Premium payer unhappy with Two Mountains
“I had to borrow money from friends in order to bury my loved one. Or I had to postpone the funeral," said the upset Two Mountain client, Brendaly Mashiloane.
A Midrand-based teacher has had to borrow money to give her sister-in-law a dignified send-off.
Brendalyn Mashiolane had to wait for about three weeks before the funeral insurance provider could pay her out.
This is after her sister-in-law Cynthia Mashiloane passed away on May 1.
Brendalyn, who took the policy in 2020 with Two Mountain Funeral, said she then submitted the claim on May 3.
And that is when problems started as she did not receive the payout money before the burial date of her sister-in-law.
“I visited the office on May 5 and even the visit seemed to be pointless. I have three policies for my family and extended family with Two Mountains Funeral Undertaker. They refused to pay out the claim due to the abridged death certificate. All supporting documents stating the reason for the abridged death certificate have been submitted” said Mashiolane.
She added that according to Home Affairs, the computerised death certificate was only going to be available after six months.
“I had to borrow money from friends to bury my loved one. Or I had to postpone the funeral. Two Mountains insist that they will only pay out the claim with a computerized death certificate. I couldn’t wait for six months. I need to repay the people who helped me to bury my loved one,” Mashiolane added.
She added that after realising that they won’t pay out without the computerized death certificate, she then had to go back to Home Affairs for the certificate which she received after pleading her case to the Home Affairs officer who managed to help her.
“After submitting the computerized death certificate. They couldn’t give me a definite date when the payment will be made. After daily follow-up and text messages, they eventually paid the claim”.
She said the funeral policy company was quick to deduct premiums every month but came with excuses when they have to pay out.
Mashiolane added that the company had allegedly hiked its premiums from R250 per month to about R600 without any notice.
However, the company through its marketing and customer care department said during the past few months, they experienced high volumes of claims.
“[This] is following an exposure to unlawful claim incidents in one of Two Mountains’ products. These unlawful claim incidents, unfortunately, caused a payment backlog.”
They added, “We can confirm that the premium review was only applied after our valued policyholders were informed about such review to provide them with an opportunity to retain the policy, change or cancel. This was communicated to all affected policyholders in writing through SMS communications and letters. The correspondence further provided the affected policyholders 30 days to take the decision before the price review came into effect.”
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