The competitive business world is like a war zone. Companies are trying to outsmart each other all the time, in order to gain sustainable competitive advantages. Most often, business leaders focus on strategies around product design and innovation, service delivery, or price to find the competitive edge. Brand positioning and advertising in focused distribution channels, and innovative ways of establishing sales opportunities, are other popular battle grounds. Far too seldom, however, the role and potential value of a strong corporate culture (or ‘team spirit’) is recognised as an integral part of a successful arsenal. In my view, a strong corporate culture not only lends itself to a competitive advantage, but the fact that it is particularly difficult to copy gives it its immense sustainability.

The logic is very simple: happy people perform better. The aim, therefore, is to create a work environment where people are happy. The challenge, however, is how to achieve that. In my experience, the starting point is to build a culture around a set of core values, not rules. Given the immense diversity of our rainbow nation, the next challenge is to find core values that are common to all religions, languages and ethnic backgrounds. If successful, this then has the added advantage of galvanising the troops into a strong, loyal unit. Once the set of core values have been discovered, the next challenge is to get individual ‘buy in’ from every member of the team, and once that is achieved, to keep it alive and strong. It is important that everyone understands that there is no hierarchy when it comes to values, and the only way to ensure that it remains a powerful force is if every single team member accepts accountability to act as a co-custodian of the values driven culture.

At MiWay, we build our culture around four simple values, namely freedom, attitude, energy and accountability. As CEO, I spend two hours with every new intake of staff, which happens every month, to ensure they become co-custodians of our values. Our management team ensures that all communication to staff is done in the context of the four values. Lastly, we have a weekly floating trophy, a samurai sword that goes to the individual who set the best example of living up to the values in the preceding week. At the end of the year, we have different ways of honouring and rewarding all the weekly winners. The passion and excitement surrounding the nomination process, and the prestige associated with receiving the award, leave me in no doubt our values driven culture is well and alive and giving us a sustainable competitive advantage in the market.

At MiWay, we are one big team. We battle together and we have fun together. We enjoy each other’s company. Often, this feeling of togetherness helps us to overcome tough challenges. Our corporate culture creates the environment for us to be competitive and successful in the ultra-competitive business world…..it often gives us the edge to win the battle. Most importantly, it ensures that we are having fun in the process.

Kind regards,

On the positive side, however, it would portray us as transparent and truly committed to customer satisfaction and awesome service levels. It would encourage clients to trust us, because we were not trying to sweep our blunders under the carpet. It would also improve channels of communication between us and our clients. Lastly, it would highlight problem areas such as bottlenecks, to which management could react swiftly. In short, it would portray us as honest and refreshing.

Above all else, it would make us the first company in SA (as far as we could establish) to do this.

Act of courage
We decided to take the plunge and do it. We were prepared to live with the risk of malicious people abusing the forum to harm us. We decided to place everything, no matter how scathingly negative it might have been. The only exceptions are blasphemy, hate speech, racism and banalities.

Great result
It turned out to be an absolute winner. We immediately became aware of problem areas. All new businesses have growing pains; the comments forum enabled us to effectively deal with our growing pains much quicker.

The split between compliments and complaints is roughly 50/50. This is encouraging, since people complain much easier than give compliments. I believe this initiative is the main reason why we have the highest compliment ratio in the industry on the independent website, hellopeter.com. It keeps us focused and on our toes. Our staff know they have no place to hide, they can’t sweep mistakes under the carpet. They also know if they delight clients, they might be honoured with a compliment that is visible to the whole world. In short, the comments forum has strengthened our service culture.

Challenge
It remains an open question why no-one else does this? Are service companies too scared to see what their clients think of them? Or don’t they really care? Just imagine what it will do to service levels in SA if all service related businesses had comments forums on their websites……

Our pledge
At MiWay, we remain committed to awesome service. We can’t guarantee that we will always get it right the first time, but we will certainly remain transparent and 100% committed to fixing our mistakes. Over time, I believe, our transparent approach will lead to our service levels reaching incomparable heights.

Kind regards,

The essence of business strategy, according to the gurus, is differentiation, as explained above.

The vision for MiWay is to establish a one-stop-shop financial services company, one that offers a wide range of financial services products under one brand. We decided to start with short-term insurance, but the medium to long term plan includes life insurance, investment products, loans, debit/credit cards, asset finance, etc. So, despite our current focus on car insurance, MiWay will eventually offer a lot more.

