Awful experience with Santam

We have had the most awful experience with Santam. Here are the facts: - Alberto and Javier bought a Land Rover Defender and we contacted Santam on 5 March to get an insurance policy (the car is in Alberto's name with Javier as an authorised driver). - This process was long and tedious (with Santam's consultants changing along the way) we received written confirmation of our insurance policy on 12 March (Policy no: ********** 2784) - Few days later we had a minor collision with a third party and submitted an Insurance Claim (ref no: ********** 40) on 19 March. - In the subsequemt days, the third party and us provided all the documentation fulfilling the endless requests from Santam (police reports, certified copies of some documents, an affidavit, pictures of the license disc, odometer reading, gear lever & all sides of the car; I still don't understand why some of these were required for just a minor collision on the front bonnet). Again, this process was more tedious than we expected and Santam's consultants changed along the way, which obliged us to re-explain the case a number of times. - After waiting one month for Santam to process the claim and provide instructions on how to proceed, on 20 April, Santam contacted THE THIRD PARTY indicating that Santam will not be liable for the repairs to your vehicle as the policy had been cancelled due to non-payment. Santam gave us (the policy holders!!!) no notice that the debit order had not gone through and directly contacted the third party without making prior contact to us. This is completely unacceptable and cost us a heated argument with the third party! - Upon review of the case and policy, we realised that Santam had incorrectly input the debit order details in the insurance policy (this had been clearly and corrected provided by us via email, in writing) and this was the reason that the debit order had not gone through. We contacted FNB (our bank) to confirm that this was the case and FNB also confirmed that no correct debit order had ever been received from Santam against this policy (funny enough, we had another car insured also with Santam against the same bank account and the last debit order successfully went through previous on the month, with the correct details). - We immediately contacted Santam on the same day to explain what had happened, offer to pay the policy via EFT, cash or debit order (After Santam corrected the details). We provided evidence of the writhen communications which included proof that the debit order bank details had been correctly provided and the insurance policy details incorrectly input by Santam. On 21 April Santam confirmed that our case was under review. - We have called Santam every working day from this date to today (2 May) and have explained the case to at least 4 or 5 different consultants, always requesting to speak to a manager in charge. This process has been extremely frustrating as every time we have to restart from the beginning and it seems we always get stuck in a loophole where our case needs to be reviewed upon the promise that we will receive a call back from one of the managers. To date, we are still waiting for a call from a manager. The last Case# was CAS-51828-Y1Y7P0.

Nearly 2 months have passed since we first submitted the insurance claim and we are still waiting for the car to be fixed. Even more scary, Santam has not yet acknowledged their mistake in writing (they have done it in multiple occasions over the phone) and our policy seems to still be in "cancelled" status.

We considered Santam one of the most reliable insurance providers in the country and have never had such a negative and frustrating experience as we have had with Santam with any insurance provider worldwide. We consider that this is unacceptable for Santam to treat their clients like this.

We urge Santam to contact us and solve this.