Policy cancelled with NO prior notice

<p>My husband and I have been loyal Santam clients for many years and have only had good experiences…UNTIL NOW.</p> <p> </p> <p>Today he contacted Santam to change his payment method from stop order to debit order, as at the end of August he moved jobs.</p> <p> </p> <p>To his dismay, the consultant told him that his policy has been cancelled!! After he could not hold any longer for someone to provide him with answers, I contacted your Call Centre.</p> <p> </p> <p>The consultant told me that his policy was cancelled backdated from 1 September, due to him changing employers and because he did not provide an alternative payment method.</p> <p> </p> <p>I asked her, now when were we going to be informed of this cancellation?? She said, a POSTED Letter was generated to us on 22 September?? Almost a month after our policy has been cancelled!! How can you find this as an acceptable practise?</p> <p> </p> <p>Firstly, WHY were we not contacted via email, via telephone even an SMS would do (or through the VARIOUS other methods that are to our disposal in this technological age!) to let us know PRIOR to the time that we have X amount of days to provide a new payment method otherwise our policy would be “cancelled”. You think that a posted letter, AFTER THE FACT, is sufficient? We would roughly receive this letter in a week’s time where after our policy would have been lapsed for a whole month already!! Why don’t you make use of communication structures that are FASTER such as email/sms to let us know prior to the time??</p> <p> </p> <p>Secondly, your consultant informed us that the policy cannot be reinstated, but that we need to provide our bank details and a new policy will be issued. This is not an acceptable solution for us. We do not want a new policy, we want our old policy with the same benefits to be reinstated. As our policy was just cancelled without prior notice via a courtesy email/sms/phone call. </p> <p> </p> <p>I am certain you are aware of the TCF Outcomes and I wish to refer you specifically to Outcome 3 - Consumers are provided with clear information and kept appropriately informed before, during and after the point of sale. There was no keeping us informed or notifying us of the payment method required. This has an extremely negative impact on us as we have our home contents, home structure and car insurance all on this policy. What if something had happened to any of these insured items during this month? </p> <p> </p> <p>We expect that this be treated with the necessary urgency and that you have an acceptable solution for us. As I mentioned before, we do not want a new policy, we want our policy to be reinstated. We would appreciate to be contacted by someone who can make a decision on this.</p> <p> </p>