Absa Shortfall Cover Contact Details

Absa sells shortfall cover under the name Extended Cover. It is one of the value-added products attached to Absa vehicle finance, and it pays the gap between what your comprehensive insurer settles and what you still owe the bank if your financed car is stolen or written off.

Absa Extended Cover contact details

• Telephone: 0860 100 876
• Email: extended.cover@absa.co.za
• For lost or stolen cards, a different desk: 011 501 5050 or 0800 11 11 55
• Absa head office: Absa Towers West, 15 Troye Street, Johannesburg 2000

Absa’s two published pages for this product differ slightly: one gives both the number and the mailbox for Extended Cover, the other gives only the mailbox. The number above appears on the vehicle finance page and is the one to try first.

What Extended Cover includes

• Credit shortfall cover — the difference between the insurance payout and the outstanding finance balance.
• Excess cover — the excess your comprehensive policy would otherwise deduct.
• Violation cover — cover in circumstances where a policy condition would normally void the claim.

It is not the same product as Absa’s Credit Protection Plan, which covers your instalments if you lose your income, become disabled or die. Extended Cover deals with the car; the Credit Protection Plan deals with you.

The other value-added products, and their separate desk

Tyre and Rim Insurance, Dent and Scratch Insurance, the Mechanical Breakdown Warranty and the Booster Warranty are handled by a different team on 0861 666 488. Absa publishes two mailboxes for that line: absa@innovation.group on the vehicle finance page and AICproductLeads@absa.africa on the insurance page. Extended Cover is the only one of the six that routes to 0860 100 876.

Who carries the risk

Extended Cover is underwritten by Absa Insurance Company Limited, an insurer licensed to conduct non-life insurance business and an authorised financial services provider, FSP 8030, registration number 2000/025898/06. Absa notes on its own pages that it works with other companies to deliver these products and that some of them use Absa branding — so a claims handler who answers with a different company name is not necessarily wrong, but ask which entity you are speaking to and check it against FSP 8030.

Before you claim

• Register the loss with your comprehensive insurer first. Extended Cover pays on the shortfall, so it cannot be assessed until that settlement figure exists.
• Get the outstanding balance in writing from Absa vehicle finance on the same day — interest keeps running and the gap moves.
• Quote the vehicle finance account number rather than the registration number; the cover is attached to the finance agreement.