Friday 7 April 2023

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

My policy was cancelled!

I was hoping to get your assistance on a matter I'm currently facing.

Last year May the company I work for went through retrenchments and restructuring which resulted in salaries being reduced by 50% and also not being paid on time. As a result I have not been able to meet many debit orders on the last day of the month but as soon as I do get paid I make sure to make payments towards them, and have been doing that since. Earlier this year I was involved in a car accident and went through the whole police process. I alerted my insurance broker about the issue and they relayed the message to the insurer. I had missed 3 months worth of instalments due to inconsistent payments but as soon as the accident happened I borrowed funds to cover the arrears. My broker let me know that my insurer cancelled my policy, even though I had been depositing money whenever we got paid, and no one let me know of the cancellation. I then shared with them the notice of retrenchments and restructuring from work but they ended up saying that their hands are tied and they cannot help me.

Is this an issue you may be able to help me with?


Firstly I'm very sorry about the stress you've been though over the last year. Times have been very tough for us all but you've had a very hard time.

I'm happy to contact the insurance company on your behalf but I suspect they'll only give me bad news. Technically the insurance company was correct to cancel your policy because you were behind with your payments and even though you tried to catch up with the payments it seems like the policy had long been cancelled.

However, I still think the insurance company let you down. They should have been talking to you throughout this period and warning you that the policy would be cancelled. They should have been doing this directly to you but also to your broker if they couldn't get hold of you.

I'm interested in how you paid the money you borrowed to cover the arrears. Did you pay them to the broker or to the insurance company? Either way, you deserve those payments back.

I'll let you know what the insurance company says.

I'm left with nothing!

I have 2 months without earning a salary due to mistakes done by my bank. I do plenty of calls every day and what I get is empty promises that they will amend the issue. I am financially suffering because of that.

In December 2022 I applied for loan and it got credited to my account on December 31 same year. The deductions for the loan started on February and it was P10,339 and this resulted in net pay to be P0. I called to ask what led to this and they told me the money has not yet appeared on their system and advised me to call again after the 5th of March.

I did exactly that on the 6th at that time they said the reasons for this is because the loan term was indicated to be 5 years while it was supposed to be 6 years. They connected me with the manager who promised to check what could have transpired and then called back saying that she took my issue to the Branch Manager. I am going through hell because of this.


There are so many things wrong here. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly there's the loan agreement you signed. I know the bank made a mistake in calculating the repayments over 5 years instead of 6 years but I don't think that would have made such a huge difference to the monthly payments. Even if they had calculated it correctly, you still would be left with only a tiny portion of your salary each month. I think this was what our South African cousins call reckless lending and perhaps even reckless borrowing by you. Can you really afford this loan even if it's over 6 years?

I contacted the bank and they promised to fix the problem as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I think you need to take a very close look at your debt situation and ask yourself if it's survivable?

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