Not maintaining your car adequately might have serious consequences in case you want to claim from you insurance company, Alexander Forbes
Insurance warned, as insurance companies might reject your claims. The same counts for your home insurance.
"If people allow their vehicles or homes to
fall into a state of disrepair, such that they become more likely to be involved
in accidents or suffer or cause loss, any insurance claims arising
might be rejected as loss arising from poor maintenance," said Gari
Dombo, managing director of Alexander Forbes Insurance, in an interview with South Africa's Press Agency.
"When
it came to vehicle insurance it was amazing how many people drove
unlicensed, drunk or with worn tires, failed to renew their vehicle
tracker contract or claimed security they did not have, Dombo said in a
statement. When it came to home contents, the biggest reason claims were not paid out was because of a malfunctioning alarm," he added.
"If
an alarm does not work because it is poorly maintained, the monitoring
contract has been allowed to expire, or it is not switched on when the
home is left unattended, your insurer is unlikely to pay," Dombo said.
Another cause for rejecting home contents claims is that insured parties sometimes do not have the protection and security equipment that they claimed
on their proposal form. These include burglar bars, electric fences, or
security gates on all doors.
With
building insurance the most common cause of claim failure was lack of
maintenance, making certain types of building damage inevitable. "Roofs
collapse because timbers have rotted, tiles blow off because their
nails have rusted through, gutters silt up causing walls to become damp
and waterproofing is allowed to deteriorate causing water damage,"
Dombo said.
Source: Business Day
