Carinfo.co.za

All About Cars
  • Rss
  • Home
    • Carinfo in the media
  • Insurance Companies
    • List of Insurance Companies in South Africa
    • Best Car Insurance Company for 2015
    • Are you using the best insurance company in South-Africa? (2014 Update)
    • Are You Using the Best Insurance Company in South Africa?
    • Overview of Insurance Companies
    • AA Insurance
    • Absa Car Insurance
    • African Independent Insurance
    • AIG Insurance
    • Alexander Forbes
    • AON Insurance
    • Auto and General
    • Budget Insurance
    • CIB Insurance
    • Dial Direct
    • Discovery Car Insurance
    • Etana Insurance
    • FNB Insurance Brokers
    • First for Women
    • Hollard Insurance
    • Indwe Risk Services
    • Integrisure
    • Kestrel
    • King Price Insurance
    • MiWay
    • Momentum Insurance
    • Mua
    • Mutual and Federal
    • Nedbank Car Insurance
    • New National Assurance
    • Oakhurst Insurance
    • Old Mutual
    • Ooba
    • OUTsurance
    • PPS Insurance
    • Prime Meridian
    • Prosper
    • Regent Insurance
    • Sanlam
    • Saxum Insurance
    • Standard Bank Car Insurance
    • Unity Insurance
    • Virgin Money Insurance
    • Virseker
    • Wesbank Car Insurance
    • Woolworths Car Insurance
    • Youi
    • Zurich Insurance
  • Car Insurance
    • Top Up Insurance: What You Need to Know
    • Why you need to worry about your Facebook account and car insurance
    • Car Insurance
    • Car Insurance Calculator
    • Car Insurance Calculator – Background
    • Insurance Aggregators
      • Hippo Insurance
    • Online Car Insurance Quotes
    • Cheap Car Insurance
    • Scratch and Dent
    • Car Insurance Terms and Definitions
    • Online Car Insurance Quotes – Questions & Answers
    • Frequently asked Car Insurance Questions and Answers
    • Comprehensive Car Insurance
    • Taxi insurance
    • Car Insurance Tips
      • How to File a Complaint with the Car Insurance Ombudsman
      • Affordable Car Insurance
      • How to Claim from the Road Accident Fund
      • 5 steps to getting car insurance
      • 5 Tips for getting good value car insurance
      • 9 ways to reduce your car insurance costs
      • Think You’re a Safe Driver? Why Not Translate that into Money Using Telematics?
    • Top 10 Reasons Car Insurance Companies Deny Insurance Claims
    • What Effects the Cost of Car Insurance Quotes
    • Car Insurance for Seniors
  • Insurance News
    • Hollard Insurance acquires Etana Insurance
    • Hippo Insurance Fined R1 Million
  • Everything Cars
    • All You Need to Know About E-Tolls
    • Remote Jamming
    • Review of Uber
    • Road Safety for Motorcyclists
    • Road Safety: The Most Common Driving Mistakes
    • Rocky Car Sale Numbers in South Africa
  • Car Hire
    • Which is the Best Car Rental Company in South Africa?
    • When is Leasing a Car Better than Buying?
    • 10 Things Not to Do When Renting a Car
    • Avis Car Hire
    • Budget Car Rental
    • Europcar South Africa
    • Hertz Car Hire
    • Tempest Car Hire
    • Thrifty Car Rental
Search the site...
Home» insurance companies » Hippo Insurance Fined R1 Million for Withholding Information
Read our Terms of Use
  • Get Super Cheap Insurance
    that DECREASES Monthly!
    from King Price Insurance
  • Looking for commercial insurance for motorbikes/vans? Click here
    *By submitting this form you agree to Carinfo.co.za Terms of Use

Why you should use our services?

Insurence ‘shopping’ is usually a headache, but it took me 30 seconds to fill in a form, and within no time I received a couple of quotes, one of which was actually better than my existing insurer – so I saved time and money. Baie Dankie
Rene, Degroute (45, JHB)
Response was quick, sales agents were professional. Got a competitive price and settled for the second cheapest (I liked the good rating the company got)
Ryan Schoeman (19, Cape-Town)
Sent my details, got ​a good quote and finalized the policy. Was easy and quick. I ​don’t always find decent service these days – ​so ​Thanks
Andzile Delamini (23, Soweto)

Popular Articles

  • How to File a Complaint with the Car Insurance Ombudsman How to File a Complaint with the Car Insurance Ombudsman
  • Driver's Licence Cr: K. Banks http://tinyurl.com/p4devpc How to Apply for a Temporary Driver’s Licence
  • Regent Insurance
Want to write a Guest Post?
Carinfo in the media

Your Vote!

