Life & Long-Term
Long-term cover answers one question: if the person earning the money stops, through death, illness or injury, what happens to everyone who depends on it. Every product below is a different answer to that, and the differences between them matter more than the premiums do.
Written forAnyone with people who depend on their incomeBusiness owners with partners or loansAnyone whose cover was set up years ago
This is advice work rather than placement. The sum insured comes out of a subtraction that is specific to a household, and getting the structure wrong is expensive in a way that only becomes visible at claim stage, which is the worst possible time to find out.
What this typically covers
Money paid to the people you leave behind. The amount is not a round number someone suggested: it is what the household still owes, plus what it costs to run for as long as the children need it, minus whatever already exists. Most people are insured for the round number.
A lump sum payable on death, structured against liabilities, dependants' needs, and estate duty considerations.
This is the one people confuse with medical aid. A scheme pays the hospital for treatment. This pays YOU, on diagnosis, whether or not you are treated and whether or not you can still work. It covers the part illness costs that has nothing to do with medical bills: the adapted house, the year you cannot work, the spouse who stops working to care for you.
A lump sum on diagnosis of a defined severe condition, paid on diagnosis rather than on incapacity.
A capital sum if you are permanently unable to work. The wording is everything here: a policy assessed against YOUR occupation pays a surgeon who loses fine motor control, and one assessed against ANY occupation may not, because that surgeon could in principle do something else. It is the difference between a policy that works and one that argues.
A lump sum where injury or illness permanently prevents you from earning, assessed against your own occupation or any occupation depending on the wording.
A monthly payment while you cannot work, rather than one lump sum. For most working people this is the more important of the two and the more commonly skipped, because being unable to work for eight months is far likelier than being permanently disabled.
A monthly benefit replacing earnings during temporary or permanent incapacity, after a stated waiting period.
A modest amount paid quickly, usually within days, for the costs that arrive immediately. It exists because life cover takes weeks to assess and a funeral does not wait. It is not a substitute for life cover and does not pretend to be.
A small, fast-settling benefit for immediate costs, written under the assistance-business subcategory.
The thing that decides whether you still have this policy at seventy. A premium that starts low and climbs with age is cheap now and can become unaffordable exactly when you need it most; a level premium costs more today and does not. Nobody chooses this deliberately unless it is put in front of them.
Level, age-rated, and escalating premium patterns, and the effect of each over the life of the policy.
What this will not cover
What you did not disclose
Long-term underwriting rests on what you tell the insurer at application. A condition, a habit or an occupation left out can void the policy at claim stage, years later, when it is far too late to fix. The uncomfortable conversation at application is the cheapest part of this process.
An initial exclusion on death by suicide
Life policies carry an exclusion period from inception, stated in the policy, during which death by suicide is not covered. It is standard across the market rather than particular to any one insurer, and the exact period is in the wording.
Waiting periods on funeral cover
Assistance benefits carry waiting periods before natural-cause claims are paid, typically shorter for accidental death. It is the clause most funeral claims turn on and the one most brochures put last.
Occupational and pursuit loadings
Some occupations and some pastimes are excluded, loaded, or covered on different terms. Better to establish that at application than to discover it in a decline letter.
When you claim
The person claiming did not buy the policy
A life claim is usually made by a family member. What they need is the policy number, their own identification, the death certificate and the notice of death. Tell the people who will have to do this where the policy is now, while it is still a boring conversation.
An early claim is checked against the application
Insurers review claims made in the first years against what was disclosed when the cover was taken out. Non-disclosure is the main reason a long-term claim is declined, which is why the underwriting questions are asked properly at the start rather than answered quickly.
It is paid to the nominated beneficiary
Where a beneficiary is nominated the benefit is paid to them directly rather than waiting on the estate, which is the whole point of the nomination. It is also the field nobody updates after a marriage, a divorce or a death, and an out-of-date nomination overrides what you intended.
Frequently asked questions
It is a subtraction, not a guess. What the household owes, plus what it costs to run for the years dependants still need it, plus final expenses and any estate duty, minus existing policies, group cover through an employer, and liquid assets. The number that falls out is rarely the round figure people have in mind, and it is often lower than the fear and higher than the existing policy.
Yes, and you have 14 days to do it. The Policyholder Protection Rules give you a cooling-off right on long-term policies with a term over 31 days, provided no benefit has been paid or claimed and the event insured against has not happened. The 14 days run from when you receive the policy document, which the insurer has 31 days to get to you. Very few people know this exists.
No, and this is the most expensive misunderstanding in the class. A medical scheme pays providers for treatment. Critical illness pays you a lump sum on diagnosis, regardless of treatment and regardless of whether you can still work. It answers for the costs illness creates outside the hospital, which is where most of the financial damage of a serious diagnosis actually happens.
Group cover is valuable and it is rarely sufficient. It is usually a multiple of salary rather than a figure derived from your household, it is often not portable when you leave, and it ends when the job does. It is a floor to build on rather than a plan.