ABSA Home Insurance has a Disregard for the Elderly

ABSA Home Insurance disappointed me terribly with their lack of response to my claim of September 2025 which to date has not been resolved. As a senior citizen and longstanding client of almost 3 decades, I think I deserved better.

I reported a water leak in my bathroom wall in September 2025. ABSA sent out a plumber who fixed the leak, but had to break the tiles and wall in my bathroom which remains un-fixed to date, cut the water pipe so short that with any future problems the bath will have to be removed to access the water supply pipe, made a hole in my bath and hid the hole with soap which I only noticed after the plumber left, the water damage to my internal and external walls was not fixed to date and neither the damage to the adjoining wall between the bathroom and the next bedroom nor the damaged floors in the adjoining bedroom. ABSA offered about R4000 to fix all of the latter which amount I indicated was not enough (not even to replace the bath!) and asked their assessor to come out again to re-assess and when this did not happen I asked an independent contractor to provide a quote to fix all the damage and provided the quote to ABSA. I have followed up with ABSA through numerous phone calls and emails between October 2025 to date but all I have received are (i) automated email responses promising a response in 2 days which never happened not even once did ANYONE contact me, (ii) in a phone call staff members would indicate (a) that they on 2 occasions did not receive my quotations - on the first occasion I stayed on the phone until the person verbally indicated that they did receive the email I resent. On the second occasion I resent the quotations via email to the email of the person i had spoken to and which was copied to the case officer- I have not heard from them since I sent the quotations on 30 April 2026 (iii) When I called in late April 2026, I was informed that the case office had escalated my matter - I was promised an update via phone call but to date have not heard anything via any form of communication (iv) Here is the kicker- If the matter was escalated did this not mean that ABSA was in possession of my quotations and covering rationale for not accepting the R4k? (

Based on the latter conclusion and the lapse of time between September 2025 and 10 May 2026, a period of 8 months, is it not reasonable to assume that ABSA is delaying settling my case for unknown reasons? I must add that I have since terminated my membership of ABSA Home Insurance and moved to a different service provider. Despite the latter, should I assume ABSA is holding a grudge? I am of the view that ABSA still has to settle my case as if I am an active client as the claim happened when my membership was active. All of the above emails and conversations should be obtainable from ABSA Home Insurance through the modalities in the Public Access to Information Act PAIA) should it be necessary to take legal action to settle this matter should ABSA not respond reasonably as I think that I have been patient and reasonable whilst living in a water damaged home as an elderly person which is surely got good for my health.