You want to take out a funeral policy for yourself and your family. But how do you know it is legitimate and not a scam?

Insurance and financial scams can see victims losing hundreds and even thousands of Rand. There are a few steps you can take to avoid falling victim to a funeral policy scam.

5 Steps to avoid funeral policy scams:

  1. Perhaps the most obvious of steps is to go with a reputable insurance company. There are a lot of well-known insurance companies that offer funeral cover, including the MoneyShop’s partners: 1Life, Hollard, Liberty and Kaizer Chiefs Funeral Cover.
  2. However, there are cases where fraudsters will pose as well-known companies and dupe you out of your hard earned money. The answer to this is to not respond to unsolicited emails and messages, or emails from addresses that don’t appear professional, like a Gmail account. The email should originate from the funeral cover provider’s domain name. Don’t respond to emails where you do not know the sender.
  3. Another red flag is when an email offer for an insurance policy asks you to respond to another email address. There are email address that don’t accept replies, for example noreply@email.com, however, in such as cases, contact the company via their official website or phone (using a number derived from their official website).
  4. Questionable banking details. If you agree to a funeral policy, and the company’s banking details are in a person’s name or appear to be a personal bank account, beware. This is most likely a scam and you will lose your money and be left with no funeral cover.
  5. While some funeral products are really affordable and offer low monthly premiums, be cautious if the premium sounds too good to be true. If the company contacted you to offer the policy, don’t agree to the cover immediately. Once you have terminated the call, contact the company’s customer service centre directly and a call centre agent should be able to advise if the monthly premium offered to you was correct.

In addition to the above, there are a number of other things you should be cautious of when taking out funeral cover. Go through the fine print and the policy details before signing any documents to ensure that you get the cover you want and need. It will be too late at claim’s stage if you thought you were covered for something, and it’s excluded from your policy.

Until next time,
The MoneyShop.co.za Team