Old Mutual offers to provide correct valuation

OLD Mutual, iWYZE’s underwriters, say it will be high risk to insure my house, reason being it is in the township.

In a nutshell, our townships are high risk, so all houses in them are supposed be of low standard to be insured.

Or perhaps I was supposed to give them a low market value, something which will never happen in my lifetime.

After forced removal from where we lived before in Kwa-Langa township, Uitenhage, Eastern Cape, we were moved to KwaNobuhle township by the apartheid government.

I lived in this house all those years, from 1975.

It’s a four-room house and I’ve never had any break-ins and fires. I’ve improved it over the years.

Now Old Mutual is indirectly telling me that this house is high risk for them to insure, thus not suitable to be in the township, where I lived for most of my life.

There is no interpretation I can give other than this one.

If you say it will be high risk to insure this house simply because it’s in the township, it means it is supposed to be in the so-called white/middle-class suburbs, which in their minds are more secure than our townships. This is despite the fact it meets all their safety or security requirements.

I have installed CCTV cameras, high walls, automated high motorway gates, razor wire on top of the walls around the house and an intercom.

This is not enough. Our locations are regarded as places carrying high risk for one to have a house worth millions. This is discrimination of the highest degree. V Jack

DHARMITA Jogee, senior manager: iWYZE Risk, Compliance & Complaints, responded: “Thank you for forwarding Mr V Jack’s complaint to us. We’ve investigated and established that Mr Jack contacted our call centre on August 10 to obtain a quote for his property in KwaNobuhle.

“During this call, Mr Jack accepted the agent’s quote for the cover. The agent also informed the client that the quote would need to be referred to the underwriters for confirmation of acceptance of cover.

“The underwriters noted that there was a discrepancy between the estimated value provided by Mr Jack and the lower values obtained by the underwriters from various public sources.

“On this basis, the underwriters said that we would not be able to insure the risk at the requested cover amount.

“Unfortunately, the sales agent gave Mr Jack the impression that the cover was turned down because the risk was too high. The agent failed to explain that the cover was turned down because of the misaligned property values.

“We sincerely apologise to Mr Jack for the miscommunication and can assure him that Old Mutual does not tolerate any form of discrimination.

“We are reviewing our internal processes to improve the quality of the feedback provided by our agents to our customers. We would also like to review Mr Jack’s application.

“If he gives us permission to obtain a valuation from a reliable external service provider, we will use this value to determine the correct value at which Mr Jack’s property should be insured.

“We hope that this explanation will restore Mr Jack’s trust in us.”