WHILE terrific, the
recent hailstorms over KZN’s capital were not the worst assessors had seen; and
the good news is car owners who need to get quotes for repairs still have a few
weeks to do so.
Jack Callaway, owner of KZN Insurance Assessors who used to own a
panel beater shop in Pietermaritzburg, advised car owners who suffered damage
to get emergency repairs, like
windscreens, done as soon as possible, but added as long as they had notified their insurance company within a three days they had a claim pending, they could wait a couple of weeks before getting quotes for the remainder of the repair work.
windscreens, done as soon as possible, but added as long as they had notified their insurance company within a three days they had a claim pending, they could wait a couple of weeks before getting quotes for the remainder of the repair work.
“But the job won’t get any cheaper after the rush,” he warned.
Callaway, who is a member of the Institute of Motor Assesors in
South Africa, said if the repair value exceed 70% of the car’s retail value, the
insurer will typically write the car off.
Pietermaritzburg is not alone in suffering huge hail storms. The
entire edge of the escarpment along the eastern seaboard gets hail this time of
the year. This is good news for panel beaters in Pietermaritzburg, who were
still quoting to repair hail damage from January when the heavens sent down a
second fusillade of enormous hail stones on Friday, February 6.
Unlike the first storm, which had caused extensive damage to the
area around the UKZN campus, this second hail storm erupted over the centre of
town, hitting the car dealerships especially hard.
Hyundai’s regional director in KZN, Gideon Janse van Rensburg, told
Wheels
the dealership in Pietermaritzburg suffered hail damage to some 40 vehicles.
At Mercedes-Benz, more than 100 cars were nicked or hammered. At
BMW, two dozen new Beemers suffered dents and at Honda, new cars fresh off the
truck got hit.
Thousands of private motorists also had their cars dented, lights
cracked and windscreens or sunroofs smashed.
Polling the panel beaters in KNZ’s capital on Monday, we witnessed
as queues of impatient motorists streamed into town to get quotes to replace
lights and windscreens.
Sweating staff walked the pavements in the 33° Celsius heat
to collect quotes, most saying they had averaged over 300 quotes per person for
the day.
By noon they were using blank folio pages to jot down e-mails, this
being quicker than filling in the pro-forma forms.
Sunita Harrilall from Auto Hail Raven panel beaters on Boom Street
estimated it would take up to June to repair the damage from this second storm,
not counting the damage from the earlier hail storm.
“It can take about 10 days to repair a car, if no panels have to be
cut and bonded or — in special cases — welded. I estimate it is going to take
our industry four, maybe five months to repair the thousands of cars that were
hit in the two storms,” she said.
At Dent Boss on Greyling Street, people were patiently waiting
their turn for a quote on the red car seats mounted in the foyer. Phones were
ringing off the hook as the staff worked their way down the line.
All were warily watching as cumulonimbus clouds sent hot, moist air
at speeds up to 176 km/h vertically into the super-cooled blue skies along the
escarpment, where the water will condense into yet another fusillade of ice from
the skies.
This is good news for panelbeaters in Pietermaritzburg, who were
still quoting to repair hail damage from January when the heavens send down a
second fusilade of enormous hail stones on Friday, January 9.
Unlike the first storm, which had caused extensive damage to the
area around the UKZN campus, this second hail storm erupted over the centre of
town, hitting the car dealerships especially hard.
Hyundai’s regional director in KZN, Gideon Janse van Rensburg,
told Wheels the dealership in Pietermaritzburg suffered hail damage to some 40
vehicles. At Mercedes Benz, more than 100 cars were nicked or hammered. At BMW,
two dozen new Beemers suffered dents.
Thousands of private motorists had cars dented, lights cracked and
windscreens or sunroofs smashed.
Polling the panelbeaters in KNZ’s capital on Monday, we witnessed
as queues of impatient motorists streamed into town to get quotes to replace
lights and windscreens. Sweating staff walked the pavements in the 33 degree
Celcius heat to collect quotes, most saying they had averaged over 300
quotes per person for the day.
By noon they were using blank folio pages to collect information,
this being quicker than filling in the pro-forma forms.
Sunita Harrilall from Auto Hail Raven Panelbeaters on Boom Street
estimated it would take up to June to repair the damage from this second storm,
not counting the damage from the earlier hail storm.
“It can take about 10 days to repair a car, if no panels have to
be cut and bonded or — in special cases — welded. I estimate it is going to take
our industry four, maybe five months to repair the thousands of cars that were
hit in the two storms,” she said.
At Dent Boss on Greyling Street, people were patiently waiting
their turn for a quote on the red car seats mounted in the foyer. Phones were
ringing of the hook as the staff worked their way down the line. All were warily
watching as cumulonimbus clouds sent hot, moist air at speeds of over 176 km/hr
vertically into the super-cooled blue skies along the escarpment, where the
water will condense into yet another fusilade of ice from the
skies.
Car owners must notify their insurance company within three days of
a pending claim, then get windscreens repaired as soon as possible, but have a
couple of weeks to get have the repair work done.
