11/08/2025
Understanding waiting Periods or Waiting Trial.
Make sure you know the terms of any waiting periods on life or funeral policies you have recently taken out, or on which you have missed premiums.
During a waiting period, you typically only enjoy cover for a death resulting from an accident and not from natural causes. Even if you, or any other insured under the life policy, die from natural causes one day before the end of the waiting period, the policy benefit will not be payable.
Claims rejected for deaths during these waiting periods are the cause of most of the complaints to the office of the Ombudsman for Long-term Insurance.
This shows that the complainants are often unaware of the restrictions that apply to their cover.
The waiting periods may seem unfair, but they are there to protect life assurers from policyholders who only take out cover when they are ill and close to needing the cover.
You need to know how long the waiting period is and, in particular, whether a new waiting period can be applied if you allow the policy to lapse because you fail to pay the premiums within the required period.
A waiting period could be a defined period such as six months, or it could be after a defined period and the payment of a certain number of premiums.
The waiting period usually also applies when a policy is reinstated after it has lapsed.
Remmogo ka di nako tsohle.
