About this Plan

This benefit is simple. The policy pays out a tax-free cash lump sum to your beneficiary or your estate (if a beneficiary is not selected) in the event of your death, and to you (the Policy Owner) if someone else covered on the policy dies.

Summary

• Cover starts on the 1st of the following month after premium is received.
• The first premium will be due on the day your policy is accepted by insurer and thereafter on the first of every month.
• Please make sure you have enough airtime to cover the premium on the day of collection.
• We will attempt to collect daily until the full premium is collected.
• Total cover is based on the premium collected. For example, if 50% of premium is collected, 50% of cover will be applicable.
• A 3-month waiting period applies, unless death is the result of an accident. A 12-month waiting period applies on suicide.
• The “Me and my Family” option covers 1 spouse and up to 5 children.

Who qualifies for this policy?

• You must have a valid South African Identity Document and must be between 18 and 60 years of age to apply for cover.
• If you are covering your Partner* under this policy, your Partner must also be between 18 and 60 years of age at the time of application for cover.
• The product is only available for Vodacom Prepaid, UChoose and Top Up customers. 
• If you have chosen the "Just Me" option, only you will be covered under this policy and only one successful claim will be paid on the policy.
• If you have chosen the "Me and my Family" option we will cover you, one Spouse, and up to 5 (five) Children. Children must be biological yours, legally adopted and/ or stepchildren.
• If you leave the Vodacom network or migrate to a Vodacom Contract tariff plan, you and your family's cover will come to an end.

* Spouse means the person you are married to (whether by civil, customary, religious, or common law union). A maximum of one Partner is allowed on one policy.

Waiting period

A claim waiting period applies to every person covered under this policy, including Partner and children.

1. There is a 3 (three) month claim waiting period for death as a result of natural causes.  However, if death is as a result of an accident (such as a car accident), the cover starts on the commencement date of this policy.
2. There is a 12 month claims waiting period for death due to suicide. 

A new waiting period starts in the following cases:

1. When you make changes or increase your cover (a new waiting period only applies to the added cover or changes made).
2. When you add/change a Partner (a new waiting period only applies to the Partner).

Waiting periods already served on the Policy Owner’s previous policy with another FSCA registered insurer will be waived provided the lives insured were still covered 31 days before Cover Start Date. The waiver will apply to the same main benefit amount that all the lives were covered for with the previous insurer. Ancillary benefits will not be considered. Additional cover taken with Vodacom Life will be subject to normal waiting periods. To apply for the waiting period waiver, the following documents must be emailed to [email protected]:

• Proof of previous cover with the following information:
  • full names and dates of birth (or ID numbers) of all insured lives
  • policy inception date
  • cover amounts for each insured life as well as the applicable waiting periods.
• Proof of cancellation of cover not older than 31 days from Cover Start Date.

How this policy works

• You will only enjoy this benefit if you have successfully registered for  Vodacom Funeral Cover using your phone and
• You can only register for one policy using your phone.
• .  Thereafter cover continues as long as monthly premiums are collected, in full or partially.
• Premiums are automatically deducted from money available in your Vodacom Recharge Account on the day your policy is accepted by the insurer and on theYou need to ensure that you have enough money in your Vodacom Recharge account to pay your premiums.
• If you have missed a premium:
  • After the first successful premium collection, you will have a 30-day grace period, in which you will remain covered. . Should a claim occur during the grace period, the missed premium will be collected from the claim amount. If no premium is collected for two months in a row, the policy will lapse, and you will no longer be covered. If you wish to sign up again at a later stage, please note this will be considered a new policy and new terms and conditions will apply.
  • Before the first successful premium collection, the policy will be considered as not taken up and will be cancelled.
• Cover available in any month is flexible and proportional to the premium collected in the previous month in multiples of R1. For example, if 50% of the premium is collected, 50% of cover will be applicable. Please see below example for how this will work – this is an illustrative example, and the cover and associated premiums are not actuals.

Example:

You have taken up R10 000 cover for a premium of R50 with a start date of 1 May. If, in the month of May, we are only able to collect R35 in premium, your subsequent cover for the month of May is reduced to R7000.

This means if you claim for an event which occurred in the month of May, your payout will be R7000.

• Applicable cover in any month will be communicated to you via SMS at the beginning of the month.
• You can cancel the policy at anytime. Premiums will only be refunded if the cancellation is within the first 30 days from cover start date, provided no claim was lodged.
• The policy will be cancelled upon your death.
• We have the right to change or apply restrictions to the policy, cover amount, premiums and/or any amendments made to the Policy and/or premium for any reason, including changes relating to legislation or other rules applicable to this policy, and will notify you in writing within 31 days of any such change being implemented.
• We may cancel this Policy or place it on hold with immediate effect, refuse process any transaction or act on your instructions and we may take any other action that we consider necessary to comply with the law and prevent or stop undesirable or criminal activity.

