"Income Protector Insurance" - Sanlam too slow, cannot protect income in a timely manner

To follow up, here is where we stand at the end of 15 September 2025:

1. Leroy called me back on the 3rd of September and explained that Sanlam was still awaiting some feedback from the doctors, gave me a reference number
2. By Friday the 5th of September Sanlam had received the needed reports from both doctors, even though Sanlam had only paid the one doctor's invoice thus far (the one doctor graciously sent the report without the invoice being paid yet by Sanlam, in order to expediate the claims process)
3. Leroy said that Sanlam would need 3 business days once the documentation had been received to finalize the claim. On Friday the 12th of September (after 5 business days had passed; more than the needed 3) I attempted to call Leroy on the number he gave me - I gave up after 32 failed connection attempts to get through and talk to Leroy
4. I then called the Sanlam call center and finally got through after waiting 25 mins for a consultant to take my call
5. The consultant told me that the claim would be finalized on Friday 12 Sept or on Monday 15 Sept at the latest
6. We are now at the end of Monday 15 Sept - and I have not received any type of update from Sanlam as to the progress of my claim; not an SMS; not any Email, not even a smoke signal
7. Now I will HAVE to call Sanlam back again tomorrow and wait for 25 mins AGAIN to get through - I will call the call center again, since I was never able to get ahold of Leroy ever again

I have to say I'm shocked - one only expects this type of treatment from government, not private industry. No other company I am a customer of have ever made me wait for 25 mins to get through to an agent to assist me! And other companies have made sure to keep me up to date with the claims process; yet Sanlam lack any type of communications to their clients about the progress of claims!

Thank you - I have received the confirmation email that the claim has been approved; hopefully it does not take another month again for this part of the process to be concluded as well

As of the 20th of September, I can confirm the claim has now been settled and the process has come to a close. I appreciate that due diligence had to be done which also delayed the process; however I believe that process can be handled in a more timely manner.
My surgeon was delaying the process, because we was too busy to fill in the 2 pages on the claim form that must be filled in by the surgeon. Finally, all documentation was filled in and submitted on the 19th of August 2025
And finally, the process concluded on the 20th of September (claim honored and payout made)

Between 19 Aug 2025 and 20 Sept 2025 - there are 32 calendar days; of which 24 were business days - meaning that this claim took more than a month to be concluded once Sanlam had received all necessary documentation from myself and my surgeon. Sanlam chose to handle the process in the manner in which it did - therefore Sanlam caused this process to take this long to be concluded.

I'll definitely be placing the performance of this product under review when I meet with my financial advisor to decide whether it's worth keeping this product in my portfolio going forward or not; as I definitely do not want a repeat of this drawn out process should I need to rely on this product again in future