Mr Nelendren Pillay

Complaint against Santam On the 31st of January 2021 , we had a electric storm at around 16h15 , due to the storm my front boundary wall fell down i was in my dinning room , heard a bang , could not go out the same time because the storm was very heavy , when it subsided , i look outside only to find the wall was brought down, due to the storm. The force of the storm water coming from the top to my house in the bottom forced the wall to collapse. My neighbors , friends and relatives came out to see the wall that fell, they all said the storm was so fierce that it also caused damage to some of their properties as well. Had one the contractors from Santam and he done a quote and also took pitches of the damaged wall and also saw what the storm had done to the wall. Phoned them on Sunday evening on the Santam number , they registered a claim and said that someone from the admin department will call me the next day. I waited till 10:00am and then i called the call center , was told that the claim is registered and they will get someone to call me back the same day , did not receive any calls , called them the next day which was Tuesday , told me they handed the claim to Louise , they will call me back , tried the entire week and no one come back to me , phoned back on the 08 February 2021 at 8.30am , lady said they had sent my claim to the assess and he will call me to give me a time that he is coming , he did not call , I was getting frustrated , called back and they asked me if he did not contact me as yet , i told them no , only to find out later they are mixed the first 2 numbers from my cell number , eventually , they sent me an email saying the assess will be coming at 15.30pm , the assess name is Calvin Mabaleka , he came in a arrogant attitude , looked at the wall and asked me what happened , i told him what has conspired and how the wall came down , he looked at the drainage system and said the water came from the top, then he said the roots of the palm trees caused the wall to break and not the storm water storm water , i told him firstly where the palm trees are the wall did not wall and that part of the wall is still standing. He went around and he said there after the wall was learning and it fell because it had cracks and that is wear and tear , then he said the roots of the plants caused the wall to fall. i eventually told him write your report and i went away , before he left i asked him when will i get a answer from the insurance company , he said they only sit on Thursday and make a decision and he said to me even if they pay for the wall , they would not pay a contractor to do the job , it might be settled on a non contractor settlement. i sent an email to my broker which is Hersford and told Marietha what had happened , she said i was supposed to have contacted them and they should of handle the claim , i told her when it happened , i was given the call center number and was told to report the case , because it was a emergency , because the wall also hit the water main , i closed the main and done a temporary repair so i can get water. Santam did not back that week to me , I was told by the broker that they was not going to pay the claim , she asked if they sent an email to me and i told her that , i did not receive any feed back. on Wednesday the 17 February 2021 , the broker from Hersford sends me an email saying Santam is not paying because of the roots of trees . i sent him an email explaining that to him that the trees had nothing to do with the wall , he asked me to send him some photos and i sent him photos of the wall. According to Hersford they have sent in another claim saying that the trees are not the cause of the wall falling . Mr Jerome Khan was asking me for pitchers of the wall before it was washed down from the storm , and also i must proof that the roots of the palm trees was not the cause of the wall coming down , i need to show them that i had the roots treated by a tree feller. i asked him who takes pitches of the wall before the storm and what does the tree feller has to do with the treating of the roots. Just for the record the palm tree roots grows down and does not spread outwards and the tree is away from the wall. i must prove all this, what qualification does the assess have to say that the roots caused the problem , i will prove to them beyond reasonable doubt that the tress had nothing to do with the falling of the wall , both palm tress are still there and that part of the wall is still up. The assess Calvin Mabalekeka ,does not approve much claims , he is there for the insurance company not to pay out, and also he approves claims for who he wants. there are insurance companies like Santam that will take your money on time , but will find away not to pay claims , Brokers and the online sales people will tell you that taking an insurance on the house structure will give you peace of mind to sleep at night , if something like this happens , but there are there only to take your money. Santam and the assess should be investigated. i would also like to know from other peoples experience if they had issues with Calvin Mabaleka , people need to speak up against *******ed companies like Santam. the company was supposed to have a neutral person with knowledge to do a fair assessment. and not some idiot with limited knowledge. i will not recommend anyone to use Santam , firstly they turn around time is disgusting , my wall is still down and they do not come back to clients. Just to set the record striaght