I had hoped to put off this post until I had something to report… like some sort of amicable resolution — which is appearing to be more and more unlikely by the day. Due to recent developments this post is now warranted.

To clear up the confusion, I’m talking about my bike, and trying to obtain some sort of settlement that is due to me as per the contract I had through my insurance company at the time of my accident. It both their and the repairers responsibility to return the bike or pay me at a value equal to what it was before the accident (less excesses and overinsured value) so that I receive the full benefit of what I had been paying for. For those who have been reading my blog, you will already know this has not been done by any stretch of the imagination. If I hadn’t had insurance at the time, and had just sold the bike as scrap, the money I’d have saved would have bought me a new bike by now.

When I received the bike a few weeks ago it was in an unroadworthy condition yet again. Taking it on the roads was a non-option anyways, when I killed the battery just trying to get it started. This was after promises that the bike had just been serviced, repaired and everything had been fixed.

That was pretty much the last straw for me, and we immediately went back to the insurance company to obtain a favourable resolution. What the insurance company delivered were 2 options, either they get the repairers to pay me out at the current book value of the bike or they take the bike elsewhere and make the repairers pay for that as well. I elected to take the money.

The current book value according to MIB is R38 000. If I were to sell it I’d be lucky to get R30 000. It’s a no-brainer really. Unfortunately what this does mean is that I still lose; and a lot of money that is. In the 13 months since my accident I’ve had it fully insured and have had to pay in excess of R6500 in insurance premiums. On top of this, in December when I first thought everything was finally completed (what a joke that turned out to be), I spent R1600 on a complete service to get it back into running condition. I also paid R900 for the custom “spray job” (I thought I was paying for a high quality spray job, they ended up getting stickers printed — I could have done this myself for less than half the cost at a higher quality seeing as I had the high resolution original design). I also spent R400 on frame sliders. All of this on a bike I haven’t had the opportunity to use.

Now to make a few more things clear. In addition to the money I’ll lose either way, I had the bike overinsured at the time of the accident for R45 000. The actual value was R42 000. So had they originally scrapped it I would have been paid out R40 000 or so. I would also have saved all the money I listed above. That’s not a small amount of money for those of you doing the maths; and I haven’t even listed everything.

Ok, as I said, I elected to take the money. These options were presented to the repairers about 2 weeks ago and I still haven’t heard a single word from them. Not really surprising is it; especially when you consider that we’re now 13 and a half months along, and my bike still isn’t properly fixed.

So this meandering post has brought me to this. The guy handling the above — an independent insurance assessor contracted by MIB — has had a mild heart attack and has ended up in ICU. That’s really not cool and I hope he’s alright and doesn’t have any adverse complications.

But I can’t help but be selfish for a second, what does this mean for me?

And… I shall wait some more, while I continue to pay my insurance premiums.

In other news, the interest rates are going up again next month either 50 or 100 basis points. Not sure which ones, but hopefully not prime :/.

This post is proudly sponsored by the sterling service industry in South Africa.