Insuring against the new R150 000 limit

Your gap cover policy will from next year only pay claims up to R150 000 per person, where previously various limits up to R1-million applied.

Few claims exceed the R150 000 limit and the cost of these, on average, amounts to only a few rands per policyholder, says Mike Settas, director of KaeloXelus.

As an individual policyholder, however, if you are one of the few unlucky ones you could be exposed to a shortfall amounting to many thousands of rands. Settas says this “defies the intent of having a gap cover policy”.

He says nothing in law prevents you from buying more than one gap cover policy, as long as you do not claim for the same benefits from both policies. KaeloXelus has created two additional booster policies that you can buy in addition to your gap cover policy, giving you cover up to R450 000 a year — for an additional premium of R10 a month per policy.