Terrible Service - Home Contents Claim

We had a ******* at our home on the 27th of November 2020. From beginning to end the claims process was a nightmare. Not only did we have to come to terms with the fact that our personal space was violated and that our home was unsafe, but it was a pillar to post situation with the claim all the way through, we provided our list of ****** items and proof of these items, which Santam is more than happy to take high premiums for-but when it came to settling the claim, they lowballed us with valuations, and we only got these late December... ridiculous. Also we were told that we wouldn’t receive a payment into our accounts, instead it would be paid onto a Santam card, which is nuts anyway, they shouldn’t be able to restrict how when and what you as victim choose to replace after a loss. We paid our premiums to insure what we had, if they don’t physically replace your items like for like - which would cost more by the way. Then the client should get the valuation payment and can choose what items to replace, when and where. It is not up to the insurer they already opted to pay out rather than replace. Because we wanted to finalize the claim and just get on with our lives, we decided to cut our losses on some of the lower valued items and agreed to almost all of their valuations at a personal loss, except for 1 item - a R24.5k laptop which they wanted to pay 5K for. Grossly undervalued.

When this valuation was disputed, the assessor wanted additional proof of ownership, we had already provided the serial number which verified the device, model number and price as well as the actual charging cable for the laptop which the ******* left behind!

To add insult to injury, instead of just getting the ball rolling and settling everything else in our claim by crediting the Santam Card with the agreed value - except for that 1 item, until the proof of ownership was satisfactory (we got a letter from the company it was purchased through but they only opened 11 January) -Santam delayed the entire claim payout!!!

That meant that I personally have gone without my laptop,tv, sound bar, camera equipment, watch & hard drives for almost 2 months, and have had to rent a laptop through Dec and Jan to be able to work, buy hard drives out of pocket and go without basics like a watch for 2 months. My mom has had to buy a replacement PC out of pocket because she needed to work as well, the claim Payment has apparently been made at the beginning of the week but the funds are not reflecting and our claim has therefore still not been finalized it is the 24th of Jan !!!