What made you get car insurance?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Categories

Hippo Insurance Fined R1 Million for Withholding Information

June 9, 2013 - insurance companies, Insurance News
0
Hippo Insurance Fined R1 Million - credit - cityofhewitt.com

Hippo Insurance has been fined R1 million by the Enforcement Committee of the Financial Services Board for withholding information given to clients who called their call-centre between 19th April 2011 and 7th September 2012.

Who is Hippo Insurance and why were they fined?

Hippo Insurance offers a service of providing ‘competitive or comparative quotes’. What this means is that they provide customers with numerous insurance quotes from various ‘different’ insurance companies, thus letting customers find the best/cheapest offer for their needs. Despite claiming to do this, they were deemed to have not clearly disclosed the very important fact that all the quotes were sourced from insurance companies that are all part of the Telesure Group. Basically putting it, people were getting quotes from one parent company and not from different companies. According to the website of South African Insurance Times & Investment News, Hippo Insurance consequently: ‘followed an approach that gave preference to quantity of business over quality of service rendered to clients.’ Hippo Insurance also did not state that they are a Financial Service Provider (FSP). They were also accused of not providing insurance quotes from insurance companies that were not part of the Telesure Group (like Alexander Forbes, Mutual & Federal and Santam). Apart from the fact that Hippo Insurance was fined R1 million for withholding information, they were also ordered to pay costs in the value of R500,000.

Has Hippo Cooperated in Rectifying the Processes and providing more Transparency?

Based on various internet sources that reported the issue, Hippo Insurance ‘accepted full responsibility for the contraventions and fully cooperated with the Registrar’s staff and processed, and displayed a sincere intention to comply.’ The Registrar also acknowledged that: ‘there is no evidence of any prejudice resulting from the contraventions.’ Hippo Insurance were also prompt in addressing in amending the compliance issues and its processes where required.

  • Get Super Cheap Insurance
    that DECREASES Monthly!
    from King Price Insurance
  • Looking for commercial insurance for motorbikes/vans? Click here
    *By submitting this form you agree to Carinfo.co.za Terms of Use

Hippo Insurance and the Telesure Group

In our previous profile post about Hippo Insurance we mentioned that one of the main forms of criticism facing the company was the fact that unlike other aggregators (in any field), that they have not encouraged competition among the insurance companies seeing how most of the quotes they offer are all from the same group – the Telesure Group (which comprises the following brands: 1Life, Auto & General, Budget Insurance, Dial Direct, ibuyeco, 1st for Women, Virseker, Unity Insurance, Virgin Money Insurance, AA Insurance and Prosper). The Hippo Insurance website previously did not make clear their connection with the Telesure Group or with the partner companies, but now the Hippo website does lists it’s ‘partner’ companies and states that it is a FSP, but still does not fully disclose that it is part of the Telesure Group or where the insurance quotes are given from – although the physical address that it provides does connect Hippo with Telesure for those who happen to check. In addition two add-on motor insurance clauses – Dents & Scratches and Auto Top Up are also available with other insurance companies in the Group.

Telesure Investment Holdings managing director, Tom Creamer, however told one of the reporting websites on the subject that: ‘he believed that the company had always been transparent when it came to the insurers that Telesure owned and operated.’

Bottom Line

The FSB fined Hippo Insurance R1 million plus R500,000 costs for not disclosing that they are part of the Telesure Group and that Telesure also owns the companies from which they have sourced online car insurance quotes that Hippo provides, and also that they are a registered FSP. According to the various online resources that covered the subject, Hippo insurance has gone some way in rectifying these discrepancies on their website. Nevertheless, these same sources and other critics still believe that due to the fact that the Hippo website still does not clearly mention the fact that the insurance quotes are only, or mainly, from the Telesure Group that Hippo Insurance is still not as transparent as they should be.

