As South Africa enters the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s important to take not only the usual health and safety steps, but also financial precautions.
Make disability insurance a priority
As South Africa enters the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s important to take not only the usual health and safety steps, but also financial precautions.
The reality is that the road to financial recovery can unfortunately be as long and tough as the road to physical and mental recovery. Research conducted in 2019 by the Association for Savings and Investments South Africa (ASISA) revealed that even before the virus arrived, the average working South African was vulnerable, with individual shortfalls of R2.2 million when it comes to life and disability cover.
According to Priya Naicker, Head of Strategic Retail Marketing at Old Mutual, the overall gap between the cover we need and the cover we have has widened further since the onset of Covid-19.
“This is precisely why the development of the third wave and the risk of having to battle a serious variant of Covid-19 for a long time should cause us to pause and consider how we would cope in the event of illness or disability, whether temporary or long term.”
Old Mutual’s 2020 Claims Statistics Report highlights the significant impact of the pandemic on customers. Sickness Income claims increased 3.5 times, with the main reason for claims being ‘infectious diseases’, the category used for Covid-19 claims. For the first time ever, ‘infectious diseases’ showed up under the disability income category at 10%. Disability claims due to psychiatric disorders such as major depression rose by 9%, continuing the four-year upward trajectory.
“While many South Africans are aware of the importance of saving for emergencies, too few feel empowered to protect themselves against the most fundamental of financial threats, which is the inability to earn an income.
“Including disability insurance in your overall financial plan has never been more important. We believe it is our duty to help customers not only to make the most of their money through savings and investments, but also to protect their income against the unexpected. A holistic financial plan can safeguard you and your family’s wellbeing from the financial side effects of illnesses and disabilities, exacerbated through Covid.”
South Africans who have income protection products are usually able to receive a payout quite early into the progression of their illness or injury. You can choose the waiting period to be as short as seven days.
Naicker points out that ”Income protection offers you cover not only for permanent disabilities, but temporary and partial ones too. Disability lump sum, by contrast, provides you with cover for permanent disabilities where a large amount is often needed upfront to adjust to the impact of lifelong disability. Because of the different roles they play, Both disability income cover and disability lump sum cover are important components of a customer’s financial plan.”
Therefore disability income cover enables individuals to keep up with their day-to-day financial responsibilities, lump sum cover is what you need in the case of a permanent disability to enable you to make large, once-off payments like settling debt or modifying your home to make it wheelchair-friendly.
“While it is impossible to predict the future, it is possible – and important – to plan for and secure it,” she concludes.
The time is now to get disability cover that is right for you. Speak to your financial adviser today
and visit oldmutual.co.za/disability for more information.
Click here to find an accredited financial adviser
or call 0860 60 60 60
Alternatively, please complete the following form
and an Old Mutual Accredited Adviser
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Click here to read
Old Mutual’s 2020 Claims Statistics report.
Relevant articles:
https://youve-earned-it.co.za/site/retire-right-with-old-mutual/
https://youve-earned-it.co.za/finance/old-mutuals-risk-cover-claims-pay-out/