Bowman Gilfillan joins Camargue's Risk Management

Camargue has announced that one of Africa’s premier corporate law firms, Bowman Gilfillan Incorporated, has joined its panel of risk management service providers effective January 2015. Known for helping clients manage the risks inherent in bringing high stake deals home, and employing over 310 specialised lawyers, Bowman Gilfillan is adding further depth to Camargue’s body of risk management experts. Camargue Underwriter, Ncedisizwe Mbongwe, says: “With Bowman Gilfillan’s expertise, we are now able to offer a new Camargue-sponsored service which is being presented as a standard risk management tool to all our insured retirement funds.”

When faced with a matter relating to the Pension Fund Adjudicator (PFA), and legal opinion is required, one sponsored legal opinion and response per policy period will be provided by Bowman Gilfillan. Adding to this Mbongwe says that the PFA dispute can include any matter that the customer believes requires expert legal attention and does not need to be restricted to what the insured’s policy covers. 

Clause amendments

Coupled with this new risk management service, Camargue has adapted the claims notification clause in the Pension Fund Trustees Liability (PFTL) insurance policy - adding even further value for customers. Under the PFTL insurance policy, any circumstance which could reasonably give rise to a claim must be reported to the insurers and will be deemed to be a claim once that circumstance becomes a loss. 

“A question that begs answering however, is how practical this is in a high-circumstance, and low claim or loss scenario, such a Pension Fund Adjudicator (PFA) complaint,” says Mbongwe. “Typically, any retirement fund may receive a number of PFA complaints regarding members who are unhappy (generally with their pay out) each month. This can lead to hundreds of complaints a year. The complaints range between withdrawal, death or disability, or benefit complaints among many others.” 

In the year 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014 alone, the PFA received 5,405 new complaints and resolved 6,763 complaints (including prior years) during the same period. Withdrawal and death benefit issues made up 70% of these complaints.

Mbongwe says that after gathering information from retirement funds, administrators and brokers, it’s evident that the majority of these complaints are resolved and produce no loss for the fund. As a result, many PFA complaints are not notified to the insurer. 

When complaints convert to a claim

Traditionally when a complaint is made to the PFA, a notification is sent to the insurer so that the circumstance is deemed to be a claim when a loss arises; failure to notify the insurer of the circumstance would lead to the claim being rejected on the grounds of late notification. This practise requires the insured retirement fund to submit potentially hundreds of PFA complaints per month, while the broker is bombarded with a large number of claim notifications. “With our new policy wording, circumstances only become reportable once the PFA has made a ruling against the retirement fund. With the determination against the fund, the circumstance is then reportable without concern of rejection on the basis of late notification. This saves on administrative time, and bolsters peace of mind,” concludes Mbongwe. 

For more information, contact on [email protected] or [email protected], visit www.camargueum.co.za or find us on Facebook.