Lack of service, lack of responsibility and bad in communication

Claim number: ********** 57

The accident I had occurred on Thursday 24th August 2017 just after 1pm midday. A tourist from the Netherlands turned right off my path even though I was driving on Main Rd towards him. I stepped on the brakes but couldn’t avoid the collision. Luckily a police car and a tow truck drove two cars behind me and witnessed the accident. The Dutch man got out of the car and admitted guilt immediately. The police wrote in the accident report the following: “Driver of vehicle B (Dutch tourist) said he didn’t see vehicle A (me). As vehicle A was driving straight, vehicle B was turning right and driver of vehicle B accepted that he was at fault. As alleged by both parties.” When I called SANTAM from the accident scene the lady on the phone was absolutely great. She made me feel well covered and talked to the tow truck guy. For my information she sent me an email where my car was towed to because it didn’t drive anymore. First impression from SANTAM: Great response in an emergency situation! Dealing with the claim: Horrific. From one day after the accident (Friday) the service of went downhill. The next morning I’ve sent my ID, drivers licence, accident report number and a filled out claim form to SANTAM. Same day a few hours later some employee from SANTAM called he need the results of my blood test from the Police otherwise he cannot process my claim. No blood test was done. It wasn’t necessary. Clearly nobody from SANTAM pulled the AR or looked at my claim form where I described the accident. Monday: An external assessor called me to bring in my car for an assessment. Told him it doesn’t drive anymore and got towed. I had to forward him the email from SANTAM advising where my car was towed to. SANTAM did not inform him. Alan F. from the Coastal Region: Claims & Assessment Services, from SANTAM was very good. Helpful & proactive. After my car was officially written off he told me to send original Vehicle Registration Certificate to the SANTAM Drive in Centre in Tygervally. Due to the fact that I did not have a car I asked him if I could send it by registered Post. Alan assured me: “Not a problem.” The employees at the Tygervalley Drive in Centre disagreed with him. The Post informs SANTAM that there is a letter for collection at the Post Office. The SANTAM lady who dealt with my case told me I must get it from the Post in Tygerberg and bring it to them. They don’t collect it. Her statement at various times: “This is not my job”. You would expect that a company like SANTAM has a messenger who collects items from the Post office, but no. It was not her job and not her problem but she cannot process my claim until she got my original Vehicle Registration Certificate. After days finally they found somebody to collect the document and processed my claim. My claim consultant Ricardo W. never was up to date on what happened on my claim and whenever I spoke to him he always referred me to somebody else at another SANTAM department who at that stage were dealing with my claim. My car got paid out, but SANTAM kept my basic excess of R3 500.00 to claim it from the third party insurer, in case of the Dutch tourist, Bidvest. The Legal Officer Mndeni N. from the Specialist Claims Service is dealing with my case since 6th November 2017 and it is still not solved. End of December 2017 he told me, when I asked him for an update in this matter, to be patient because that it was a new matter. It wasn’t. The accident occurred end of August and he had taken the claim over, to that time, 7 weeks ago. January nothing. February nothing. In March I asked again. He was still waiting for the salvage invoice of my car from the car auctioneer to hand in the documents to the 3rd party insurer. One week later, two weeks later... nothing. Three weeks later, I doubted that my car had not yet been auctioned, I asked him for the contact details of the car auctioneer. His response, “he has now received the salvage invoice and is handing the matter to the 3rd party insurer”. It is 1st of June 2018 now. 9 months after the accident, and nearly 7 months since Mndeni N. is dealing with it and I am still awaiting an outcome if I am getting my basic excess of R 3500.00 back. The problem is that nobody cares at SANTAM. It is not their personal problem. Nobody feels responsible for your claim. That is their customer service. It is not their problem. The communication between the departments is hideous. I had to send nearly every department the same filled out form, my id or drivers licence. You would think that the first person who asks you for these documents uploads it into their database and link it to your case so that all other parties can pull them if needed, but no. They hassle you to send things over and over again. More than once I have heard: “This is not my job”. Everything which is not on their job duty description or on their checklist is not their job. There were other frustrating moments in this claim and it cost me a lot of airtime, time and nerves to deal with it. I have asked Mndeni N. for an update twice in the last weeks. No response. I thought this was such an easy case, guilt was clearly admitted. But nobody even looked at the accident report. Most likely it is not their job. So claim still pending. For me R3500.00 is a lot of money specially when my behaviour was correct and didn’t contribute to the accident. I lost my faith in car insurer. I cannot recommend SANTAM at all. Go somewhere else. The only positive when I needed it the most after the accident I felt covered. So thank you.

PS.: I wrote this complaint last Friday 1st June 2018 and wanted to give SANTAM the possibility to comment on my complaint, so I have sent on the same day the draft to them. On Monday 4th of June I received a response from an anonymous Customer service email address. First line: “God day, What is the query.” furthermore they then referred me to my claim consultant (Ricardo W.) who was copied in the email. I haven’t heard from him either. He was the one who referred me in Nov 2017 to Mndeni N.