Claim rejected in repairing our boundary wall that was bought with the house

Claim - [CL***] Dear SA Homeloans Your letter of rejection to our claim for the repair of the boundary wall has no reference, We do not agree with your letter and our reasons are below We find your rejection of our claim to be baffling particularly when you have been deducting the insurance premiums on a house that had the same boundary wall that you today find not to be complying with the building regulations. As the current owners of the house, we purchased the property with the boundary wall that has now collapsed. There are no alterations nor adjustments that were done to the wall since the house was purchased and therefore there was no way for any person to know that the wall was built without complying to the specifications you now mention. Kindly explain to us how we were to know that the walls of the house do not meet the specifications? Were we expected to demolish each wall to ascertain this before purchasing the house? What exactly is your responsibility as the insurer because you also never picked this up until the wall collapsed. Were you not suppose to pick this up when you performed the assessment on the house? Today you want to school us on the building requirements yet when we bought the house, when you approved the bond, you never mentioned this issue. It is our view that you have a responsibility of fixing that wall because it has collapsed and we could not have reasonable known the technical requirement that you have mentioned as reasons of rejection at the time of purchasing the house. You should have picked up these facts that you now raise at the time of assessing the property particularly when your letter seem to suggest that some of the technical requirements could have been visible at observation. Please also explain how is it possible that your expert that assessed the house before bond approval, purchase and occupation did not pick up that the boundary wall does not comply? Your reasons for rejecting our claim do not make sense particularly because we purchase the house with that wall and no alterations have been done on the wall. You should have refused to insure this house or approve the bond based on the same reasons that you today decide to use to reject our claim. You sent an expert to assess the house and none of these issues were picked up but today you find it convenient to reject the claim on issues that you could have turned down bond approval on. We did not buy the house with a defective wall to be fixed, we bought the house that complies with all building regulations hence you approved the bond.

From: Bhavish Ramlal <***> Date: 31 March 2021 at 14:47:52 SAST To: *** Subject: Claim - [CL***]

Dear Mr. Ramawa & Miss Moeng

I trust that you are well.

Kindly find attached the rejection letter for your perusal. Please be advised that should you not agree with the contents of the rejection letter you will have to appeal the claim.

I wish to confirm that as part of the appeal process you would have to obtain the services of your contractor at your own cost. Note that the contractor needs to be a qualified building contractor or structural engineer. He will subsequently provide you with his expert opinion regarding the loss and in turn, you may then supply us with the information accordingly.

I do request that as soon as you have obtained the relevant report that I will be able to revert to management and a decision will then be taken.

Also, I wish to refer you to the policy wording on page 10 accordingly,

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

6. PRESCRIPTION

6.2. If we repudiate a claim, you have 90 days from the date of repudiation to appeal to us in writing.

6.3. You further have a period of not less than 6 months, after the expiry of the period referred to in point 6.2 to institute legal action against us or to refer the claim to the relevant Ombudsman for arbitration. If this is not done, we will no longer be liable in respect of the claim.

Should you not agree with our findings, you may approach the Ombudsman for Short Term Insurance for arbitration regarding the outcome of your claim.

I trust that you find the above in order.

Kind Regards

Bhavish

BHAVISH RAMLAL SAHL Insurance Claims Consultant T: +*** | F: +***9 | C: E: *** W: www.sahomeloans.com Download Vcard >>

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