The challenge that faced us was to find meaningful differentiators in an already competitive short-term insurance industry. This was by no means an easy task. It is easier said than done. However, by listening to the typical gripes of consumers and finding solutions to it, we managed to bring a number of exciting differentiators to market. A number of these differentiators are also quite innovative in their own right. This provided the founding team with a great deal of satisfaction.

The list of differentiators includes the following:

1. A comments forum, where clients are invited to post compliments or complaints on our website.
2. A rewards programme (MiRewards) that is based on client loyalty and not on luck.
3. A portal (MiXpress) that enables online purchasing of products, as well as self service online administration of policies.
4. A motor insurance product (MiDriveStyle) that rates clients according to their own specific driver behaviour.
5. A values-based culture based on four unique core values.

In addition to the above, there are a number of differentiators planned for the future, when we roll out the rest of the financial services products. Differentiation and innovation have become part of the way we look at things, a way of life. In fact, our brand is being built around the concept of ‘coherent logic’, or ‘intelligent by design’. The customer must be able to say MiWay’s services are ‘designed for me’. This, of course, is a journey, not a destination. It implies a certain mindset towards everything we do. It also implies we will forever be in a state of continuous improvement. We will forever be asking ‘how can we do things smarter’?

I plan to place a series of discussions of these differentiators on my blog over the next number of weeks. I would appreciate feedback, comments, debate.

Kind regards,

It is difficult to understand why.  Anyone who has tackled the epic challenge between Pietermaritzburg and Durban, or the other way around every alternative year, will testify to the gruelling nature of it.  How then can its popularity be explained? In my view, Comrades offers ordinary people like you and me the opportunity to do something truly extraordinary.  It offers a real challenge, and South Africans love a challenge.  The race belongs to the masses as much as it belongs to the 100 or so hopefuls who believe they stand a chance of winning.

In my late twenties and early thirties, I completed seven Comrades marathons - two silver, and five bronze medals.  Due to injury and other reasons I didn’t run again for nine years.  Between 2002 and 2004, I returned to complete numbers eight, nine and ten.  After receiving my permanent green number for completing ten runs I decided at the age of 45 to hang up my running shoes. That was until the 16^th of February this year!  A good friend and old running partner called me and suggested we give Comrades 2009 a go, given the fact that we both turn 50 this year. It took very little to persuade me. I started training the next day. The harsh reality was that we had a mere fourteen weeks to race day, and only eight weeks before we had to run a standard marathon in under five hours to qualify.  The biggest risk was over training causing injury or illness due to over eagerness to get fit quickly.  This had to be managed well.

My training went reasonably well, and I managed to qualify in time.  My friend was less fortunate; he pulled a hamstring and had to withdraw.  I followed three simple yet strict principles, namely:

1.      Never train on sore legs, to minimise the risk of injury.

This meant that some weeks I only trained once or twice.  Staying healthy was key as it provided the only chance of success.

2.      Scheduled regular (weekly) visits to the physiotherapist for a sports massage.

This helped with my body’s recovery time and provided much needed prevention against injury.

3.      Employ a walk-run strategy.

I read about it in a Tim Noakes article. The logic here is that I scheduled one minute walking sections every kilometre from early on in long training runs or races, to spread my energy levels more evenly over the required distance. This ensured that I avoided levels of total exhaustion from where it is almost impossible to recover.

The weekend before race day I seriously questioned my reasons for wanting to run Comrades again.  I’ve had a more than satisfactory running career and didn’t need to prove anything to myself or anyone else.    I also started doubting my ability, especially since I’ve battled to run long distances ever since I had a knee scope some four years ago.  Was I not too old?  Have I done enough training?  Those who claim to know reckon a minimum of 400km from January to race day is required.  I did a mere 384km.  Have I done enough long runs?  I only did one 42,2km race, three 21,1km races, and two 20km training runs.  The rest of my training consisted of 10km, 8km, 6km runs….

I can’t say I found satisfactory answers to my questions, but on the spur of the moment I decided to ask my friends, family, loved ones and business connections to pledge funds to the Starfish Foundation (who do amazing work with AIDS orphans), on condition that I finish and earn a medal.  This turned the week before race day into an exciting, interactive period where I received many messages of support, and more pledges than I expected.  My dream was to raise R100,000.  The fund is currently sitting on R120,000 and money is still pouring in!  In these tough economic times?  Wow, I am humbled by people’s generosity of spirit.

