Third party claim

Hello Peter

On 06/05/2019 my wife Sarie Spekking was involved in a motor vehicle accident in Frikkie Meyer Blvd. in Vanderbijlpark. She was in the left hand lane and a little further away from her was a Mercedes Benz (a sedan)(vehicle C) in the right hand lane. Behind that vehicle, was a Mercedes Benz SUV (ML320)(vehicle A). The driver of this SUV wanted to overtake that Mercedes (vehicle C) in front of her. In the process, my wife’s vehicle (vehicle B) was hit by the SUV. The right rear door, right front door, right front fender, right hand headlight, right hand fog lamp and the front bumper was damaged. A statement was given by the driver of the SUV at the Vanderbijlpark police station.

The brief description of the accident reads as follows(Translated from Afrikaans):

Vehicle A wanted to overtake vehicle C from the right hand lane to the left hand lane. Vehicle B was in vehicle A’s blind spot. Vehicle B was hit by vehicle A as well as vehicle C.

Vehicle B swung around and came to a standstill in front of vehicle A. Both vehicles A & C were in the right hand lane and vehicle B was in the left hand lane.

Vehicle C possibly reduced speed.

The driver of the SUV said to my wife that she would get her insurance broker to handle the issue. After numerous calls and follow up e-mails we were eventually put in contact with the Oakhurst liabilities department. We had to submit documentation 3 times since the time of the accident.

We sent them 4 quotations. Park panel beaters Vanderbijlpark (uneconomical to repair), Alfa Trio panelbeaters Vereeniging (R66 682.20), DME AUTO BODY REPAIRS Vereeniging (R50 040.75) .

AEK Autobody CC Vereeniging (R42 689.92). Quote date: 23/05/2019

Quote no: 210

At long last Oakhurst made us an offer on 25/07/2019 for R12 953.15

I studied the offer calculations that was sent to me via e-mail and found that we have to cover 30% of their client’s damage, which we feel should be 0% (she was the cause of the accident and not my wife) and their client has to cover 70% of our damage which we feel should be 100%

Now the quotation they used is the quote from AEK Autobody CC, but although the quote has the same quote number (210) the prices for the parts have been tampered with, or without our consent, they obtained another quotation from AEK Autobody CC. I suspect that they put prices on for non-genuine parts. That quote is for the amount of R35 037.13. And furthermore their assessor decided that he/she is not happy with the cost of labour and strip and assemble and reduced that by an additional R2500.00 bringing the total amount before their offer calculations to R32 162.13.

Their client’s damage amounted to R31 867.13

We feel they came to an unfair conclusion on the amount they are offering.

Sarie & Johnny Spekking