Insurance companies and clients don’t always see eye to eye. Here is some advice from the gurus at independent insurance comparison website CompareGuru on the most common causes of disputes and how to avoid them.
Misrepresentation
One of the leading causes for rejected vehicle claims is misrepresentation. This alludes to who the regular driver of the car will be. If you’re putting yourself down as the regular driver of the vehicle when somebody else will be using it instead, such as your teenage son, this will become a problem later on.
Your claim will also be rejected if:
- You have lied about your claims history;
- You have lied about your credit history;
- You have lied about your security system/devices and;
- You have misrepresented whether the insured vehicle will be used for personal or business use.
Possessing proof of your most valuable items
When it comes to household content, most of the complaints center around how much the insurer is willing to pay out. In many instances last year, the insured was unable to provide proof of ownership or proof of value for the lost goods.
These are reasonable requests from any insurance company. When validating a claim, especially when it comes to high-value items, the insured must be able to provide ownership evidence. It’s not a bad idea to keep an inventory of your valuable home contents and retain all proof of purchase where possible.
It’s also smart to keep copies of these outside of your home, just in case they are damaged in a fire or taken during a burglary. Theft and burglary were the reasons behind 73% of household content claims.
Maintaining Your Property
On that note, you may remember that 2017 saw a large amount of storm and fire damage across the country. We had tornadoes tornadoes in the Vaal area, the devastating fires in Knysna, extreme drought in the Western Cape and flash flooding in KZN and Gauteng.
Thirteen percent of all claims were due to natural events, and many disputes were about storm damage. The biggest problem came in when insurers refused to pay out claims due to the properties already being affected by gradual deterioration.
Negligent property owners did not maintain the property properly and ignored a large amount of wear and tear. Those who did might not have kept adequate records of any maintenance performed.
Driving under the influence
Without question, the area where insurance companies and clients butt heads the most is when it comes to drunk driving. Most of the claims considered by the Ombud were rejected due to the driver being intoxicated at the time of the incident.
In order to manage the risks involved with drunk driving, some insurance companies have even implemented ‘take me home’ type services. If one were to look at the DUI statistics of car accidents in South Africa, though, it becomes clear that we have a serious problem.
For help with all of your insurance needs, log onto Compareguru.co.za and compare quotes from South Africa’s leading insurers. Contact the gurus for independent advice and assistance on the best option for you.