The day before the race consisted mainly of registration at the huge expo in Durban.  Being a green number runner, I was asked to register at the Green Number counter.  The gentleman who assisted me noticed that I was doing my first run in my green number, and greeted me with a warm smile, a firm handshake and a “Welcome to the Club, René!” This moment was a lot sweeter than I ever expected.  I can’t explain why.  Maybe the fact that this is one club where money can’t get you in had something to do with it….. Another exhilarating experience was my visit to the Starfish stand at the expo.  The ladies behind the counter were ecstatic to hear how successful my fund raising exercise was progressing. They gave me an orange wristband and insisted that I wore it during the race.

The 30 minutes before the start of the race was an awesome, humbling experience.  The organisers played the Ladysmith Black Mambaso rendition of Shosholoza over the sound system.  All 13,000 runners joined in.  This was followed by the national anthem.  By this time my whole body was covered in goose bumps and I battled to hold back the tears.  Finally, five minutes before the gun, the well known sounds of Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire filled the chilly early morning with warm emotions.  Then I knew: this is special.  I am one of 13,000 South Africans of all races and creeds, all walks of life - some rich, some poor - with a common goal, to get to Durban in less than 12 hours.  We are all equal.  Social status means nothing.  We are in this together, and we respect each other as athletes, co-runners, human beings.  The black lady in front of me turned around with a big smile and said: “You know all the words and the tunes.  You sing well”.  I acknowledged her compliment and silently hoped that my running would also be on par!

I battled from the start.  It is dark and cold at 5h30 at the end of May in Maritzburg.  For some strange reason all my muscles felt tight.  I couldn’t find a comfortable rhythm, my breathing was erratic, I bumped into people in front of me, I urgently needed a toilet….I wasn’t happy.  I wanted to be somewhere else.

Matters improved somewhat after an hour on the road.  The sun was rising and I struck up conversations with the runners in my immediate vicinity.  The field was more spread out now, which allowed me to get into a comfortable rhythm.  My goal was to run the first half of the race at around 7min per km, which would get me to Drummond (halfway) in 5h15.  Anything under 5h30 would have been fine.  That would leave me with 6h30 for the second half.  The problem with the ‘down run’ is the fact that the first 21km happen to be more uphill than downhill, and I could see it in my running time.  I went through 10km in 75min and 20km in 2h30.  This means I was averaging 7,5min per km - slower than planned.  Even more worrying was the fact that my left hip flexor felt very tight.  In fact, it felt as though the muscle was going into spasm.

This was very disconcerting.  I was mentally prepared for setbacks, but not so early into the race.  This was a nasty curve ball and I was close to panicking.  I stopped briefly at a water station and managed to get hold of a block of ice the size of a cricket ball.  This I applied to the tight muscle.  It seemed to work.

Passing the Ethembeni School for disabled kids, around 35km into the race at the foot of Inchanga, provided fresh food for thought.  Most of these kids are unable to run.  The privilege of being healthy and able to be part of this great race was once again imprinted on my mind.  For a couple of hundred meters, the pain eased off a bit…

I went through Drummond slightly behind schedule in 5h32 and was already severely fatigued.  I battled to convince myself that I had enough gas in the tank to do another 45km in under 6h30.  To make matters worse, the first 8km after Drummond consists of a long, nasty climb commonly referred to as the back of Botha’s Hill.  I walked most of the time.  My only hope was that I would be able to capitalise on the long mainly downhill stretch of 20km between Hillcrest and Pinetown.  But I had to get there first.  I had to get over the back of Botha’s Hill first.

I managed to pick up the pace ever so slightly once I reached Hillcrest.  My enemies now were the pain in my knees and quads caused by the downhill pounding and the hip flexor spasms that persisted.  I had to dig deep, focus on rhythm and breathing, ensure my fluid intake at the water points were sufficient, and visualise myself getting to Durban in one piece.  I considered bailing a number of times.  The orange Starfish wristband around my left wrist reminded me of the noble cause of raising funds for the poor, less fortunate kids.  Kids who suffer due to no fault of their own.  I persevered, but the nagging thought of giving up persisted.

The uniformed boys of Kearsney College between Botha’s Hill and Hillcrest provided another example of the massive disparity between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ in this country.  I realised, of course, that the friendly, energetic boys are not to blame for their privileged status.  In fact, we need more fine institutions like that where great leaders and sportsmen and -women are groomed.  But at the same time, we need less run down, poverty stricken institutions where future leaders and fine sportsmen and -women are a rarity.

