Insurance assesors ripping us off intentionally

On the 07th of september 2017 i dropped my motorcycle and it immediately locked the gears and had some minor scratches on its left hand side. I called standard bank insurance brokers and they arranged for the motorcycle to be taken to the panelbeater for assessment. Assessment was done and the assessor called me to say he compiled a report of the assessment and sent it to the insurance broker for validation of the claim. I asked for a copy of the findings and realised that nothing was quoted on the malfunctioning of the gearbox. I asked the assessor why did they not check the gearbox and he said that only after the claim has been validated can the panelbeater open the gearbox to check what the problem is then another assessment would be made. The claim was authorised and the panelbeater started stripping the gearbox and found the gears to be defective.

They called me in to have a look and told me that one gear tooth broke and affected the rest of the gearbox and i could clearly see that. I called the assessor on the 18th of october 2017 by the name Jade to do his further assessment as discussed earlier and he did as promised.

On the 23rd of october 2017 Jade the assessor called me and told me that the assessment was done and a report was sent to the standard bank insurance brokers. He then continued to say that due to his observations on the gearbox, the insurance will not be able to cover the damage as he believes that the damage was not caused by the impact when the motorcycle fell down and from what he can see this was due to abusive riding and it was a coincidence that the motorcycle fell and the gearbox had some wear on the gears which was in any case going to fail at the time of the incident. He continued to say that it was impossible for the gearbox to be damaged internally due to an impact originating from the outside and he could see that the gear lever was scratched from the impact but with the gears it is not possible. He also said that my motorcycle gearbox failed due to abusive riding and not the impact and it was unfortunate that the impact happened at the same time that the gearbox was going fail. Now this makes no technical sense at all. All that the assessor is doing is making sure that the claim does not get any validation and who knows he will reap something from that. To his surprise, Jade the assessor thought i knew nothing about properties and behaviours of different materials including their strengths . I gave him a brief mechanical explanation of what might have happened inside the gearbox as i observed with the technician from the panelbeater. I had a long chat with him and he ended up saying that he will tell the person who went out for the assessment to contact me yet he said he is the assessor. I now believe it when they say that we black people are targets when it comes to insurance claims as they will do everything and anything in their power to invalidate a claim.

I am still waiting for the person who went out to do the assessment to contact me and it looks like there is no such a person. It is good when they deduct monthly premiums but when it comes to service delivery that is unfortunately the struggle we have to go through all the time.