Treating Customers Fairly - NOT!

What can go wrong? - A popular catchphrase for the SANTAM add campaign currently being aired - and I have the answer!

Placing your trust and insuring with SANTAM is what can go wrong...and should you wish to compound the issue, doing so through one of their accredited brokers, Pieter Meyer of Daysure Brokers of Somerset West.

My compliant stems from an incident whereby due to a bank card ****, my account was emptied out on the Saturday, but Standard Bank came to the party and re-instated my monies by the Monday.

On Monday morning all my debit orders went through except for my Santam one which was RTD'ed as it was loaded prior to my balance being re-instated by Standard Bank.

Viewing all the SMS notification later in the day, I missed the fact that my Santam one did not go through.

After a period of time we suffered an armed ******* on our farm, and I contacted Daysure regarding a claim which I promptly submitted to requirements - Imagine my surprise when I was contacted by Daysure to inform me that my insurance had lapsed due to the debit order being declined - surprise at the fact that I was never informed of the fact that there was an issue with my payment.

I followed up with Pieter at Daysure, who insisted that he was never informed of it by SANTAM , and that he will "sort it out".

After a couple of weeks of non progress, with Pieter accusing SANTAM of dragging their feet and not providing feedback, and lodging a complaint with the Ombudsman that showed even less progress, I took to HelloPeter, wrote a review, and had my query attended to promptly - SANTAM furnished me prove that they did inform Daysure of my status, and that Pieter Meyer had **** when he communicated to me that SANTAM did not send me him the proper notification, and even more so when he accused SANTAM of dragging their feet.

As, based on the evidence, and the fact that my case is with the broker, my Ombudsman case was transferred (after months) to the FIAS Ombudsman, who proceeded to investigate my case, starting by trying to ascertain if DAYSURE was indeed negligent in their duty in terms of the TCF mandate, viz to notify me of the payment issue.

Once again Pieter Meyer omitted to take responsibility, and blamed SANTAM again for not communicating the issue.

After I provided the FIAS Ombudsman with the detail I had regarding the mail that was sent to DAYSURE by SANTAM, they tried to verify it with SANTAM, who in turn refused to comment or provide the required confirmation.

The net result was that the FIAS Ombudsman refuses to move on the case due to lack of collaborative proof, and went with "the broker claims he was not informed"

I tried to take this up with SANTAM, who refused to be drawn into the discussion with the comment that it is between me and my broker.

SANTAM manages to avoid taking responsibility, hiding behind a wall of brokers that is SANTAM accredited to sell their products.

Whether SANTAM is liable in any way for the loss I suffered during the armed ******* is a moot point - they do have a duty of care and is responsible for their products and their brokers, and ultimately to their policy holders, and they shirked this responsibility.

Trust me - do not trust SANTAM, they do not have your best interest at heart, and in the face of a toothless FIAS Ombudsman that lack the will to do a proper investigation, they will exploit the situation for corporate gain.