Beware of Bryte travel insurance!

My advice is to avoid Bryte travel insurance, they are underwriters for Absa so this is also the travel insurance that Absa bank offers in their top-up schemes. I was advised by a travel agent to make use of a top-up offered by Bryte when I paid for an air ticket with my Absa credit card (platinum) and had to pay R350 extra for this. My fellow travelers did not take this top up because they paid with FNB and Standard Bank credit cards.

We missed a connection from Paris to Barcelona due to train strike in Paris on 8 May 2018. This is the explanation I submitted when I tried to claim from Bryte: "I was denied boarding of a flight with Air France, AF 1048, from Paris to Barcelona on 8 May 2018 (I included a certificate from Air France) because of a train transport strike in Paris on this day (I included documentation of the strike). I reached the airport terminal 20 minutes before departure, but was denied boarding because the luggage had already been loaded onto the plane. AirFrance was willing to place me to another flight to Barcelona, but at a penalty fee of €520 per person. I found a less expensive flight with a local airline, called Vueling, for €139,99. However, this flight departed from Orly Airport, and as a result I had to take a shuttle bus from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Orly Airport, at 18 euro per person (I attached a receipt). I took the following precautions because of the strike: 2 I contacted the train station early on the morning of 8 May, while my flight was at 16:50, and was informed that the train service was running on schedule with no disruptions. 2 I nevertheless allowed extra time for travelling to the airport. While there were no problems with the first part of the journey, which was travelled on the metro service, the connecting train service to the airport was disrupted by the strike: 3 The connecting train stopped at an intermediate station and did not continue to the airport as it should have. I had to walk a long distance to yet another part of the station to catch another train. 4 This second train was so full that I was not allowed to board, and it was one of only a few that was running. 5 The train that I eventually managed to board was not an express train, and stopped at every station, taking about 30 minutes longer than the express train."

I was informed by Zainab Dawood from Bryte that they do not pay under any circumstance if you arrive late for check in, and they rejected my claim, quoting section 7.2 "We do not pay if you arrive later than the time required for check-in with the transport carrier". This was not stated in the brochure I received, although I suppose it is somewhere in the small print on the web. Interestingly FNB paid for the same claim without any issues and no top-up, and Standard Bank indicated that they would have covered such an incident in their top-up plan.

I certainly will not use Bryte ever again, and advise any of you considering a top-up to think very carefully before choosing them. I am now going to change my bank to FNB.