A Worcester woman says she is being given the runaround by her insurance company after her sister passed away in December but the company failed to cover the funeral costs.
Instead, they have been sending her from pillar to post for nearly TWO months and despite filling out the required documents numerous times, she says they keep coming up with an excuse to delay the payment.
Nontobeko Mlilo, 63, says staff are now even ignoring her desperate phone calls.
The pensioner says four years ago, she took out a funeral policy with The Unlimited for her family, which included her sister Nozipho, 66.
She says it’s the first time she has claimed and, according to her policy, the money should have been paid out within days.
“Nozipho passed away on 5 December due to Covid-19 while we were in East London. I called The Unlimited and asked how I can claim from that side. I was told that there are no offices and that I must go to Cape Town,” she says.
She says she borrowed money from people to arrange the funeral in Port Elizabeth.
Her sister was buried three days later on 8 December and she returned home to Worcester where she started the claim process.
“I was sent forms for the doctors to fill in and that was done.
“Every time I submitted the forms to The Unlimited, I would get a response that there was a missing form.
“I made sure to get that form filled in and then they started dropping my calls when they realised it was me calling.”
Nontobeko says she has been paying her R220 monthly premium to The Unlimited for the past four years.
“They were supposed to pay out R18 000 to assist with the burial. We had to borrow money from people and they are now chasing me around wanting their money back.
“I cannot pay them back as I am waiting for the claim to be processed. I am diabetic and this is causing my blood pressure to rise.”
When the Daily Voice contacted the insurance company, they refused to answer any questions and would also not identify a spokesperson.
All they would say in the email correspondence was that the claim had been assessed: “The claim has been assessed from our side and the client can contact The Unlimited call centre for more information. The Unlimited Team.”
It was not made clear whether they would be paying out the family or not.
Nontobeko believes the company is lying about the assessment as she has not received any feedback from them, “but I will call them tomorrow to hear what they have to say”.