ABSA Life fail to payout claim with no communication!

A put a claim for a loss of income which was approved with the approval and first payment received happening in quick succession.

I was approved for 12 months or if I began to work again which ever came first.

The insurance relates to my credit card premium which is due on the 1st of each month. On the 1st of April I contacted the contact centre to query why my claim has not been paid. The consultant mentioned that he can see that the claim has been approved and that the payment should occur automatically by their system and I can expect the payment in the evening or by midnight the latest and that if is hasn’t been paid by then that I should call the following day again.

The money never came in so I contacted the call centre again and after putting me on hold for about 10 minutes the agent came back stating that the claim was with the assessor and that she wasn’t prive to the information as to why my claim was not paid out. She stated that she had escalated the matter and that I could expect a response from them. Not stating when.

Now it’s Good Friday, a long weekend with their department only back on Tuesday and my account is in arrears. This after receiving countless sms’s from ABSA prior to and on the first stating that if payment is not received on the first for my credit card that, that will be reported to the credit bureaus which would effect my credit rating.

What really annoys me is that the assessor couldn’t have been bothered to contact me and sort out and pay my claim prior to the start of the long weekend cause hey, he/she has a damn job with money in their account.

I use to have a credit card which I lost and had a new card replace the old one a while ago. For some reason ABSA’s system has kept the old credit card account number that had the insurance policy on in when I got the credit card on my absa online profile instead of moving the policy to the new credit card account number. The new credit card number doesn’t show an active policy and you’d think someone working at ABSA would be able to figure that one out in order to make the payment on the 1st but clearly whoever has been working on my account was unable to figure that one out. I can see someone has been working on my account as the insurance policy on my old credit card number now comes up with an error message on ABSA online yet my new number still wants me to apply for an insurance policy.

If you don’t want to have to deal with incompetence then you should consider another insurance company to handle the insurance on your ABSA credit card or better yet just choose a different bank when applying for a credit card.