Misleading insurance cover

Context: My decoder was affected by load shedding and I put in a claim as per my household contents cover.

Discovery has this thing of deprioritising certain claims over others, but alas I was patient and waited and waited. Eventually I called and nobody knew what was happening with my claim. I then got a call out of the blue saying my decoder would be picked up shortly, luckily I was home.

Fast forward, they confirm it was not repairable due to power surge damage. But that they can't do anything because my excess is higher than the replacement amount. I asked them why the first thing that they do isn't to check the value of the item/s vs excess and they said it's really up to you put in a claim even if it's pointless. What's annoying is why do they include all these smaller items if they won't pay for them? Just exclude them and reduce the premium or don't apply the same excess to small items otherwise it's very misleading. I could have gotten my decoder covered with DSTV but I was trusting that I was covered.

It would have just been courtesy to tell me from the beginning that you wouldn't be able to do anything because the excess exceeds the product price, I would have replaced it by now, instead I was 4 weeks waiting.