Capital Legacy Shakes Up The Industry
Capital Legacy, South Africa’s single largest provider of Wills in the country, announces it is about to launch solutions for the life insurance and homeowners’ markets plus industry firsts for the Islam community and a full-service succession planning solution on scale.
Managing Director, Brandon Garbutt says: “We have always been a solution driven business. Solutions for clients and solutions for our supporting advisor network. With our new offerings, we are approaching it in the same way - how do we help clients and how do we help our advisors?”
Starting with your Will
Since its inception in 2012, Capital Legacy has grown to become the leading provider of Wills in the country, with over 300,000 clients, 10 offices across the country in every major city, over 350 staff and nearly 5,000 supporting financial advisors.
Alex Simeonides, Co-founder and CEO, says “We saw, nearly 10 years ago, that not enough South Africans protected their legacies with a Last Will & Testament. Sadly, nearly 75% of South Africans pass away without a valid Will. Our goal since inception has been to help more South Africans get valid Wills in place.”
“After nearly a decade of working with deceased estates and watching families having to piece their lives together after a loved one has passed away, we got first-hand experience of how insufficient life cover often destroys the families’ ways of life,” says Simeonides. “All too often we’ve assisted in the set-up of Testamentary Trusts for children, but little to no funds are available in the Estate to effectively carry out the wishes of the deceased client.”
Shaking up the industry
According to Garbutt, they started asking questions: “How do we ensure more people have sufficient life cover in place for when the unexpected happens? Surely the best time to look at life insurance is when you’re doing your Last Will and Testament? And surely the people who wind up your Estate and set up the Trusts for your children or spouse are the best people to provide your life insurance solutions?”
The life insurance industry has been heavily polarised over the last few years with one part of the market moving towards direct insurers and another part of the market sticking with the handful of dominant big players. “We feel the market is ready for change,” says Garbutt, “Not change for the sake of it, change because it needs it.”
“Once we had set our minds on creating a solution for the life insurance industry, it just made sense for us to tackle the other burning issues such as: why is the financial advisor not a part of their clients’ process of buying a home; why are there no estate planning solutions for the Islam community and why do only the rich and famous have access to true, end-to-end succession planning services.”
Capital Legacy is planning an industry-wide launch, hosted by Larry King, on the 13th of August which is sure to get the market talking.
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