While funeral cover and life insurance are not competitors in
the technical sense, in the context of South Africa's unique
and complex socio-economic makeup, questions such as "Funeral
vs Life Cover, should I have one or both?" Just such a
question was recently discussed in a recent article on IOL Personal Finance.
Both funeral cover and "life insurance" as they are
referred to in the article, are life insurance cover in nature, but
are distinct in the value of cover that one can obtain and their
respective terms and conditions which differ vastly. Funeral cover
involves simplistic underwriting factors, because only the death of
a person is covered, normally with a waiting period of 6 months, to
exclude anti-selection by the insured. Underwritten life cover, as
is stated in the article, takes many more factors into account and
the underwriting is complex. The duty of disclosure of an insured
is also much more onerous and detailed, to ensure that the risk