When we will not pay a claim for any death

• If death arises directly or indirectly from any of the items listed below:
• Willing participation by the Principal Insured or such other insured persons under this Policy, in any of the following: o an act of war (whether war is declared or not);
• military action;
• riot of unlawful strike
• insurrection
• civil commotion
• usurpation of power;
• martial law;
• terrorism; and
• any usage of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, device or agent.
• Act or deed by the Principal Insured deliberately committed in violation of any law as well as any other insured person under the Policy including but not limited to a minor child, where his/her parent and/or legal guardian knowingly allows such child to participate in any act which constitutes a violation of any law;
• Fraud;
• The Terms and Conditions of the Policy are not met.

Adding a beneficiary

In the event of the death of a covered person, we'll pay out the cover amount to you or your chosen beneficiary or to your estate, if a beneficiary is not selected. If you wish to set up or change these details, please dial *135#.

Recovery Billing

Recovery billing occurs when you do not have sufficient funds in your Vodacom Recharge account (airtime balance) to pay premiums. Recovery-billing will allow for Vodacom to charge the amount currently available and will continue to attempt partial collection of the monthly premium until the full amount is collected, or until the last day of the month has been reached. Billing for the next period (month) will revert back to attempting to bill the full premium. Billing for your Funeral policy occurs monthly in advance. In order to optimize recovery-billing, Vodacom will check if you have sufficient airtime in your account before attempting recovery bill.

Pause Premium Payment

You may choose to pause the premium payments for your Vodacom Prepaid Funeral Cover at any time during a month and only for that month. During this time, Vodacom will not attempt to collect from funds available in your Vodacom Recharge account in that month. If, at the end of the month, the full premium is not collected as a result of the pause, your cover will be adjusted in proportion to the premium collected. If no premium is collected, lapse rules and grace period rules, as stated above, will apply as normal.

Resume Premium Payment

You may choose to resume premium payments at any time during the pause month. Vodacom will then resume premium collection from your Vodacom Recharge account on the next day. If premium collection is not resumed by the end of the month in which it was paused, Vodacom will automatically resume premium collection

Questions you may have

If you have any questions about your policy, call us on 082 178 00.  You can also visit us at www.vodacom.co.za/insurance for any other information you may need.

Claiming or complaining

For claims

Should you die, your beneficiary will need to call us on 082 178 00 or e-mail us at [email protected]. We will tell them what documents they will need to give us so we can settle the claim quickly.

Important claim time limits

We need to be informed of your death within 180 (one-hundred-and-eighty) days of it happening. If we're not informed in time by your beneficiary or estate, the claim could be declined.

Disputed claims

We allow 180 (one-hundred-and-eighty) days from the date of the communication of our decision for your beneficiary or estate to question our decision on a claim.  If we still decline the claim, and they want to start a legal process, they'll have an additional 90 (ninety) days to do so.

For complaints and compliance

We appreciate you as a client, so if at any point you are unhappy with any aspect of our service or your policy, please contact us using the following:

First stop...

...is to give us a chance to resolve the matter.

To ensure our focused attention, please use the following contact details: 

Call: 082 178 00

Email: [email protected]    

Then...

...if complaints about our service don't get resolved to your satisfaction, we're accountable to the FAIS Ombud.

The contact details are as follows:

Office of the FAIS Ombud

PO Box 74571

Lynnwood Ridge

0040 

Call: 0860 324 766

Email:[email protected]

Fax: +27 12 348 3447 

Or...

...if complaints about our products don't get resolved to your satisfaction, we're also accountable

to the Long-Term Insurance Ombud.

The contact details are as follows:

Ombudsman for Long-Term Insurance

Private Bag x45

Claremont

7735 

Call: 0860 103 236

Email: [email protected] 

Fax: +27 21 674 0951

This policy is underwritten by Vodacom Life Assurance company (RF) Limited and administered by O'Keeffe & Swartz BPO (Pty) Ltd, an authorised financial services provider.  Should you purchase this policy, your personal details will be passed to our appointed administrator and other partners to process and service this policy.

Currency and the laws that apply to this policy

This policy is subject to South African law and all pay-outs will be in rands to a South African bank account. In the event that the law or the interpretation thereof changes, we may change the terms of this policy. We will notify you of any such changes.

Fraudulent claims

If any claim under this policy involves fraud, misrepresentation or false information, such as incorrect age or relationship, your cover will be cancelled. In this case, no claim pay-outs will be made and no premiums will be refunded

Data Confidentiality and Sharing of Information

It is important to note that when you engage with us, you acknowledge that we require your personal information, as defined in Protection of Personal Information Act No 4 of 2013 (PoPIA) and other related regulations and need to process such personal information to provide products or services to you for purposes including to confirm, update and enhance our records, to confirm your identity and additional purposes as detailed in our Privacy Notice.  

By taking out this policy, you hereby authorise Vodacom Life Assurance Company (RF) Ltd to obtain personal information from you, and when required, to share it with our third-party service providers for the purposes of providing the services and benefits to which this Policy relates. Your personal information will be stored, processed and used only by our service providers to the extent that is necessary to provide the contracted services.  

Please refer to our Vodacom Life Assurance Company (RF) Ltd: Privacy Notice on https://www.vodacom.co.za/vodacom/terms/privacy-policy/life-assurance-company for a description of how we collect, use, share and protect your personal information when you use our products and services and our website.