Santam, South Africa’s largest insurer, explains income protection as ‘providing certainty of income in the event that you are unable to work owing to illness or accidents’.

To protect your future today with Income Protection, click here

Ayanda Nosuko* explains how all she dreamed about when she was young was travelling and buying clothes, until the fateful day in spring when her mother returned home without a job or savings.

“In a matter of a moment, it dawned on me that I was now financially responsible for my mom. At times I feel frustrated and responsible …. like I am suddenly the mother in the family,” she reveals. “But now I remain grateful for what I have learnt about the importance of planning for my future.”

If like Ayanda, you are considering income protection, you need to be aware of a few things first:

What will it cover?

Consider whether it only pays out the equivalent of your monthly salary or covers unpaid debts as well. For example for people who are employed full time by a company, Momentum offers them the choice to take out 100 per cent cover for 6, 12 or 24 months, and 75 percent of their net income until they retire if they are permanently disabled.

What circumstances does it pay out for?

Many basic income protection policies only cover illness or accident; find out whether your chosen policy covers unexpected layoffs as well. For example, Discovery covers all your Discovery premiums (life, health, retirement, insure) if you are retrenched under their Continuation Benefit.

How is it taxed?

It is important to understand that income protection is only taxed when you pay your premiums because they are not tax-deductible; however the payouts are tax-free.

Does it offer short or long-term protection?

Some policies will only cover you for a few months while others will cover you until such date as you start full-time employment again. You need to choose the time frame that you feel best suits your needs.

How does it compare with other policies?

Ensure that your policy meets all of your possible needs by choosing the most competitive offering. Sanlam, for example, suggests combining income protection with disability cover, critical illness cover and life insurance in the way that best meets your present and future needs, and those of your family.

Income protection, coupled with good critical illness benefits can offer you a lifeline on your path to physical and financial recovery. Just ensure you know exactly what your policy will cover you for before you sign on the dotted line.

The post What is Income Protection and How Can it Help? appeared first on Insurance Quotes 24.

“It’s essential, when applying for insurance after a cancer diagnosis, that you deal with a broad-minded insurer that will carefully examine your unique conditions and follow-up healthcare to secure the best possible insurance cover for you,” says Hayley Taylor, Head of Underwriting at Hollard Life.

Taylor advises the type of cover you can get, whether you can get cover, how much you can get, and how much you’ll pay for it will depend on several factors:

• How long you’ve been cancer-free
• The type of cancer you had
• The date of your last treatment

NOTE: Certain types of skin cancers may have no effect on your insurance at all.

What You Can Expect From Your Insurer After a Cancer Diagnosis

1. You May Pay More Than The Average Person For Your Cover

Taylor says you may have what is called a ‘loading’ applied to your life insurance cover. This means you will pay more than the average person for your cover. If you have been in remission for over 10 years, you will not pay a ‘loading’ fee.

2. There May Be Upfront ‘Exclusions’

Some insurers may apply certain ‘exclusions’, which means they will not pay for certain conditions. Your insurer has to be upfront with you on this. If you are applying for critical illness cover, Taylor says it is unlikely they will cover cancer treatment, which will be excluded from the cover package.

3. You May Experience a Waiting Period

If you get life insurance cover you may have to endure a ‘waiting period’ or ‘claims free period’, where you cannot file a claim for a certain amount of time. This is usually at the beginning of the contract and is a way to pool your monthly contributions before making a claim.

Why Do Insurers Have a Broad Cancer Exclusion And Not The Specific Cancer The Policyholder Has?

“In most instances, this just isn’t possible because there’s such a high risk of the cancer spreading to other parts of the body and the increased risk of developing another form of cancer as a result of chemotherapy treatment.”

Taylor advises finding an insurer that specialises in extraordinary cases in order to get the best insurance cover. She also believes that it may be wise to employ the help of a financial advisor who will help you get the best possible insurance package for you.
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The post Can You Get Life Insurance After A Cancer Diagnosis? appeared first on Insurance Quotes 24.

20 336 people were murdered in the last year. 985 of those were children. 2 930 of them were women. There were 62 farm murders on record, with the majority of them (46) being white.

That’s just the tip of the ice berg, and the deeper we look the worse it gets.
With these high crime stats, you never know when something could happen to you! Get insurance today!

Crime Is In Vogue

The crime stats, released on 11 September, cover a twelve month period from 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018.

The data points to an increase in all contact crimes, which includes murder, attempted murder, assault with grievous bodily harm, common assault, common robbery, robbery aggravating and sexual assault.

Murder continues its upward march and has now broken the 20 000 mark. According to the numbers, 56 murders occur each and every day.

Other crimes on the increase include bank robberies (up by 333.3%) and cash-in-transit heists (up by 56%).

There were thirteen bank robberies reported in this period, compared to only three in the year before. In 2017, we saw 152 CIT heists. This year we saw a massive 238 CIT incidents – some of them the most brazen South Africa has ever witnessed.

Driving under the influence is up by 14.8% and other drug-related crimes up by 10.5%. Stock theft is also up by 7.2%.

Certain crimes have decreased, thankfully. Residential robbery is down by 0.4% and hijacking is down by 2.3%. Theft of vehicles and common robbery are both down by 5%.

We’ve also seen slight decreases in arson and shoplifting.

The Most Dangerous Areas In South Africa

Infamous for gang violence, Cape Town’s Nyanga remains the most dangerous place in South Africa, with the murder rate increasing by almost 10%. In the specific time period, over 300 murders were recorded in this area – more than anywhere else.

The crime stats also reveal which police stations reported the most cases in contact crimes. Although many crimes go unreported, we can use these numbers to ascertain the general level of inherent danger in that precinct’s surrounding area.

The stations which reported the most cases are as follows:

1. Johannesburg Central in Gauteng – 5 253
2. Nyanga (Cape Town) in the Western Cape – 4 784
3. Mitchells Plain (Cape Town) in the Western Cape – 4 362
4. Hillbrow (Johannesburg) in Gauteng – 4 334
5. Kagiso (Krugersdorp) in Gauteng – 3 580
6. Khayelitsha (Cape Town) in the Western Cape – 3 477
7. Dobsonville (Soweto) in Gauteng – 3 373
8. Umlazi in KwaZulu-Natal – 3 313
9. Inanda in KwaZulu-Natal – 3 194
10. Delft (Cape Town) in the Western Cape – 3 181

In terms of which province reported the most contact crime, in the top 30 police stations the Western Cape had ten stations, Gauteng nine, KwaZulu-Natal six and the Eastern Cape five. These top thirty police stations were burdened with 20% of the overall national murder rate.

The North West province saw 1121 cases in contact crimes, the lowest of all provinces.

We Need To Talk About It

During the 2016/17 period, South Africa recorded 19 016 cases of murder. This year, we broke the 20 000 barrier with 20 336. Of the 57 people killed every day, 46 are men, eight are women and two are children.

Of the children murdered in the last year, 691 were boys and 294 were girls, and most of them in the Western Cape.

In sexual offences such as rape, compelled rape, sexual assault, incest, bestiality, statutory rape and the sexual grooming of children, a staggering 50 108 cases were reported, with the majority of these being rape. This is up from 49 660 in 2016/17 and again, many cases go unreported.

There were also 22 261 cases of house robbery – in which the occupants were present during the robbery. On average, 61 households were robbed every day, and the South Africa’s 2016/17 Victims of Crime Survey revealed that only 56.7% of victims reported this crime to the police.

House burglary, on the other hand, where the occupants were not present, saw a massive 228,094 cases recorded – an average of 625 houses per day. The crime survey cited above revealed that 28.3% of house burglaries go unreported, as victims don’t have faith in the police. Most of the cases reported were only for insurance purposes.

Finally, 45 cars are hijacked every day, a total of 16 325 cases reported in 2017/18.
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Well think again, there are some brave souls out there trying to make a living with their lives at risk.

One can’t help but wonder whether these plucky employees took the most important factors into consideration, such as the potential dangers of the job, or whether it was the benefits that intrigued them enough to find out.

Most of the time, the factor we give the most consideration when seeking for a job or business, is the pay.

We just want to know how lucrative the job or business is, and what the returns are like.

It is true that every lucrative business has a certain level of risk and fatality attached, but for these jobs, setting out for work every new day is completely life threatening.

Listed below are five SA professions that are considered “danger jobs”

Miners

South Africa’s mines are known to be among the deepest mines in the world, reaching depths as much as four kilometres.

Although it is considered as some of the most dangerous jobs in the country, in 2014 it was said to be the safest year in the industry. The record of fatalities that year stood at 84.

This year tells a different story as three miners are currently trapped underground in the Lily mine in Mpumalanga.

According to PayScale, a miner earns an average annual income of around R194 096, while the mining employment opportunities that require a higher education and more experience such as a mining engineer earn as much as R461 276 on average per year.

Firefighters

High risk is a give-in in a firefighter’s job. The Cape fires blazed for weeks on end in 201 and brave firefighters battled day and night through the heat and smoke to put the blazes out.

Fighting flames in forests and rescuing people from burning buildings demands extreme physical and mental strength. At times, these guys find themselves trapped in fires especially when there’s an explosion in the course of putting a fire out.

A firefighter earns an average salary of R116 202 per year according to PayScale.

The Armed Forces

Protecting and serving our nation when it is most needed, there are many career routes within the South African Police Service (SAPS) that qualify as dangerous jobs.

