Are you able to have your life insured with more than one insurer? Perhaps you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket and would feel more comfortable having life cover with a few insurers. Is this even allowed? It’s a great question, and one you need an answer to.

The good news is that you can have your life cover with as many insurers as you like. But what isn’t guaranteed is that you are going to get life cover with every insurer you apply with.

Why is that?

It’s got to do with being ‘over insured’. You must remember that every time you hand in an application for life cover, one of the questions that will be asked is:

“Do you have existing life cover in place, how much cover do you have in place and which companies are you insured with?”

The reason life insurers ask these questions is to make sure the individual, they grant the life cover to, isn’t ‘over insured’.

Consider this for a second – Let’s assume John earns R20 000 per month and he already has life cover with company X for R2 000 000. John also has another R2 000 000 life cover policy with company Y. John now wants to approach company Z to take out another life policy for R4 000 000.

First thing company Z is going to ask is: This guy already has R4 000 000 life cover in place, why is he looking to take out another R4 000 000 with us? Does the guy really need R8 000 000 life cover? If yes, then please ask him to prove his requirement for so much life cover.

John is now going to need to prove that he needs a R8 000 000 life cover before company Z is going to even consider granting it to him.

You can’t take out as much life cover as you like (or afford).

There needs to be a solid justification for taking out very large amounts of cover because insurers run the risk of having someone look to take out as much life cover as possible with a view to potentially ending their life and having the beneficiaries score.

It really does happen.

There is no problem in having your life cover with a few different companies if that makes you sleep easier, but there will be a cap on how much cover insurers are going to hand out. The best thing to do is work out how much life cover you actually need, then go shopping for comparative quotes before making a decision.