Discovery Insure’s Impact Alert saves single mum post-accident

At 18:00 on Sunday 12 August 2018, 28-year-old Port Elizabeth resident Liza Doyle was driving home from a Virgin Active gym workout with her daughter Hayley, aged 7, in the back seat. Just before she pulled off to turn right at an intersection as the light turned green, she heard a loud bang and felt a strong impact from behind. A car had rear-ended the vehicle behind her at speed, squashing it like a concertina up against her small sedan, pushing her vehicle well out into the intersection.

“Luckily both of us were strapped in,” says Liza. “Seconds after the impact I turned around to see if Hayley was okay and hurt my neck. Thankfully, I could move and there was no blood or obvious injury between us. Hayley was crying from the shock, but seemed unhurt. The car that caused the crash was smoking badly and looked like it might catch alight.”

Liza quickly got herself and Hayley to the pavement, only to realise she had earlier left her cell phone at home to prevent distractions at the gym. Borrowing a phone from a bystander, she called her very relieved father, at their mutual home in Sherwood. He told her that Discovery Insure was at that very moment on the phone to her mother trying to trace Liza after receiving an Impact Alert. Within minutes Liza’s borrowed phone rang. “It was a Discovery Insure call centre agent, wanting to know how I was, calming me down and explaining what I needed to do,” she recalls. “In shock, I couldn’t properly describe where we were, but of course the DQ tracker installed in my car had instantly located us. Luckily neither of us needed an ambulance – in fact, neither did the occupants of the other two cars involved in the accident. I’d been driving our family car, so my aunt drove my dad to the crash scene and he took us home.”

Discovery Insure helps at every turn

“What followed was copybook stellar service from Discovery,” says Liza.

Liza had a GP check-up for her sore back and neck. Hayley’s seatbelt-related upper body bruising required X-rays - which thankfully showed no broken bones. Their Discovery Health Medical Scheme Keycare Plus Plan covered the full costs of their consults. Both crash survivors took several days off work and school to recover.

The next morning Discovery Insure called to make the free car-hire arrangements and by Monday midday the family had wheels again. Liza’s dad, mum and her nine-year old son, Tyler all relied on the subsequently written off sedan. Within a fortnight they heard that their claim was nearly finalised, with settlement imminent. “We’re just waiting for the bank documents as the crashed car was originally financed – the process has been brilliant,” Liza enthuses. Besides having enjoyed the benefits of Vitality Drive’s unique driver behaviour reward programme, (they are on Silver Vitality status), they also swipe their Vitality Drive card when filling up with fuel at BP and Shell garages, securing about R300 to R400 cash back monthly.

Liza uses her Vitality Drive Active Rewards vouchers to buy coffee at Vida e Caffe, Mugg and Bean or smoothies at Kauai and popcorn at Ster Kinekor cinemas with her children. “Unfortunately, there’s no StopWash outlet in Port Elizabeth so I don’t score with the carwash, but I definitely took advantage of the 25% discount on Discovery DriveMe partners by using Uber trips while my Dad was using the car,” she says.

“I’d already experienced most of the benefits of being a Discovery Silver Vitality member with my kids also being quite sporty, my son holding his school age group’s street mile record,” she adds.

Her family plans to begin doing 5km parkruns soon to boost their Vitality points further.

“We love the outdoors, I also do quite a lot of ice skating at the new rink in Port Elizabeth and we love going to the beach and getting out,” Liza adds.

Liza is thanking her lucky stars she signed up with Discovery Insure in January 2018 – a mere seven months before her accident. She sent her broker an enthusiastic Whatsapp message thanking her and saying how impressed she was with the service.

"At the end of the day, thanks to Discovery Insure, the trauma and disruption from our unfortunate accident was kept to a minimum," adds Liza.