Losing a loved one can be a terrible blow. It’s not a time when you or your family should have to worry about the cost of a funeral on top of your grief. Funeral cover helps you avoid this anguish by ensuring that you have all the funds you need for a decent burial. If you’re a breadwinner and you pass away, you won’t leave your family faced with debt to cover funeral costs. Sadly, death is unavoidable, so funeral cover forms part of proper financial planning. 

Benefits of Nedbank MyCover Funeral

Nedbank MyCover Funeral offers 4 funeral cover products to cater to different client needs. For individuals, we offer Individual R10,000 MyCover Funeral Fixed and Individual R30,000 MyCover Funeral Fixed. If you need to cover other loved ones, you can choose between the R30,000 Family Cover for you and up to 6 family members or up to R100,000 cover, which allows you to choose the premiums and cover you need for up to 29 dependants.

These funeral cover products differ in their premiums and the details of each policy, but they also have several features in common. These include funeral support – transporting the deceased to the funeral home, help with getting a death certificate, funeral or cremation arrangements, and a R1,000 grocery voucher if you use the free transport service. 

You also get: 

• immediate accidental-death cover with no waiting period, 
  
  
• 1 free month of full cover when you pay the full premium 11 months in a row, and 
  
  
• 2 free months of full cover when you pay 10 premiums in advance. 

Your policy will not lapse if you can pay only a part of your premium because of financial difficulties, and the policy will pay out within 24 hours of a valid claim submission.

How to claim under your funeral cover

1. Let your insurer know

Notify the funeral plan provider of the claim as soon as possible. Nedbank generally accepts claims that are reported within 180 days of the date of death. If you wait any longer, your claim may be rejected – it’s better to make the claim immediately so that you have the money for the funeral in advance. To notify us, call 0860 333 111 during office hours, or send an email to funeralclaims@nedgrouplife.co.za that includes the policy details and information about the death. We will then send you a claim form and tell you if we need any other information to assess the claim.

2. Gather the relevant documents

To assess the claim, your insurer will need the following documents:

• A completed funeral claim form.
  
  
• A completed certified death form, which can be either:
  • BI-1663 or DHA-1663, completed by the doctor who certified the person as deceased, or
  • B11680, completed by a traditional leader.

The relevant form will be completed when you report the death (whether at a police station, the Department of Home Affairs, or at the funeral undertaker). If the death occurred abroad, the form will be completed by the South African mission or embassy.

• A certified copy of the funeral parlour invoice or the burial order.
  
  
• Certified copies of the following documents:
  • Death certificate (either the computerised or final death certificate).
  • ID of the person lodging the claim.
  • ID of the deceased. If the deceased is younger than 18, you must provide a birth certificate. 
  • Bank details of the nominated beneficiary or policyholder.

If we need more information, the person lodging the claim must give us permission to contact anyone (including any beneficiaries, a medical practitioner, or a hospital) who we think can give us the relevant information we need.

Depending on the claim, we may also need:

• proof of the nature of the relationship between the deceased and the person lodging the claim, and/or
  
  
• a police report if the death is due to unnatural causes.

3. Submit the documents

To submit the documents to us, you can:

• hand the documents in at your nearest Nedbank branch,
  
  
• post or courier them to Nedbank Park Square, 9 Park Avenue, Umhlanga, 4321, or
  
  
• email them to funeralclaims@nedbankinsurance.co.za.

4. We assess the claim

Once we have received all the documents, we will assess the funeral claim and, if valid, process the payment. Make sure that the beneficiaries named on your policy are up to date if your family circumstances change, so that the money will go to the right person.