SOME ELDERLY RISK LOSING TINKHUNDLA FUNERAL COVER

MBABANE – Some elderly people under Siphofaneni Inkhundla could lose a chance of a dignified send-off after they defaulted on their funeral cover monthly instalments.

Some residents from communities around the constituency raised concerns about challenges they had recently encountered pertaining to the payment of funeral claims they made to United Holdings. The company provided affordable funeral cover for elderly people across the country’s 59 constituencies. The cover is E11 per month, which equates to E132 per annum.

Subscriptions

Policy holders of the Tinkhundla Funeral Cover, which is offered by United Holdings Insurance to the elderly people, would normally pay their monthly subscriptions when they received their grants from government. This was before innovation means of disbursing the money were introduced by government. At the time, United Holdings agents would be around the centres where the elderly people were getting their grants and then collect the monthly premium. Some elderly would receive their grants either at the Eswatini Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC) premises or tinkhundla centre. This was when the elderly grant was paid at three months intervals.

The residents, who were speaking during the organised campaign by the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) at Maphilingo, said over time, they learnt that United Holdings was no longer sending agents to collect the subscriptions from the senior citizens. “All along, we understood that the senior citizens had funeral policies with United Holdings. However, we later learnt that the insurance company was no longer coming to collect the subscriptions. We were then left to wonder whether the elderly people were still covered,” said one of the residents, Sipho Gamedze. Gamedze went on to state that what remained a challenge was the fact that after the agents stopped coming to the Inkhundla centre to collect the monthly subscriptions, no one enlightened the senior citizens how they should go about with making the payments.

He went on to state that some of the senior citizens could not understand whether they were still covered or they had defaulted.“Were our elderlies robbed their money or what because some paid for a period exceeding a year,” he said. He highlighted recent cases of elderly people within the constituency who passed away and their families had challenges with claiming the E5 000 funeral cover. He said upon the passing of one of the senior citizens, the family members filed a claim but it was unsuccessful. The residents explained that they were introduced to the Tinkhundla Funeral Cover by their former Member of Parliament (MP) Mduduzi ‘Gawuzela’ Simelane. The former MP, according to the residents also facilitated that the insurance agents were available to collect the subscriptions.

The residents decried poor communication between the constituency leaders and the insurance company regarding the continued payment of the premiums, which had put many elderly people in danger of defaulting. It was gathered that another challenge was the introduction of the monthly payment of the elderly grants. In February this year, government started paying the grants monthly through MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) for those who were receiving the grants through the post office. “The elderly people should be given a clear way forward because now it looks like they were robbed their previous subscriptions,” he said.

Policy

Noteworthy, once a policy holder fails to pay their monthly subscriptions for three consecutive months, they then lose the cover. In response, outgoing outgoing  Siphofaneni MP Nomalungelo LaZwide Simelane acknowledged the challenges that have been encountered regarding the Tinkhundla Funeral Cover. She further acknowledged that there had been a communication breakdown between her and the constituents regarding the changes. She highlighted that with some beneficiaries who had passed on, they worked on their cover with bucopho and the insurance company. The outgoing MP mentioned, however, that it remained a lesson for them to make arrangements in order to avoid situations where more people encountered similar challenges in the future. A comment could not be immediately sought from United Holdings. A questionnaire was sent to the company but it had not been responded to at the time of going to print.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: