Johannesburg - Everybody knows that drinking and driving can get you into trouble with your insurance company, but few people realise just how easily it can happen.
It's actually much easier for an insurance company to refuse a claim if it suspects you've been drinking before the crash than it is for a police officer to arrest you at the scene.
That's because the police have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt not only that you've been drinking but also that your blood alcohol level is above the legal limit, in order to secure a criminal conviction for drinking and driving.
The insurance company, on the other hand, is pursuing a civil case against you, so it only has to show that "on the balance of probabilities" alcohol was a factor in the crash, to get out of paying the claim - and that's easier than you think.
Let's face it, insurance companies are not in the business of giving away money; if they can avoid paying out for a claim, they will - so it's up to you to make sure they can't.
Deanne Wood, from the Short-term Insurance Ombudsman, said in a recent radio interview that there had been a significant increase in the number of claims for car crashes that had been refused because alcohol had been involved.
"Many restaurants have CCTV cameras," she explained. "The insurer will get the footage and check it to see if you were drinking alcohol with your dinner, before you had your crash. And if you were, that's enough for it to refuse the claim."
More than that, Wood said, if you put misleading information in your claim, such as where you were before the crash, that's also enough to get the claim refused - and insurance companies will go to great lengths to verify what you say.
It gets worse; if you've been drinking, or you lie on your claim form, an insurer is entitled to refuse the claims of other people involved in the crash, as well as yours. Which means you could wind up having to sell your car to pay for the damage to the other vehicle.
As Eugene Herbert of Masterdrive advanced driver training put it: "If you're still tempted to drink and drive because you think you can escape the law, remember it may not be so easy to escape your insurer."
To paraphrase William Congreve, hell hath no fury like an insurance company scorned.