If you are a property owner, you may want to arrange with your insurance company to increase the amount you are covered for on your geyser because prices for those appliances have gone up significantly in recent months.
I am really not sure why, but the price of geysers has shot up.
A typical 150-litre geyser at the start of the year cost R8 250 but now it’s likely to cost you more than R10 000.
Why? Nobody seems to be able to say.
The main reason seems to have something to do with COVID-19. But who knows?
A typical policy requires the owner to pay in R1 500 excess before the new geyser can be installed.
Now the excess could be as much as R3 500. Not an easy sum to find.
You will therefore need to arrange with your insurance company to up the amount that your geysers are covered for – we recommend R10 500 with the same R1 500 excess.
In most cases the difference will not be great enough to mean uplifting the current levy, and it will form part of the new levy calculation when it is incorporated with the next budget meeting.
Part of the increase in cost is the requirement for a new certificate of compliance when the geyser is installed – yet more red tape.
You are only allowed to install an SA Bureau of Standards or SABS-approved geyser.
Apparently a lot of unapproved geysers from China were being installed and the insurance company will require a photo of the serial number of the geyser – they were getting high levels of fraudulent claims.
You must know the contractors that you use.
Just because there is a lot of water coming out of your geyser does not mean that your geyser has burst.
There can be quite a few causes for water overflow.
The pressure valve and the safety valve are the normal causes.
Geysers can pop if these valves fail.
But somebody should check on the service providers from time to time to make sure that claims are genuine.
Heavy geyser claims are a frequent cause of insurance premium increases.
The ideal ratio of claims to premium is less than 50 percent.
Two years at 80 to 120 percent will mean a hefty increase in your overall premium.
- Mike Spencer is the founder and owner of Platinum Global. He is also a professional associated property valuer and consultant with work across the country as well as Eastern Europe and Australia.