So last year my bakkie was written off thanks to a truck with bad brakes. 8 hours in casualty and considerable debt thanks to only being on a hospital plan, but main thing is that I survived.
Insurance company calls, tells me value of payout, asks me to supply them with original proof of ownership certificate to process payment. I look, can't find it, advise them of this, but they agree to nonetheless process the payment, which takes place a few days later.
This is where the problems start. I go to local licence dept but they tell me that they can't issue the cert to me, I need to go to original department, which happens to be somewhere on West Rand. This is a considerable problem because:
I now live in Jhb South,
I work for myself, 6 days a week, so no work means no pay (and after Covid's economic devastation, I'm afraid my priority is making enough money to keep my wife and baby daughter cared for).
We only have one car left, which of late has been out of commission thanks to a broken cambelt.
I was given a local contact to try deal with, yet again took time off to go back to local licence dept to find that most of the licencing depts were closed because of protest action over the driver's test booking debacle. So yet another attempt came to nothing and a waste of a morning.
Now we have load shedding, in addition to the usual chaos at these departments with offline crap, strikes, and more. I absolutely cannot take another day off to travel across town only to find that the relevant department is closed/not working/whatever. I cannot afford to waste the petrol money and equivalent waste of time I could be earning much-needed income.
I have spoken several times to the insurance guy handling the case, explaioned the situation, and said I'm open to suggestions. He has offered no options, but just keeps phoning and complaining that his company is racking up storage costs for the vehicle.
My feeling is that surely this cannot be a unique happening, Others must be in the same boat. What happens, for example, if you bought the car in a different province? Are you actually expected to drive to that province just to get that certificate in spite of having paid insurance premiums for years and years? This is a huge company - surely they must have some way of getting the relevant paperwork sorted in situations like these?
My only other option, which I honestly can't afford, is to do a dodgy deal that will cost me R3000 in order to get the certificate. But then I feel the need to put it to the agent that his refusal to give me any help whatsoever is forcing me to go this route, which doesn't reflect well on his company?
Any advice will be appreciated?
Insurance company calls, tells me value of payout, asks me to supply them with original proof of ownership certificate to process payment. I look, can't find it, advise them of this, but they agree to nonetheless process the payment, which takes place a few days later.
This is where the problems start. I go to local licence dept but they tell me that they can't issue the cert to me, I need to go to original department, which happens to be somewhere on West Rand. This is a considerable problem because:
I now live in Jhb South,
I work for myself, 6 days a week, so no work means no pay (and after Covid's economic devastation, I'm afraid my priority is making enough money to keep my wife and baby daughter cared for).
We only have one car left, which of late has been out of commission thanks to a broken cambelt.
I was given a local contact to try deal with, yet again took time off to go back to local licence dept to find that most of the licencing depts were closed because of protest action over the driver's test booking debacle. So yet another attempt came to nothing and a waste of a morning.
Now we have load shedding, in addition to the usual chaos at these departments with offline crap, strikes, and more. I absolutely cannot take another day off to travel across town only to find that the relevant department is closed/not working/whatever. I cannot afford to waste the petrol money and equivalent waste of time I could be earning much-needed income.
I have spoken several times to the insurance guy handling the case, explaioned the situation, and said I'm open to suggestions. He has offered no options, but just keeps phoning and complaining that his company is racking up storage costs for the vehicle.
My feeling is that surely this cannot be a unique happening, Others must be in the same boat. What happens, for example, if you bought the car in a different province? Are you actually expected to drive to that province just to get that certificate in spite of having paid insurance premiums for years and years? This is a huge company - surely they must have some way of getting the relevant paperwork sorted in situations like these?
My only other option, which I honestly can't afford, is to do a dodgy deal that will cost me R3000 in order to get the certificate. But then I feel the need to put it to the agent that his refusal to give me any help whatsoever is forcing me to go this route, which doesn't reflect well on his company?
Any advice will be appreciated?
