‘Goliaths’ should not willy nilly disregard consumers’

OUTSURANCE Namibia has finally honoured a car insurance dispute with one of its clients after a long dispute, which was also reported by the Namibian Consumer last month.

“Your article convinced OUTsurance that I was worthy of their time and attention. They contacted me, and honoured my policy I had with them. They paid me the money I spent on fixing my car.

“Thank you for your help. Hopefully your story will convince the Goliaths of this world that they can not just willy nilly step on the little guy, ” the client said in an email. He asked not to be named.

Last month, he accused the company of unscrupulous business practices. The company is part of FNB Namibia Holdings.

The client explained that about two years ago, he was involved in a ‘small accident’ with his car.

“The damage was minimal, less than N$10 000. As a client of OUTsurance at the time, I was instructed to take the car to the Swabou complex in Windhoek West for their assessor to inspect the damage, ” he explained.

The assessor then disputed a small part of the damage, but advised the client to send the car to a panel beater, which he did. Outsurance then said it would not pay for the disputed bit.

“As I was close to receiving my OUTbonus, I told them just to cancel the whole thing, and that I will fix all the damage on my own with my OUTbonus, ” he added.

Suddenly, he was told that the panel beater had already ordered the parts and invoiced OUTsurance. He decided to take care of the damages out of his own pocket.

“This is where it gets interesting. In April 2015, one of their sales people contacted me, trying to sell me insurance again, ” he said.

He said OUTsurance then said the client would be refunded the money he spent on the repairs.

“They said my payment is being processed. Suddenly, they called me and asked whether they could credit the money towards the new policy they were trying to sell me. I told them that they must pay me first before I would ever consider doing business with them again, ” he stated.

He said the old pattern started again.

“Suddenly, I was given the cold shoulder again. All my queries were just ignored, and I deduced they would play their old game of trying to get me tired to just drop the whole thing, ” he said.

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