A police officer is faced with danger on a daily basis. Working on the streets and with people from different walks of life, police officers come into contact with crimes and criminals on a daily basis. Situations escalate, leaving police officers to make on-the-spot decisions, evaluate situations and apprehend sometimes dangerous criminals.

The average salary for a police officer is R143 042 per year plus benefits.

Mayday…Mayday…Mayday

It is said that air travel is considered the safest means of transport, however, it applies more to the passengers who are not in the air every day of their lives.

The lives of aircraft pilots are put on the line daily, and the main reason why their jobs are considered dangerous is due to the high fatality rate.

Another reason is also because of the very low possibility of being rescued or survival in cases of accidents.

The average pay for an airline pilot, co-pilot, or flight engineer is R396 629 per year.

Paramedics and EMTs

Paramedics and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) are responsible for caring for the sick and injured in emergency situations.

Responding to emergency situations, EMTs and paramedics are often times exposed to dangerous situations – be it a shooting in dangerous areas or a natural disaster.

Aside from being one of the most dangerous jobs in South Africa, it is also a fulfilling one. Given the chance to be a first responder to an accident, you have the rare opportunity to make a difference when it comes to saving a life.

These guys earn an average salary of R 153 306 per year.

Are you afraid of losing your  job and going heavily into debt? Get Income Protection here to protect your family’s future!

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How does the rating system work? Pretty simple, really. You take the population of any given city and divide it by the number of homicides recorded over the last year. This gives you the murder rate of that city.

South Africa was the only non-American country to crack the top 50.

Cape Town narrowly missed a spot in the top ten, coming in at 11th on the list – and had the second highest volume of murders anywhere in the world, surpassed only by Caracas. This means that if not for the dense population, Cape Town would easily have made the top ten.

Within a population of 4.3 million citizens in the Mother City, last year saw 2 860 murders committed – giving the city a murder rate of 66.3 per 100 000 inhabitants.

It has to be said that this data includes murders taken place in the Cape Flats and other outer reaches of the city, including farmlands, which account for the majority of the figures that we’re looking at. As is well-documented, areas such as Mitchell’s Plain and Nyanga are known for horrific levels of gang-violence.

The second most dangerous city in South Africa came in at 45th place – Nelson Mandela Bay – which includes Port Elizabeth and surrounding towns such as Uitenhage. The area saw 478 citizens from a population of 1.2 million murdered in the last 12 months.

The third South African city to crack the top 50 list was Durban, in 47th place, with a murder rate of 38.51 per 100 000 inhabitants.

While You’re Here: Three SA Cities Ranked Among The Most Dangerous In The World

Is Cape Town Getting Worse?

Speaking at an end-of-the-month press conference this June, the Western Cape’s Minister of Community Safety, Albert Fritz, stated that a reported spike in crime and murder (specifically related to gangsterism) was of particular concern to the provincial government.

“Between November 2018 and May 2019, there were 2,302 recorded murders,” said Fritz.

He went on to state that he had held a meeting between his department, the SAPS and the Metro police, which focused on addressing problems surrounding effective coordination, cooperation and joint planning.

“The meeting also discussed various strategies to address the on-going issue of the proliferation of illegal firearms and the seemingly unchecked availability of ammunition, much of which is procured via gun shops using sports hunting licenses,” he said.

South Africa’s latest State of Urban Safety Report has revealed that Cape Town has doubled the murder rate of the other cities, and has seen the murder rate increase by 40% between 2011/12 and 2015/16.

Commenting on the increase of crime in the Western Cape, spokesperson for the Social Justice Coalition, Axolile Notywala, has named a number of contributing factors.

“Levels of inequality, unemployment, poverty and a government that does not care about the lives or well-being of poor and working class people can be linked to the contributing factors of the high crime rate in Cape Town. Lack of adequate infrastructure and services, as reflected in the two townships (Nyanga and Khayelistsha), which are neglected and have many informal settlements that are poorly serviced.”

Unfair distribution of law enforcement services (which we’ve spoken about in another article, here), lack of adequate infrastructure in high-crime areas and easy access to drugs or firearms. These are the main contributors to the growing gang-violence in and surrounding the Mother City.

At present, Cape Town has the highest recorded rates (of the nine big cities) for murder, robbery, and non-violent property-related crimes. This year also saw it moved from being ranked fourth to ranked third for sexual offences, while Johannesburg maintains top spot for hijackings.

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The post South Africa’s Deadliest City Is Getting Worse appeared first on Insurance Quotes 24.

Hosepipes have been banned from watering gardens and flower beds. And, the washing of cars and boats is currently not allowed either, unless at a commercial wash or with non-portable water.

But, this is about to be notched up a level.

The cities dam levels have dropped to 22.8%. Yet, worryingly, due to the last 10% being unusable, the levels are actually sitting at an all-time low of 12.8%. This gives the Cape about 88 days of water left. Of the six dams that feed the city, Theewaterskloof, the main supplier, is sitting at only 15%.

