Ryan Woolley, CEO of public loss adjustment firm Insurance Claims Africa, says the R1bn interim relief offer made by Santam last week is more about reputational damage control than a change of attitude."It's a confusing message to send out: 'We're not settling your claim but here's some money.' "Woolley has been fighting since mid-May to get Santam and other insurance companies to pay the Covid-related business interruption claims of between R3.5bn and R4bn made by his more than 600 clients in the tourism and hospitality sector.He says by refusing to honour the contracts of their policyholders, the short-term insurance industry is "decimating their client base"."The trust has been broken. It's going to be hard to repair that."Santam's relief grant is capped at R1.5m per client. But they'll only get paid what they can prove they lost over the two months of lockdown 5 and 4.Woolley says this may help restaurants and bed & breakfast operations to hang on for a bit longer, but for th...
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