Complain if insurer ignores your wish

You must complain if you try to exercise your right to move to another credit life insurer and the insurer fails to act on the instruction to cancel the policy, Nkazi Sokhulu, the chief executive at Yalu, a credit life insurer, says.

Sokhulu says this happens often and insurers “typically just ignore the consumers’ request to cancel”.

When an insurer ignores your instruction to cancel a policy, you must lodge a complaint with the insurer.

If you aren’t satisfied with the way your complaint is handled, you can lodge a complaint with the Ombudsman for Long-term Insurance. Most providers of credit life insurance are life assurers, so the product is governed by the Long-term Insurance Act.

But, some players in the market are short-term insurers, in which case you would have to complain to the Ombudsman for Short-term Insurance if the insurer refuses to let you change insurers.

The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), formerly known as the Financial Services Board, has credit life insurers in its sights. Business Day, a sister publication of Sowetan, recently reported that the FSCA would probe “point-ofsale products”, such as credit life insurance, which are frequently mis-sold to individuals who did not need them. The report said the FSCA may order insurers to reimburse consumers the

premiums they have paid for products that have been wrongly sold to them or that have delivered little value.

In 2015, the Lewis Group was taken to the National Consumer Tribunal for selling unemployment insurance to borrowers who were pensioners and self-employed and could not claim the benefit.

Lewis was also selling cover for occupational disability to pensioners who were no longer working. This type of cover pays out only if your disability results in you not able to continue with your occupation.