Although I moved more freely now, I couldn’t help thinking that this is just not fair.  “Bad patches don’t last” is what most experienced runners believe.  The problem was that my whole race thus far had been one long bad patch!  The toughest section between Hillcrest and Pinetown is the 4km long steep downhill known as Field’s Hill.  I know it sounds contradictory, but this downhill stretch is particularly painful.  My legs were jelly by now, and my 104kg frame didn’t make matters easier on my knees and hip joints.  My only consolation was the fact that all the runners around me were taking strain as well.  An Indian gentleman on my left started talking to no-one in particular.  He said: “This is what people don’t understand, you know, when I tell them the downhills are painful, they just look at me and shake their heads”.

I reached Pinetown feeling groggy and very sorry for myself.  The race was turning into a war zone.  Disillusioned runners who simply had enough were standing, sitting and even lying all over the place.  I still had 21km ahead of me and I realised I had to make a decision to continue or not.  Simply feeling sorry for myself was not helping at all.  By now the KZN humidity and heat was becoming another complicating factor and to really make matters worse, my nose started bleeding.  From experience I knew the bleeding will only stop if I applied ice to my head and neck to cool it down.  That would not be possible whilst running.  I did grab some ice at the water points and tried to do the best I could.  A plug made from toilet paper had to at least prevent the blood from running freely…..not a pretty sight, I believe!  Nevertheless, I took a firm decision there and then that I won’t give up.  If I failed to finish, it would not be because of a conscious decision on my part.  In fact, the only way I would exit from the race would be on a stretcher!  I decided to run tall, to lift my chin, pull back my shoulders and remind myself I had a right to be here.  I was an athlete; no, a champion.

With 18km to go, I reached the dreaded Cowie’s Hill, the last big hill on the down run.  I decided to walk the full 1,2km.  I sent an SMS from my cell phone to my fiancée, my kids, family and some friends, saying: “On Cowie’s. 18km to go. 2h50 to 12h cut-off. Going to be close.”  I basically had 9,5min per km to finish under 12 hours, which was more than my average running time of 7min53.  That sounds good on paper, but on tar in the Durban heat after slogging it out for 71km, I was still very unsure.  Once I got over Cowie’s, I managed to put in a couple of 7min kms, which helped the cause along nicely.

I reached 45^th Cutting (12km to go) after 10 hours of running.  My fiancée was standing next to the road cheering me on.  I walked a couple of metres with her and with all the courage I could muster I told her I will finish in time.  The tough part of this story is the fact that although I only had 12km to go, I still faced in the order of two hours of running.  It was 15h30.  It was muggy, I was hot and tired and my nose was still bleeding.  I ran past a medical station.  One of the paramedics noticed my bleeding nose and offered to assist me.  I was concerned that they might decide I’m unfit to continue, so I just kept quiet, put my head down and continued running.  I was now in extreme ‘vasbyt’ territory.  All the runners on the road were quiet.  Everyone was focused on simply putting one foot in front of the other, moving forward at all costs.  I reached the 5km-to-go board on the stroke of 11h00.  Only severe cramping or some other unforeseen disaster could still prevent me from finishing in time. The last couple of kilometres were reasonably uneventful.  My nose miraculously stopped bleeding and when I saw the one km-to-go board with 27min to cut off, I knew Comrades 2009 was in the bag!

I can’t explain the relief and elation when I entered the stadium with a big smile, punching the air in sheer delight.  It felt as though the 50,000 frenzied supporters were all shouting for me! I finished in 11h41.  It was a hard day at the office, to say the least.  The Ultimate Human Race? Pretty inhuman, if you ask me!

My Comrades experience in a way resembles a micro version of life itself, with many lessons.  Here are a few:

1.      Everything starts with a dream. Dream big.  You only have one life, so make it count.  We often under achieve, because we think small.

2.      Stick to your game plan. Both my training and the race itself had clear guiding principles and realistic goals that I stuck to religiously.  The amazing outcome is that the end result was very much in line with my game plan.  In life and business, it also helps to have a clear vision (dream) and strategy (plan), and to stick to that plan!

3.      Adapt to unforeseen obstacles. Although we plan for setbacks, we are often confronted by curve balls we could not foresee.  I didn’t expect hip flexor spasms or nose bleeding problems.  I had to deal with it.  The temptation to panic was strong, but I had to stay calm and find innovative solutions to overcome the setbacks.  In the case of my bleeding nose, it seemed more serious than it really was.  I basically put a tissue plug in my nose and carried on.  Sometimes we face obstacles in life that look worse than what they really are.  We should just ignore them and continue regardless.

