Wrongly advised about a Vodacom claim and now unable to claim

I have a contract with Vodacom for a iPhone 13 128g, it was unfortunately ****** in January and I went into the Vodacom store in Kenilworth centre to ask about how to go about the claim. I spoke to a man named Ikraam Hendricks and he told me that if I claim at his store I could only claim there and he advised that I should rather look around as they didn’t have stock, this was wrong information which was confirmed as wrong by a Vodacom insurance employee, he also didn’t advise me that I only had 30 days from the time I opened the case to claim. I have been phoning around Vodacom stores for the past 2 months looking for a store to claim at unknowing that I was over the given time limit for it. I attempted to phone in and claim and it was denied because of how long it is overdue. I’m am now sitting with a contract and insurance that I am paying for but with nothing to show for it. I would appreciate it if somebody could please help me have this resolved, because it seems that nobody is able to help me and sending me in circles.