other saving policies at Sanlam, Old Mutual and Liberty respectively. All three of them were finalised within 10 days. We are struggling with Momentum now for almost seven months.