4.      Never ever give up. My race turned out much harder than I expected.  I could easily have given up.  Life, and business, often threatens to pull us down.  Things often don’t turn out the way we planned or hoped.  Sometimes we feel like giving up.  Don’t.  Hang in there.  Bad patches don’t last.

5.      Make the most of every opportunity. Instead of this just being a race for personal reasons, it turned into an awesome opportunity to raise funds for a very worthy case.  I never expected the generosity of all the kind donors.  It was highly rewarding to turn ‘just another race’ into a serious fund raising opportunity.  How often do we miss the opportunities that life or business present us with?

6.      Celebrate your victories, big or small. Once the job is done satisfactorily, it is time to pop the champagne.  It is important to enjoy the satisfaction of success.  It takes a lot of hard and smart work to complete any worthwhile task successfully.  Enjoy it.  You deserve it.

7.      Be grateful. I encountered blind runners along the way.  We ran past disabled kids. We have so many blessings to be grateful for, for one our health.  How often do we take it for granted?  The unselfish support from my fiancée during and after the race that allowed me to focus on the job at hand: would the entire ‘expedition’ have been possible without it?  Life has taught me the value of gratitude.

8.      Show kindness. It costs so little, yet it means so much.  The kind words of the lady in front of me before the start of the race left me with a warm feeling about our wonderful rainbow nation.  The world is full of harshness and over competitiveness.  We can make it a better place by showing kindness, because kindness begets kindness.

9.      Be generous. This is a lesson I learnt fairly late in life: to give is a blessing.  The generosity of all the donors made me realise more people than I expected have discovered this.  Don’t cling to your earthly possessions.  The joy derived from giving is highly rewarding, and in a strange way people who give easily always seem to have more to give!

10. Never stop learning. Despite my ten previous races, I still learnt so many things on the day - about people, their fears, their joys, their challenges.  I learnt a lot about the Starfish Foundation and the work they do.  Finally, I learnt that the true heroes of the Comrades are the sloggers who sneak in just before the 12 hour cut-off time!

I would like to hear from you if this story touched you or if you have comments or questions.

Kind regards,

Most insurers bunch people into groups of similar profiles and then use the average EXPECTED behaviour to determine basket premiums for the group.  For example, a 26 year-old female, driving a Citi Golf and living in Boskruin will pay X premium per month.  Other more individual factors such as her licence type, previous insurance history or security options on her vehicle  will also be taken into account, but ultimately she is bucketed into a group profile EXPECTED to behave in a particular way.

Understanding the factors that drive your premium will help you to control them.

The truth is that many of the above factors are only partially within your control.  Fortunately, competitive pressure to innovate and create increased consumer value, as well as advances in technology and internet communication, is forcing insurers to relook at current rating models.  A wave of growing consumer consciousness is compelling insurers to move to a more scientific, individual way of determining monthly premiums.

Leading the insurance rating revolution is pay-as-you-drive type insurance solutions, already widely used in Australia and Europe.  These insurance packages give consumers the opportunity to influence at least a portion – the distance they travel – of their monthly premium.  But this is merely one of the factors that influence rating.

Embracing the challenge to deliver truly individualised insurance is MiDriveStyle from MiWay.

MiDriveStyle addresses the need to take into account your unique driving behaviour when determining your monthly premium.  More importantly, the technology takes into account how your driving behaviour and patterns change over time.  “Individual driver behaviour rating” means that your age and licence type and the colour of your car become less important when determining your premium, and factors such as how, when and where you drive become far more important. Individualised driver rating also addresses very successfully the problem of past claims history.  Insurers would typically rate you on your accident history over the last 3 years, irrespective of whose fault the accident was.  Individualised rating and the monitoring of your driving pattern over a period of time will now mean that you have the opportunity to influence your premiums far quicker than with the traditional insurance models.

Age, licence type and the age of driver’s license are factors that affect young drivers.  Current rating means that if you are a young driver, you will have no option but to pay high premiums based on the perception that you are a higher risk driver.  With individual Drivestyle rating, you get the opportunity to disprove this perception and save significantly on premiums.

Saving on premium is a choice.  There is also the case of drivers that would like to save on their monthly premiums simply by driving less recklessly, choosing to drive at safer times or by taking alternative routes.  With MiDriveStyle, saving on your monthly premium now becomes an incentive to change your driving behaviour – maybe this could herald a new movement towards safer, more responsible driving for all?

