A nightmare service from Santam

Since my claim (***) that was registered on 11 June 2023 for a Collision/Whilst insured vehicle was driven accident I’ve been lenient and patient enough, as a Santam insurance client I find the service that I have received to be disappointing, unacceptable, horrific, undervaluing and unprofessional to say the least. Having not received no professional or appropriate assistance from the service that was promised to me upon taking out my insurance policy which is state in black and white. I had to be the one making contact with both the appointed claim service consultants for my vehicle and third party vehicle, where I had failed getting ahold of both consultants on numerous telephone call attempts going as far as leaving a message for both of them to kindly contact me back.

One of the claims service consultant by the name of Tsholo Kgwadi who is responsible for my vehicle eventually contacted me after I had sent through an email on 14/07/2023 expressing my frustration with how my claim is being handled since it’s been a month now of not receiving any response from her or any formal updates regarding my claim, where she had informed me that she was on leave. Now that had me questioning myself about the kind of business Santam operates where one person inhibits the business from it’s operations, having their client wait and she told me that they have appointed an internal assessor to go check out the vehicles starring rack and other damages than after she would be able to get back to me and inform me if my car would be fixable or not, where she told it would take a couple of days for her to get back to me, I than enquired to Tsholo about my third party liability and she informed me about a lady by the name of Thembi Vilakazi that is responsible for my “TPL” cover who I had contacted and Thembi advised me to send to her the third party liability details via email which I did, and she had said nothing further to what would go about afterwards. Due to the fact that the process of my claim was delayed and being prolonged the “TPL” gentleman opted to go ahead to his trusted panel-beater (Ascot Motors) to get his vehicle damage fixed, since it is his source of income that puts food on the table for him as he is a public transportation driver (taxi driver) and I was slapped with the quotation from the panel beater (Ascot Motors) which I had attached to my email to Tsholo also being made aware that the car is already queued for repairs. Today I contacted Tsholo to find out the latest update regarding my claim and she told she is yet to contact the assessor appointed to find out what the findings from the damages of my car were and as soon as she has made contact with the gentleman she will contact me back.

I then kindly asked her to transfer my call to Thembi since she has not made any further contact with me, after I had sent her the relevant information she had requested from me. She told me a gentleman by the name of Mr Clive Mashawu who is now the appointed claim service consultant, asked her to provide me Mr Mashawu contact number for me to call him and find out from him what the status of my TPL was. Where I had failed to reach him on a phone call on a number of attempts today, I had then asked my partner (Terry Wallace) to call again on my behalf and a gentleman who said can be of assistance on behalf of Mr Mashawu in regards to what she was calling for. Where she was met with a very rude, disrespectful, distasteful and unprofessional attitude after she had questioned him if there would have been any email sent to me (Mr S Ngunuza) if she wouldn’t have made the call to enquire about the latest update and his response was uncalled, irrelevant and plain out unreasonable. As a an upset and frustrated client having to be passed on from this person to another like a ball with no direction or clarification of what the next step would be or when the turn around time is regarding my claim.

For me this has to be the worst kind of poor, disgusting, rude and disappointing service I have encountered from Santam who I pay on a monthly basis with no issue whatsoever. I will not tolerate nor accept this kind of service and behaviour from the very same company that I have trusted with my car insurance cover, therefore I will fight this matter with everything I have by including my lawyer and exposing Santam on all social media platforms and newspaper houses for the bad experience I have endured in the manner of how my claim has been handled.

my personal number *** or my alternative number *** for any further information.