Beware when you do claim, not so good and proper

Background:

We bought an old wooden house, and the issuer of the bond expected 2 things, building insurance and a beetle inspection certificate.

The house has a bedouin stretch tent on top of the deck, with 3 points attached to the house.

The issue was that the building insurance was provided by Santam and my premiums have been paid to them for more than 2 years now. Nowhere did Santam expect anything from me, they did not send anybody to come and investigate the state of the house or highlight any potential issues when it comes to claim time, they are getting their money so it's all good.

The Incident:

We had strong winds last year, with one very strong gust of wind pulling the stretch tent anchor points at 2 places, pulling away the nutec board above the door as well as pulling the stud and the timber that holds the roof up out from underneath the roof trusses.

The Problem:

We submitted the claim with a builder coming out the next day, he spent less than 10 minutes at most, saw one thing, took photos and left. The claim was rejected because the wood the nutec was attached to is rotten according to the builder. That is anchor point one, he did not even consider anchor point 2 which is the larger more expensive damage under the roof, which could not be rotten because it is under a roof.

In the end, I had to get a contractor to open up everything and have a look at the state of the wood behind the nutec board and under the roof, and he reported that none of it was rotten, old, but not rotten due to water as was claimed by Santam.

How is it fair to not consider two separate parts of the claim, they just rejected the entire thing outright.

The biggest problem with all of this is that every possible future claim will now be met with the same result, it is easy to just write everything off now as water damage and throw legalese at me when I complain or go to the arbitrator.

Effectively rendering my home uninsurable and out of pocket over R70K