What does the future hold? Initiatives such as MiDS is changing the way drivers behave and emphasizing the benefits of  slower, more carefully driving.  In the long-term this could result in safer roads with less accidents and fewer cars traveling in peak times, ultimately leading to less carbon emissions.  Who would have thought Insurance had a green angle…

Kind regards,

Click here for more information about MiDriveStyle and individual driver behaviour rating.

Welcome to my Blog!

I look forward to healthy debates and frank discussions. To get things going, I want to share some ideas with you on how to choose an insurance company.

When choosing an insurer to cover your vehicle, there are various factors to consider depending on your unique profile. But regardless of who you are and what you drive there are certain standard tell-tale signs to look out for when choosing a quality, dependable insurer. Sometimes cheaper monthly premiums could mean a very unpleasant and costly claims experience.

Shopping around for insurance could mean significant monthly savings. Here are a few things to consider the next time you choose an insurance partner.

Excesses

Insurers typically offer either a fixed excess or percentage excess linked to the value of your car or claim. Often the excess you choose will affect your monthly premium. So, a higher excess could mean a lower monthly premium, but at what cost?

Consider the following:

• Can you afford the agreed excess should you need to claim? Don’t opt for a high excess if you don’t have disposable cash.
• In the case of percentage and variable excesses, do you know what amount of money these percentages translate into?
• Are you aware of the implications when linking multiple excesses to a single claim?  In some cases, a young uninsured driver responsible for an accident in the insured’s car could mean a double excess!

Through MiWay your excess amounts are fixed and clearly explained BEFORE you buy a policy.  You may choose to increase your excess to make your monthly premium more affordable.

Claims process

When choosing an insurer this is a critical deciding factor. What is the attitude of the prospective insurer towards paying claims? Will the insurer put you back in the same position as before?

The basic principle of insurance is this: an insurer should place you back in the SAME position you were in, before you suffered the loss you are claiming for. The idea behind insuring your assets is to financially prepare you for a possible future loss.

To avoid feeling resentment or frustration at claims stage, follow these simple guidelines:
• As the insured party, make sure that the information you supply in the initial contract or telephone interview with the insurer is 100% accurate and true. Inaccurate or incomplete information will impact your premium and negatively influence your cover and future claims.
• Ask the insurer what their claims procedure entails. Newer players in the industry such as MiWay have paperless facilities so using our call centre or online forms will save you loads of time and frustration.
• Enquire about the insurer’s turnaround time on claims. The industry standard is five working days, but this will depend on the type of claim and repair times.

MiWay follows a transparent philosophy. To avoid upset and angry clients at claims stage, we make very sure clients understand exactly what they are buying. The policy wordings are written in simple language and most importantly, prospective clients are urged to provide accurate and complete information at underwriting stage when the premium gets calculated.

Online capabilities

Convenience is king. Consider how 24/7/365 access to your insurance portfolio could save you time and frustration…so, when choosing an insurer look out for a partner that has online capabilities. Mounting pressure on your private time means you need to be able to attend to your personal matters when it’s convenient for you – often after hours.

Through MiXpress with Miway you can get an accurate quote, accept a quote and incept a policy as well as make changes and updates to your existing policy. All of this without ever speaking to an agent! Yet another innovation from MiWay to make financial services easier and more convenient for YOU.

Pricing

When choosing an insurance option take care to compare apples with apples. Too often consumers choose a cheaper premium not fully aware of the reduced cover this implies. Here are a few variables to double check:
• Is your car insured for market or retail value?
• Check excesses, especially additional excesses.
• Is the cover you are being quoted on comprehensive or only for limited liability such as theft or third party?
• Does the policy require a tracking device? This could mean an additional monthly expense.
• Does the policy include any additional free services such as an emergency service?

Remember: ask the insurer to explain any unclear conditions of cover and how this will impact your premium and the cover you will receive. Quite often a moderately more expensive premium could mean significantly better cover….

Service

Finally, it is important to choose an insurer who delivers great customer service. Having already chosen the right product with the right price means that you can’t settle for second-best when it comes to receiving great customer service – both before and after claiming!

Pick an insurer well known for putting their customer’s needs first. Your insurer should not be hesitant to be transparent in their correspondence with you. They should have available channels ready for you should you need to communicate with them – whether it is positive or negative feedback you are communicating.

MiWay is the first company in the South African insurance industry to dedicate a page for Compliments & Complaints on their website. The website is renowned for being transparent, as we publish all comments made by clients and potential clients alike. We view negative feedback as valuable, and appreciate the opportunity to get things going your way again quickly and efficiently.

I look forward to hearing your views.

Kind regards,