Cape Town - Following on Fin24 user Brian's letter telling of his rude awakening regarding his wife's funeral policy, another Fin24 user also shares her experience.
Brian wanted to share his experience with other Fin24 users so that they don't have the same problem.
His wife had cancer and she suffered for years while getting treatment. About a year ago she knew that the treatment wasn't going to work and she took out life and funeral policies with a large insurance company.
After his wife passed away recently Brian approached the insurance company to pay out the funeral policy.
After a big administrative nightmare, he had to discover that the funeral policy was not going to be paid out since the time period stipulated in the policy for which his wife had to have the policy before it would be paid out after her death, was short of one month.
Brian has now lodged a complaint with the ombudsman.
READ: Beware of funeral policy surprise
In the case of Fin24 user Nqaba a friend of hers had taken out an insurance policy with Hollard. She writes:
My friend had cancer and had taken the Kaizer Chiefs white labelled funeral policy and named me as a beneficiary.
After her death I emails went back and forth, but nothing came out and I eventually gave up. The cover was for R50 000.
Fin24 enquired about this from Hollard and the company responded as follows:
On the funeral policy in question the deceased was insured for R20 000.
A funeral claim was lodged with Hollard, but was repudiated due to pre-existing conditions.
In the contract it stated that for pre-existing conditions there is a waiting period of 24 months, which means that the client has to be on our books for 24 months before the policy can pay out.
In this case, the client was diagnosed with cancer and had been on treatment since before she had taken out the policy.
She passed away two months prior to the end of 24 months waiting period.
We sincerely trust that the above information will assist you with the necessary information to finalise the matter.
- Fin24
Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyFin24 have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views of users published on Fin24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.