Clinton, Me and Pages 8-12

Short term insurance companies are those that we love to hate or at least I do. They offer the world and deliver actually very little. It is not necessarily their fault. When you do claim for an incident that occurs they tell you that on pages 8-12 of your contract there are exclusions to the policy that you need to be aware of. Well that is what has happened to me. On the 20th August I put a claim through to Stansure for what I thought was a burst geyser but as it turns out it was only the safety valve that was leaking. I was informed very kindly by Clinton my Claims manager that it is not covered and I would have to repair it at my own cost of which I did R1447 later. What about the resultant damage I added well he said that was not covered and referred me to pages 8-12 of my contract. He further added that he will send my case through to management for “special” consideration. Two weeks later still no Stansure or Clinton. I have in the interim called a few times to enquire the progress. It is still with management was the response. In digging further into my contract I discovered that If my geyser did in fact burst I was only covered for R3500 of which R500 would be for my own account. I have a 200 litre Kwikot geyser which cost R4500. This simply means I would have to fund R500 for the access and an additional R1000 for the geyser. I am beginning to think that I was sold a lemon of a policy. The moral of the story I should have read the fine print. Stansure are completely within their right to exercise the contents of the contract because that is what I signed up for.

This begs the bigger question of whether insurance companies should change the contents of their contracts and ensure that if a geyser did indeed burst they would fund the entire cost and not just a portion thereof. I just feel as if this is cheating. But again I should have read my contract. I was sold a policy being told that it was comprehensive cover and that to my mind means that If ANYTHING goes wrong even the safety valve on my geyser it is covered. It seems my idea of Comprehensive is not same as the insurance companies as it comes with four pages of exclusions (please refer to pages 8-12). I am still waiting for Clinton and his management to tell me whether they will indeed come and repair the resultant damage in the bathroom.

Following this incident and pages 8-12 of my contract I was wondering if I should change my household policy to another company. I remembered seeing some awesome claims and marketing from ABSA. So, I went on online to the ABSA website and filled in a form for someone to contact regarding insuring my home. A few hours later I received a call from one of the agents who duly started to take down my details and asking me lots of questions on the status of my house (type etc). She then asked me if I had burglar bars on my house to which I replied NO, she then asked me if I had an alarm system to which I replied NO. I went on to justify that I live in a well controlled estate with Electric fencing armed guards and even swat teams if we would need them. She then indicated to me that because I had no alarm they are unable to insure me and put the phone down. She did not even take the trouble to understand where I was from and what type of security I live under. Well ABSA is not getting my business, I am sure they don’t need it anyway. Well for now it’s Clinton, me and Pages 8-12 of my contract.

It seems that as consumers we often take the obvious for granted. We tend not to read the fine print or the contents of a contract carefully prior to committing to it. Stansure are fully within their rights to reject my claim and I would have no basis to fight them on it. Remember pages 8-12 of my contract. What is certain though is that I am in the market for another policy and will certainly scrutinize every point on the contract before signing it off. Also as a consumer I have being sucked into this web of call centre agents who to no fault of their own donot understand consumer behavior and proper needs of a customer. I will certainly be looking at the services of a broker. Someone I can speak to face to face and will understand my needs, where I live and ensure that the exclusions to my contract are limited to page 8 only and not pages 8-12.