Not Treating Customers Fairly and milking premiums off poor customers!

We took out a funeral policy with this said company in May 2017 via face to face sale in Durban. Of which she came back in July and said that the ID number is incorrect, then resubmitted the application for October 1st inception. Little did we know that this was the begining of a never ending nightmare! We only received certificate of cover in May 2018 of which it was given to us by hand. Now it makes sense why that happened because the our postal address was captured incorrectly hence it could not be delivered to our address. In June unfortunately the insured passed away- and we called Ness offices on Saturday and got told that they work Monday to Friday. Came Monday we called to lodge a claim and we got told that the premiums were outstanding, upon checking the debit order date- it appeared that they captured the incorrect debit order date. The phone number for my husband who took out the policy was captured incorrectly! Hence they could not contact us in any way because the contact details were all wrong. We had no policy schedule on hand-onlt when the incident happened we realised all of this and we got told that there are premiums that were not paid. Well if they captured the correct debit order date in the 1st place that would have been sorted out. Later on we got told that the insured passed away 7 days before completing his waiting period! Of which took us back to the issue of saying that had the consultant explained in the 1st place that the policy's existence depended on the insured' s correct ID number further more they made us write a letter to request an ex gratia payment of the claim. A week later we received a call that we need to pay all outstanding premiums amounting to R 540.00 in order to bring the policy up to date of which we did on the very same day and sent proof of payment. We were then told that payment would be made....up until today- policy is still collecting premiums for and yet the deceased's claim hasn't been paid. I have called their offices in Durban several times and got told that they are awaiting for the head office in Johannesburg to pay out. Then later on we were told that we were going to get paid R 2000 on ex-gratia after paying all their premiums on a R10 000 policy! They do not return our calls, they do not communicate at all! And when we call them they always promise to call us back in 30 minutes time. No letter of offer has been sent, no communication whatsoever from Ness. They make us feel as if we are bothering them when we call through.

This has been an emotional draining exercise with this company and am begining to feel that this is how they always treat their customers! They have no sense of Treating Customers Fairly at all! To them it is all about making money out of the poor South African citizens that have no knowledge of the insurance industry and bully them into paying more during their time of grief.

The service from this company has been appalling from start to end and would like to warn every one out there to steer clear of this company!