Poor response and handling of claims

Hi There. Below is an email that I have sent to *** regarding my latest experience with them. This was sent on the 28th of April 2022. I followed up on the 5th of May 2022. still o response. I then followed up again today the 18th of May 2022.

"Please can you look into this and advise as I feel the entire process was not carried out correctly and I am not happy with the way this was dealt with as well as the settlement amount paid.

My name is Tharushen Naidoo OT***1 Claim number: ***

I reported a vehicle accident on the 17th of April 2022. I then did a virtual online assessment as there was no assessor available to come out and view the vehicle physically. I have a problem with that process as pictures don't give the correct information at times especially for looking at damages.

I took my vehicle to an independent panel beater being Discount Autobody to get a quote to compare to that of Outsurance. I then get an email on the 20th of April which says that a claim was approved for R13005.24 including the excess I need to pay of R4890. I then queried this as the quote that I got from the Discount Autobody was R58072.93 That's a R45K difference between Outsurances assessor versus the panel beater. Upon querying this approved claim, I still sent the independent panel beaters detailed quote to outsurance to show them what was quoted for and requested the quote of R13K from the assessor which I never received yet.

I then called for a follow up on this only to be told that the assessor is still working on it. Without any other comms, I get a call from West Rand Honeydew(Dent Doctor), an approved repairer of Outsurance on the 26th of April saying that they received the job card from Outsurance to do the work on my vehicle which I was not aware of which amounts to R50 784.20.

From what I was told, the quote from Discount Autobody was discussed with Ryan from Discount Autobody in detail by the assessor. The assessor also told Ryan that I will be taking my car to him to get sorted out only to find out that, all the information was sent to Dent doctor to quote which is a legal issue on its own as Dent doctor never see my vehicle but got the jobcard to do the work based on the quote and details from Discount Autobody.

I then got an email saying that the claim was approved for the R50784.20 which is the amount quoted by Dent doctor after excess that needs to be paid by me even after telling the claims department that I want to go with Discount Autobodies quote. The lady then told me today the 28th of April 2022 that because Discount Autobody is not on Outsurances approved repairer list, they can only pay me out the R50784.20 and not the R58072.93 and I need to pay the balance which is extremely unfair.

I just want my vehicle repaired properly and that was the reason for going independently and the way in which this was handled from the start with the assessor has so many issues and flaws. I even told the lady from the claims department that I will also be considering changing insurers due to the way this has been handled. This was not professional at all and this is by no means a threat to anyone. I had no issues in the past but I'm extremely unhappy about this experience "

I still haven't had a response despite following up.

I just want to be compensated the full amount quoted by the independent panel beater so that i don't have to fork out money from my own pocket because that is what we pay insurance companies for, to take care of these situations but in turn i need to fork out additional cash for the repairs. So it does not matter if you go to an independent panel beater that you trust to get your own car repaired the way you want it to, it feels like you are held ransom to what the insurance company dictates and who is on their repairer list and if you don't like it, then that's just too bad.