Tag: short-term insurance

It is that time of year again when you are swapping out your summer wardrobes for your festive season attire. You are having a long-overdue de-clutter and booking annual check-ups for the family. While you are at it, take the opportunity for your annual personal estate review to re-evaluate your estate documents and give the administrative side of your life a thorough spring-clean too!

Mitigating the increasing effects of climate change has become a top priority for South African insurers who have collectively paid billions of Rands in related damages over the past five to 10 years. The increasing frequency and severity of severe weather events – such as heavy rainfall and resultant flooding – threatens the sustainability of insurers who must protect the integrity of their balance sheets to continue paying claims for years to come.

Insurance claims can be repudiated for many varying reasons – from the most obvious to the least expected reasons. One of the best ways of trying to avoid an insurance repudiation is to understand your contractual duties stemming from your policy.

A few years ago, several well-known short-term insurance companies took legal action against an intermediary company due to the damages they incurred as a result of the intermediary's collapse. The intermediary, presently in liquidation, was responsible for the collecting and accounting of premiums owed to the insurers.

It is important to understand the difference between load shedding and electrical grid failure. Load shedding, as we understand it today, is controlled interruption of electricity supply to the public. These scheduled interruptions do not affect any municipal institution; however, electrical grid failure will affect municipalities as well as any public infrastructure.

Given the current high cost of living and uncertain economic environment, being caught off guard by an unforeseen life event may place one in a far worse financial position if no insurance policies are in place to safeguard themselves and their assets.

Insurance policies shouldn’t be seen as static agreements that are concluded as once-off arrangements. Instead, short-term insurance products are designed to evolve along with you and your family as your life takes shape, adapting to your changing needs.

Fixing prices is not the terrain of the Financial Services Conduct Authority (FSCA). In a recently published article, my colleague Dr Brian Benfield called for the outright abolition of regulatory price fixing with regard to the distribution of insurance products (i.e. insurance commission regulation Biznews). Indeed, it is astonishing that these regulations still exist.

Despite being in the business of risk mitigation, insurance firms themselves are often subject to risk in the form of insurance crime. Last year, the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA) found that South African life insurers detected 4,287 fraudulent and dishonest claims worth R787.6 million across the board.

We often associate 'safety' with the lived experience of not being in danger. This may apply to our personal safety, that of our belongings and loved ones. However, the concept is much more complex than that. Safety must be understood as a holistic biopsychosocial phenomenon.