As a South African living abroad, chances are you’ve paid more attention to starting your new life abroad than your financial affairs in your home country.
You may have money due to you!
Many South African expats deliberately ignore their financial affairs in South Africa since they believe the tax man may snub them or find the administration time-consuming and laborious from such a vast distance.
But in avoiding the issue, you may also be losing out on the R1 billion in unclaimed policies in South Africa. That’s right – there is R1 billion due to South African policyholders which is still unclaimed.
Why are there so many unclaimed policies?
When policyholders cease their payments into their policies, the insurers or investment companies turn these policies into paid-up accounts. The funds in these paid-up policies are then supposed to be paid out to the policyholder or beneficiary, but since many individuals aren’t aware that their policies are paid-up, they simply discount these policies.
In other cases, policyholders may have forgotten about their policies – especially if the policy was taken out years ago. These ‘aged’ policies also make it harder for insurers and investment companies to track down the rightful claimants as these individuals have most likely changed jobs, moved homes and their contact details may not be up to date. Additionally, insurers’ databases may not be properly managed, or they may not give priority to tracking owners of orphan policies.
By law, the funds in these policies cannot be paid out to anyone but the policyholder or beneficiary, irrespective of where they may find themselves in the world. This means you may be one of the lucky people with a pot of gold waiting for you.
We can track and trace your policies for you
Finglobal.com can assist in tracking your policies and claiming what’s rightfully yours. If you suspect that you may have funds due to you, simply leave your details and we’ll get back to you!
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