Life Insurance

5 things you may not know about Estate Planning

Women and wills

The vast majority of women with families do all they can to ensure that the future of their spouses, children and other loved ones will be financially secure.

Record life claims confirm value of financial advice

South African life insurers will have paid-out an estimated R25 billion in pandemic-related claims by the time the country emerges from the third wave of Covid-19 infections. This staggering number, which is over and above the expected non-pandemic claims for the 2020 and 2021 years, highlights the economic and social contribution made by the insurance industry during crisis. It also draws attention to the valuable role played by financial advisers in ensuring that their clients have needs-appropriate life insurance cover in place. George Kolbe, Head of Life Insurance Marketing at Momentum, illustrated the value added by a single insurer by noting that Momentum had paid almost R60 billion in claims to its life insureds since inception, some 18 years ago.

A vaccination request too far?

Income protection specialist, FMI, a division of Bidvest Life, is the latest in a long list of insurers to admit that their lapse experience during lockdown and pandemic has been better than feared. “We expected [premium] affordability would become an issue and that high lapse rates would follow; but we have not experienced that,” said Leza Wells, Chief Product Actuary at the insurer. Wells was commenting during a virtual presentation titled ‘Covid-19: The real impact on life insurance ”. There is also substantial evidence that the country’s life policyholders have cottoned on to the value in their death, disability, dread disease and income protection cover and are doing whatever it takes to keep these covers in place.