Life Insurance

How Much Disability Insurance Can I Take Out?

by Brendan

This is a very good question and one that I get on a fairly regular basis. Before I answer this question, I think it is important to note that you get two types of disability insurance cover. The type that pays out as a lump sum at claim stage (the insured benefit amount) and the type that pays out as a monthly income (better known as an income replacement policy). Lump sum disability insurance benefits are very popular in South Africa and in order to estimate what is an appropriate level of lump sum disability cover to take out in order to cover your salary, it’s suggested that the disability lump sum is converted into an equivalent monthly income. I am going to cover that little calculation later in the blog post for you. You see, we take out disability insurance to protect ourselves against the financial loss we would suffer if we became disabled and couldn’t work. No work means no income. No income equates to a financial loss and that is what we are insuring against. It’s therefore important to note that when taking out any disability insurance cover your income is what is used to determine the ...

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Tagged as: disability insurance, Life Insurance

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What Is An Accidental Death Life Insurance Benefit?

by Brendan

Are all life insurance benefits the same? I guess the best way to answer that question would be to ask another question. Are all motor vehicles the same? While all motor vehicles have wheels and an engine, there is a massive difference between a BMW and a VW Beetle. Granted, fundamentally all motor vehicles serve the same purpose (to get you from point A to point B) but the difference is in the detail. Wouldn’t you agree? The same could be said for life insurance benefits. While designed to serve the same purpose (pay out a lump sum of capital on the death of the insured life), life insurance benefits do differ. Again, the difference is in the detail and in this blog post we are going to look a little more closely at an accidental death life insurance benefit. What are the pros and cons of owning a life insurance benefit like this? So what is the major difference between an accidental death benefit and a traditional life insurance benefit? No prizes for guessing right. An accidental death life insurance benefit will only pay out if the life insured dies as a result of an accident. That means no ...

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Tagged as: accidental death, Life Insurance

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Life Insurance Companies Do Pay Out!

by Brendan
Dont forget to pay your life insurance premiums!

“Hello. Hi Brendan, I trust that you are well. Thanks for replying to my sms so quickly. Yes unfortunately you did read the text message correctly. My husband was killed in a car accident and we are absolutely devastated. I have taken a few days out to be with family, but I now need to put in a claim against our life insurance policy. Can you assist me? I just don’t have the strength to do this on my own and I wouldn’t know where to start” That’s the dreaded call I had with a client a few weeks ago. I must admit that the conversation rocked me and reminded me how fleeting life really is. One minute you’re on the way to work on a regular mid-week morning, the next minute your gone. In this case Mr. Smith is survived by his wife and 3 daughters. So why am I writing a blog post about an awful subject matter like this when we have the biggest party in the world happening right in our own back yard? It’s because in the ten years that we’ve been involved in financial services we’ve never had a death claim (and Lawrence and ...

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Tagged as: Life Insurance

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24% Of Life Insurers Claims Paid-To-Date Are Critical Illness Related! 49% Of Those Have Been Cancer Claims

by Brendan
Can you afford not to have critical illness cover in place?

I guess what really concerns me is how many people you hear of nowadays that are being diagnosed with a critical illness! As a kid, I can’t remember anyone in my immediate or extended family or even a family friend who was diagnosed with cancer or some other nasty dread disease. Actually I can’t even recall anyone we knew that died of a heart attack either. Twenty years on and that has all changed. Now thirty year old guys and gals my age are dropping dead from heart attacks, being diagnosed with cancer and having strokes. What is it? Are we eating too much processed food stuffs? Are we trading big bucks for stressful jobs which are slowly killing our bodies? Perhaps it’s just the hectic unavoidably pace of life in the twenty first century (put up your hand if you feel you need a holiday!). Whatever it is, it’s real and frightening and you have to be smart enough to at least recognize the fact that there is an increasingly real chance that you could become a horrible dread disease statistic yourself. Actually, Altrisk (Hollard Life) have just released their latest finalized claim statistics ending March 2010. A staggering ...

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Tagged as: Life Insurance

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How On Earth Do Insurance Companies Make Money?

by Lawrence
How do insurance companies make money?

What if I’ve only paid one premium and then write off my R140, 000 vehicle in an accident the next day? I’ve often asked myself that very same question… Or how about this question: “How would you start a brand new insurance company from scratch?” I mean think of it… You’ve placed your first ten clients on books, and In the process collected R10, 000 in premiums. Next day your first client phones in and says he’s written off his R140, 000 car R10, 000 in payments collected versus R140, 000 to be paid out! I don’t know about your business, but in our businesses it means closing  the doors (…and a lot of ducking and diving)! But before we get to the theoretical version of how insurers make money, let’s go back a few thousand years, to the very beginning of the insurance industry… How they insured in the good ole days! The story goes that Chinese merchants made use of rivers to transport their goods from place to place. Now instead of putting all their worldly possessions on just one boat they would spread their wares between a couple of boats – that way, if one of them ...

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Tagged as: Life Insurance, Short Term Insurance

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It’s not an Oscar, but we’ll take it anyway!

by Brendan
Nick Stern Altrisk Director on the left, Brendan Els stuck in the middle, Craig Harding Altrisk Managing Director on the right

Last month I received an email from one of our life insurance product providers. It read something like this “Dear Mr. Els, In recognition of your outstanding contribution, we would like to invite you to our annual top achievers awards ceremony.” I must be honest, my first thought was, “I’m still too young to be called Mr and I don’t own a Tuxedo!” Now right off the bat, I need to highlight the fact that I’m not that fond of insurance award dinners. Actually as far back as I can remember I’ve always tried to dodge these ego stroking, black tie affairs. “Oh, it’s on that night. Darn, unfortunately I have something on.” It’s something about all the back-slapping, expensive champagne and high fives that doesn’t quite sit right with me. (You will normally find Lawrence and me enjoying a cold beer in a quiet corner at these fancy affairs, discussing our strategy to offer more value to our clients). For us it’s never really been about receiving recognition at award dinners. The only people we aim to please are our clients. That’s the truth. If our clients recognize our efforts (and many do), that’s enough kudos for us. But ...

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Tagged as: altrisk, awards dinner, Life Insurance, simply life insurance

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