Are you paying for funeral cover twice?
Funeral cover is the most widely held insurance in South Africa and the most heavily sold, and those two facts combine badly. It arrives bundled into bank accounts and store cards, it is sold at the door, and most households hold more of it than they realise. Each policy pays out, but each one also takes a premium every month. Here is how to find out what you are actually paying for.
Pocket Nerd editorial · Checked 27 September 2026 · 6 min read
Every policy pays. Every policy also charges.
Holding more than one funeral policy is legal, and sometimes deliberate. What it is not is free.
If you have four funeral policies, all four pay out. That is real, and for some families the total is exactly what they want.
The problem is that most people with four did not choose four. They chose one, and the others arrived attached to a bank account, a store card and a decision somebody made in 2014. Each one takes a premium every month, for decades.
The cover is not wasted. The duplication is. And unlike most insurance decisions, this one is fixable in an afternoon.
Where it hides
Go through this list and check each one. Most households find at least one they had forgotten about.
Your bank account
Many current and savings accounts include funeral cover in the monthly fee, or add it for a small amount you agreed to years ago. It rarely appears as a separate line you would notice.
Store and clothing accounts
Retail accounts frequently bundle a funeral benefit into the monthly service fee. Look at the account statement rather than the purchase summary.
A standalone policy
The one you would think of if asked. Sold directly, often at the door, over the phone, or through a broker.
A burial society or stokvel
Long-standing community arrangements, sometimes several generations old, which often already cover the people a new policy would be added for.
Your employer
Group life and funeral benefits through work, which many people have and few can state the value of.
A parent's or relative's policy
Extended family cover taken out by somebody else may already include you, while you are separately paying to include them.
The afternoon that pays for itself
Four steps. You need your bank statements and whatever policy documents you can find.
- 1
Read three months of statements
Line by line. Look for anything going to an insurer, an assurance company or a funeral brand, and anything described as a service fee you cannot account for.
- 2
Phone each one and ask three questions
Who exactly is covered, for how much each, and has the waiting period passed? Ask them to send it in writing.
- 3
Add up what you are covered for
Then work out what a funeral you would actually arrange costs. If the first number is far larger than the second, you are buying something nobody will need.
- 4
Cancel the weakest, not the newest
Keep the policy with the longest unbroken history, because its waiting period has passed. Cancelling that one and keeping a newer policy is the expensive mistake.
Before you cancel anything
Two things that turn a sensible tidy-up into an expensive one.
Waiting periods restart
Cover for natural causes usually does not start immediately. Accidental death is typically covered from day one, natural causes after a waiting period. Cancel a policy that has been running for years in favour of a cheaper new one and you go back to the start of that clock, with no cover for natural causes in between. This is the single most expensive mistake in this whole exercise.
There is nothing to cash in
Funeral cover has no savings value. Stop paying and the policy lapses with nothing to show for the years of premiums, whatever it was called when it was sold to you. That is not a reason to keep paying for four of them, but it is a reason to be sure before you cancel the one you are keeping.
If a claim has been refused and you think that is unfair, you can take it to the Ombud for free. Here is how, and our funeral cover page has the full list of what to ask before you buy.
Questions people ask
- Can you have more than one funeral policy in South Africa?
- Yes, and each one pays out separately. That is legal and sometimes deliberate. It is also how households end up paying four premiums a month without meaning to, because funeral cover arrives bundled into bank accounts and store cards as well as being sold directly.
- How do I find out what funeral cover I already have?
- Read three months of bank statements line by line and look for anything going to an insurer or described as a service fee you cannot account for. Then check store accounts, ask your employer what group cover you have, and check whether a relative's extended family policy already includes you.
- Should I cancel my old funeral policy for a cheaper one?
- Be careful. Waiting periods usually restart when you take a new policy, so you can end up with no cover for natural causes during that gap. Keep the policy with the longest unbroken history and cancel the newer duplicates instead.
- Do I get my money back if I cancel funeral cover?
- No. Funeral cover has no savings value, whatever it was called when it was sold to you. If you stop paying, the policy lapses and there is nothing to cash in, which is worth knowing before you treat it as a savings plan.
Now go and check what you are paying
Knowing how the cover works is most of it. The rest is not overpaying for it. You choose which insurers get your details, and nobody else does.
Where this comes from
No published figures are used on this page. What a funeral costs varies enormously by family, community and province, and any single national figure would be one company quoting its own book.
Your own policy documents and bank statements are the authoritative source for what you are actually paying, which is why this page asks you to look at them rather than telling you what to expect.