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Your Safety Comes First
In the moment, give up the car without resistance — no vehicle is worth your life, and complying is the advice every safety authority gives. Do not pursue the hijackers or try to retrieve anything; let them leave.
Once they are gone, get yourself to a safe place: a busy public spot, a security checkpoint or a police station. Call 10111 to report the hijacking, and 10177 for an ambulance if anyone is hurt. Everything else on this list waits until you and your passengers are safe.
Activate the Tracker Fast
Contact your tracking company as soon as you safely can — ideally within the first few minutes. The recovery network is most effective in the opening window, and a large share of successful recoveries happen within the first hour while the vehicle is still close and moving.
This is why the tracking company's emergency number belongs in your phone before anything happens, not looked up afterwards. Cartrack, Netstar, Tracker and the others run 24-hour recovery lines; the faster they are alerted, the better the odds.
Open a Police Case
Even after a phone report, attend the nearest SAPS station to open a formal case and obtain the case number, which your insurer will require for the claim. Give the vehicle details, the time and place, what was taken with the car, and any description of the hijackers you can safely recall.
The case number is the spine of everything that follows — the recovery effort, the insurance claim and any prosecution all hang off it. Get it as soon as you are able, and keep it somewhere you can find it.
Notify Your Insurer
Call your insurer's emergency line promptly, because immediate notification is a policy requirement even though a theft claim carries a waiting period before any payout. Provide the case number, the tracker reference, and the full circumstances of the hijacking.
From here the claim follows the theft-claim process — the recovery waiting period, the evidence pack, the settlement on your value basis — which is covered in detail in our theft-claims guide. This page stays focused on the response and recovery; the claim mechanics live there.
The Recovery Window
After a hijacking the insurer applies a recovery waiting period, commonly around 30 to 60 days, during which the tracking and police networks try to find the vehicle before any write-off is settled. Most recoveries that happen at all happen early, which is why the speed of your tracker call matters so much.
During this window you cannot be paid out for a replacement, though car-hire cover, if you hold it, can keep you mobile. The wait is hard after a traumatic event, but it is standard and built into how hijack and theft claims work.
If the Vehicle Is Recovered
A recovered car does not simply come straight back to you. The police hold it as evidence and it must be formally cleared — released from the SAPS, inspected, and its status updated on eNATIS — before it can be driven or its claim finalised. Your insurer and the tracking company usually guide this clearance.
Its condition then decides the outcome: a recovered car that is repairable is repaired by the insurer, while one stripped or damaged beyond economic repair is processed as a write-off. Either way, do not collect or drive a recovered vehicle until the clearance is complete and the insurer has confirmed the next step.
After a Hijacking — Looking After Yourself
A hijacking is a violent, traumatic experience, and the practical checklist above is only half of it. It is normal to feel shaken, anxious or unable to sleep afterwards, and reaching out to a trusted person, your doctor, or a trauma-counselling service is a sensible and important step — many insurers and medical schemes include trauma counselling as a benefit worth asking about.
Replace what was taken with the car beyond the vehicle itself: cancel and reissue licences, bank cards and access fobs, and change any home locks or codes if keys or your address were in the car. Tending to both your wellbeing and these loose ends is part of recovering from the event, not just from the loss of the car.