Stangen service is appalling

This review seeks to help anyone thinking of taking a life cover with Stangen (their underwriters are King Price). Please do not waste your money doing so. Stangen will give you the runaround because they do not want to pay you.

My father took a life policy with Stangen with my mother as the beneficiary. He wanted to ensure that if anything happened to him, my mother would be able to take care of herself and the bills.

He took this policy in 2019, and has been paying the premiums since. If a debit order did not go through, they would hound my father until he paid. When he took this policy, he was healthy with no medical conditions. Fast forward to 2024, my father passed away on the 1st of October of natural causes.

Before my mother submitted a claim, she called Stangen to ask what documents were required. She submitted all that was requested but the 1st red flag was that they gave us an incorrect email address. She found this out when she called them to find out if the documents were received.

The 2nd red flag was the fact that they wanted his bank statements from 2015 to 2019, they also wanted his medical records from 2015 to 2019. The North Gauteng High Court only permitted a 1 month bank statement.

We started getting the runaround regarding the medical records. After giving them the hospital name, they first told us that they are not allowed to access my father's medical records at that hospital, they then requested that my mother get an affidavit permitting them to access his records and they would send their couriers to retrieve the documents. Again, I believe this was a delaying tactic because they thought she would stall doing so. She sent the affidavit the following day.

When my mother called to ask what was happening since they went quiet a week later, they said that the hospital told them that Stangen would need to make a payment before the records are released, so they were currently waiting for an invoice. After receiving the invoice and making the payment, it would take about 3 weeks for them to receive the records. The lady sounded so nervous as though she did not know what to say.

What they didn't know was that my mother is in contact with the director of nursing at the hospital, and the procedure they told us about is a lie! The hospital does not require any payment for the records and the records are only released with authorisation from the director of the department not from a random person who could possibly be a clerk named Vusi Mkhwa**** at the hospital.

Stangen better be sure to give my mother what is due to her because we will not be letting this go.