Good insurance spoiled by poor customer service

Last year my mother made a claim regarding the repair of a vehicle that was handled very professionally by Santam (via Integrisure). The car was repaired to an excellent standard and the service was excellent. There was a co-payment, and due to the accident not being caused by my mother, I enquired on ways of getting my co-payment back. The other party, responsible for the fender-bender initially accepted responsibility, at first offering to pay the full amount and then backtracking to paying the co-payment. After the repair, Integrisure/Santam indicated that they can pursue the recovery of the co-payment amount, as part of their service offering. I gladly accepted this (via Santam Legal Claims Solutions). I engaged with them on the 4th of December 2025 and all was still running smoothly. They indicated 30-45 days for feedback. Quote from email: ‘The process will likely only churn substantive updates from mid-January as, once appointed, the external service provider requires 30 to 60 days to properly assess the matter and initiate recovery steps’. Needless to say, no feedback was received. After I had to repeatedly follow up (I have all the emails), no significant progress was indicated to me, so I do not even know if the process was started. I then really got inpatient in May 2026 and wrote to Santam Legal Services again, where I indicated my unhappiness with the 6 months that has now passed without any indication of progress. A certain Mr Gannon then took over, who took the very unconventional approach of, rather than de-escalating the situation, selecting to escalate the situation. Firstly he lectured me on the legal aspects (with the view of indicating that Santam did everything right and I did everything wrong and that my expectations were misplaced). I even posted the email to ChatGPT and got numerous pointers that the email is ‘stonewalling’, ‘defensive’, ‘closing ranks’, ‘invalidating the customer’. From ChatGPT: ‘The tone of this email is defensive, legalistic, and subtly adversarial, even though it attempts to sound professional and empathetic. It opens with acknowledgment (“we fully acknowledge your frustration”), but much of the message then shifts into explaining, justifying, correcting, and redirecting blame.’ After dressing me down in this condescending tone, he then provided me with the following feedback: a) the claim is so small that it is not really in their interest to pursue it. b) as I said, my expectations in terms of delivery was wrong. Yes, I may have misunderstood the 30-45 days for the feedback, but surely 6 months is not reasonable? c) indicating that they kept me up to date. Yes, after NO FEEDBACK and me following up every time, it is probably correct if that is what he means. d) indicating that this is a massively complex process that can take years. For R3000? Wow. In the end- I was never in this process informed that the recovery of the co-payment is this complex and that it can take so long. e) They have extremely limited options to assist me, and the whole mail creates a sense that this is not worth their while and that their hands are tied. Again, all news to me, and never explained in this detail. Needless to say, after this dressing down, I broke off contact with him, as he offered me zero options of progressing with anything. Should the facts have known to me from the beginning, I would have pursued this directly with the other party and in case of failure, pursued the matter with the small claims court. Given that more than six months have lapsed, it puts me in a bad position in terms of trying to recover it now via the small claims court. The dealings with the Santam Legal Claims Solutions department put a really bad taste in my mouth, and completely ruined the excellent service I received during the initial claim process. Rather than shifting blame to me and hitting me with lawyer’s talk and showing me that they did everything right, I would have appreciated a bit more customer care. I am not claiming to have done everything right, but surely a call or an 1:1 engagement to try and sort this out (after all, I diligently have paid my contributions for the past 4 years or more) would not be too much to ask? For less than two months of insurance payment, Santam Legal Claims Solutions chose the battleground rather than the customer service route. Not the finest hour in terms of customer care.