The truth about short term insurance in South African is that nowadays we’re in a VERY competitive market, meaning that unlike before, the insurance companies are finding it a lot harder to rip people off, thanks to the fact that if they aren’t doing their job properly or perhaps trying to charge just a little too much, it really is a simple matter of just picking up the phone and changing to a different insurance provider – something that can probably be done in well under 10 minutes!

Anyway, I was with Santam for my insurance needs for quite some time, before Chantelle eventually got me to switch our insurance needs over to Auto & General, a) because we saved a lot of money in the process and b) she had heard great stories about them, so was willing to give them a shot.

So we did the switch and have happily chugged along for the last while, until we recently received a message in the post announcing an increase in our premiums that was well above the current inflation level.

This did not make Chantelle a happy woman, and as such she immediately phoned up Auto & General and demanded to know why we were subject to such a high increase and how much notice we need to give in order to switch to an alternative insurance provider.

She had to wait a couple of minutes for her rant to set in and for the call operator to first speak to his superiors, before he got back to her and announced a new rate of R912.59 for the same cover we currently have – which is a full R352.13 less than what we were currently paying before the annual price increase even kicked in!

So I now sit with a pretty chuffed wife, as well as a good reminder that it pays to check up and evaluate all your service providers on at least an annual basis. Competition for your business is fierce and nine out of ten timess the insurers will better your rate if you threaten to call the Hippo or whatever it is those adverts keep prompting us to do!

Nifty.

(Just a note though, Chantelle’s folks reckon that even at the new price from Auto & General, we’re still paying too much, so it may just be time for Super Chantelle to pick up that phone and head out into the breach once more…)