After reading the above, we can’t leave our readers without a word of advice: Until such time that insurance aggregators truly compare prices between ‘real’ different companies with no connections or self interests, always remember to shop around and get quotes from various places.

02.07.2015 Update

In order to keep you up to date with the most recent information available, as of this year, Hippo is apparently no longer a Telesure only aggregator. The site does now offer the possibility of quotes from non-Telesure companies, including Ace, Regent, Oakhurst, Hollard and Standard Bank. According to Hippo, other companies have also been approached, though some have refused to participate in Hippo’s services. So, the good news is that it looks like Hippo have learned from their mistakes, and quotes given by the site will now be more fair in terms of the possible companies you can receive estimates from.

Other Interesting Posts

Best Car Insurance Company 2016

Best Car Insurance Company 2016

For the last three years, Carinfo.co.za has conducted a comparison analysis between the more known ...read more

ABSA iDirect Vehicle Insurance

ABSA iDirect Vehicle Insurance

ABSA iDirect vehicle insurance is the car insurance department of ABSA, The Amalgamated Banks of ...read more

Best Car Insurance Company for 2015

Best Car Insurance Company for 2015

For the last two years Carinfo.co.za has been conducting a comparison analysis of all the ...read more

1 million rand fine against the hippo, happy hippo insurance quotes, hippo co za online insurance quote, hippo for insurance, hippo for insurance quotes, hippo gets fined, hippo insurance, hippo insurance brokers, hippo insurance car, hippo insurance comparison, hippo insurance finder, hippo insurance gets fined, hippo insurance in south africa, hippo insurance motorcycle, hippo insurance online, hippo insurance quotations, hippo insurance quotes, hippo insurance quotes cars, hippo insurance quotes south africa, hippo insurance south africa, hippo insurance za, hippo motor insurance, hippo motor vehicle insurance, hippo online car insurance quote, hippo online insurance quotes, hippo quotes on car insurance, hippo vehicle insurance quotes, hippo.co.za car insurance, hippo.co.za insurance, telesure group gets fined, who owns hippo insurance, www.hippo insurance, www.hippo insurance.co.za, www.hippo.co.za

Tell us your thoughts Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

one × 1 =

Why you should use our services?

Insurence ‘shopping’ is usually a headache, but it took me 30 seconds to fill in a form, and within no time I received a couple of quotes, one of which was actually better than my existing insurer – so I saved time and money. Baie Dankie
Rene, Degroute (45, JHB)
Response was quick, sales agents were professional. Got a competitive price and settled for the second cheapest (I liked the good rating the company got)
Ryan Schoeman (19, Cape-Town)
Sent my details, got ​a good quote and finalized the policy. Was easy and quick. I ​don’t always find decent service these days – ​so ​Thanks
Andzile Delamini (23, Soweto)

Popular Articles

  • How to File a Complaint with the Car Insurance Ombudsman How to File a Complaint with the Car Insurance Ombudsman
  • Driver's Licence Cr: K. Banks http://tinyurl.com/p4devpc How to Apply for a Temporary Driver’s Licence
  • Regent Insurance
Want to write a Guest Post?
Carinfo in the media

Your Vote!

What made you get car insurance?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Categories

Categories

  • Car Hire
  • Car Insurance
  • Car Insurance Tips
  • Car Maintenance
  • Car News
  • Car Tips
  • insurance companies
  • Insurance News
  • Learners License
  • Motorcycles
  • Online Car Insurance Quotes
  • Taxi Insurance

Get in Touch

Contact Us
Carinfo in the Media

Usefull links

Car Insurance Links
List of Insurance Companies
Car Reviews
Add a Car Review
Household Insurance

Signup to our newsletter

  • *By submitting this form you agree to Carinfo.co.za Terms of Use
All rights reserved 2013 - carinfo.co.za
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Terms of Use
  • Sitemap
Carinfo.co.za ("the website") is not a financial services provider and does not represent any of the insurance companies presented. All content on the website is for informational purposes only and does in no way constitute legal or financial advice. We advise that before making any financial decision you consult with a professional of your choice. Although Carinfo allows some insurance companies to advertise on the website, you are not required to respond to such advertising. If you do so, it is at your own will and Carinfo will not be held liable in any shape or form for damages, direct or indirect, resulting from any decision you make based on the information on the website.