What's the difference between Life and Funeral cover?

Funeral Cover is there to take care of the immediate and often urgent costs of a funeral. It’s for people who want complete peace of mind that they themselves and their loved ones will get a proper send-off. It’s one lump sum that is legally limited to a maximum of R100,000, usually paid out within 24 to 48 hours of a claim.

Life Cover, on the other hand, is not only designed to take care of the costs of the funeral, but the ongoing costs of life itself. It’s there to preserve (and maybe even improve) the quality of life of the people you leave behind.

In Sanlam Indie’s case, we aim to pay up to R50,000 within 24 hours provided you’ve been a client for more than 6 months, but then a much larger remaining amount is paid out once detailed claims validation has been done. Some clients can get up to 15 times* more Life Cover than Funeral Cover, for the same premiums.

How can Life Cover pay out more than

Funeral Cover?

This is the really interesting bit.

Funeral cover providers usually need to know just one thing about you: your age. So they don't really know who they are insuring and what risk they are taking on. So, to compensate, they provide much smaller amounts of cover, at relatively higher premiums than the same amount of cover provided by comprehensive cover (like Life Insurance).

Buying life cover usually involves telling the provider a lot more about yourself. This part of the process is called underwriting. With the information you provide, the insurer knows exactly who they are covering and how much you need. They have a clearer idea of the risk they take on, and therefore are more comfortable to give you more cover for your premiums, because they can exclude people who are just too risky to insure.

It means it takes a little more time (with Sanlam Indie it's less than 10 minutes) to get a quote, and a bit longer to pay (there are background checks that normally take at least a month, you need more documentation etc.) but you can get much more cover and Sanlam Indie’s Life Cover comes with a quick payout portion to help with immediate expenses.

Here is a simple comparison of Sanlam Indie’s life and funeral products

Sanlam Indie Funeral Cover:

• ‍Maximum cover of R50,000 which doubles over time.

• Pays out within hours.

• Premium depends on age.

• No medical tests are required.

• Everyone qualifies.

Sanlam Indie Life Cover:

• ‍Maximum cover depends on income and age, but most clients get at least R1 million cover.

• Pays out up to R50,000 within hours, provided you’ve been a client for more than 6 month; the rest is paid after the claim is validated.

• Premiums depend on a few things (age, gender, income, smoker status, marital status, etc).

• Random medical tests are required.

• Not everyone will qualify.

Where do you get the most cover?

Let's take two example lives buying Sanlam Indie policies: Meet Mr A and Mr B.

Mr A and Mr B (who are both 30 years old) pay R100 per month for R70,000 Funeral Cover, which doubles to R140,000 after 3 years and their premiums remain level.

With Sanlam Indie Life Cover, we know a bit more and so the cover amounts may change:

• Mr A is 30 years old, a non-smoker, is married, has completed Matric, and earns R25,000 a month. He can get R600,000 Life Cover for R100 per month.

• Mr B is 30 years old, but he is a smoker, single, has completed Matric, and earns R5,000 a month. He can get R80,000 Life Cover for R100 per month.

Now that you know what you may need, get your Sanlam Indie quote.

*This is profile dependent, and not guaranteed for all clients.