The City of Cape Town has already downgraded the water crisis to disaster status, with the city taking proactive steps to name and shame excessive users.

And, they are not about to stop there. There has been talk that the next level will be announced soon. This will have a major impact on all citizens and businesses in the city.

Rather safe than sorry we say! Prepare now for the tightening of the restrictions.

What Can You Expect?

Currently, sitting on Level 3 B restrictions, the Level 4 looks at clamping down completely on the use of water in the province.

This could include totally scrapping the use of portable water for outdoor use in private homes. That would mean that the only way you could water your garden is with grey water or run off. Municipalities will be restricted with the amount of portable water that they use in public gardens and parks. Topping up and filling your swimming pool will be banned completely.

You can also expect an increase in tariffs from July – if the increase is approved. The City has proposed raising them by 19% to “encourage people to use less water”. This has, however, been met with an outcry from already heavily cash-strapped citizens who have reduced their water usage.

The City’s Shameful Wastage

Despite water restrictions being thoroughly broadcast and implemented all over the city, there are still a lot of documented cases of wastage. The city had been meeting its weekly targets for several months but, last week, found itself 120 million litres over.

One Claremont user, in particular, is responsible for using 678 000 litres in one month. Many are blaming the higher usages of water, like this, on leaks on the property. Recently, a Manenburg senior citizen received a shocking bill of close to R42 000. She had been unaware that there had been a leak underground for a few months, which had been steadily increasing over the months.

We ask the question, in the event that a particular property’s water usage be particularly high, should the City not investigate? If it is an undetected leakage, should the City not strive to rectify the matter?

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What’s The Difference Between A Financial Planner And A Financial Adviser?

Both of these professions are quite broad. And there seems to be more similarities than differences.

How Will a Financial Advisor Help Me?

A financial advisor is a general term for any professional who helps you manage your money. Broad, yes. We told you. There are a number of specific areas of money management and they can cover either some, or all of these areas.

There’s a lot of grey area and confusion between what a financial advisor means here.  Perhaps not as much as in the US where advisors are solely investment focused and planners take the holistic approach. This is not the case in South Africa.

Financial advisors can help manage investments, act as intermediaries when buying and selling stocks and funds, or as an insurance agent, etc. They can create holistic financial plans to cover your insurance needs, your estate, and your tax plan. Whatever a planner can do…

The advisor assesses your current circumstances and identifies areas where you and your family’s financial well-being may be at risk. E.g. the lack of a will, or a shortfall on your retirement savings.

There are a lot of sub-categories in this profession. Depending on what they’re covering, it’s important that you make sure your financial advisor is duly accredited.

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So What About A Financial Planner?

A financial planner is in fact, a type of financial advisor (one of those subcategories). But the financial advisor, in theory, brokers the sale of certain products. These products safeguard the client against death, disability, or not providing adequately for major life events like retirement.

The financial planner, on the other hand, helps individuals (and companies) create a plan to meet long-term financial goals. More of a programme, actually. Once again, there’s a lot of grey area as financial advisors also administers a plan or strategy for reaching the client’s goals.

In the US, financial planners fulfil the roles commonly associated with a financial advisor in South Africa. These include estate planing, insurance, retirement planning, investments, etc.

The financial planner also assesses your current circumstances and then looks at your goals.

As Suze Orman – America’s famous financial planner – says, “A good financial planner is more focused on the plan than the products”.

A financial planner, then, should perhaps differentiate by fulfilling more of a financial coaching role than most traditional financial advisors, but that is at the planner’s discretion.

Read More about How Much Owning a Car is Really Costing You

The Bottom Line

The lines have blurred. Traditionally, you would go to a financial advisor to help you grow money, and a financial planner to look at your complete financial life. But a financial advisor does both of these things, and, provided a financial planner is accredited to give investment advice, vice versa.

Don’t limit the services that are available to you to titles. If you require something straight up, i.e. a quick assessment on your retirement shortfall and recommendations, speak to a financial advisor.

If you want a coaching aspect to your plan, ask your advisor if this is in his repertoire. Alternatively, contact a financial planner and find out if they can help you in this way. That includes identifying bad spending habits, assessing your circumstances and goals, and suggesting changes that could be made and monitored along the way.

Whichever way you go, just do your due diligence as the consumer and make sure you ask your financial planner/advisor all the right questions and know what to expect and how you’re going to be charged.

But the very bottom line is, as Phil Knight – co-founder of Nike – said; “It is hard enough out there. Get all the help you can. Getting help really is just a part of that lifelong search for wisdom.”

Whatsapp 076 888 4931.

The post Should You Deal With A Financial Advisor Or A Financial Planner? appeared first on Insurance Quotes 24.

Michelle Dubois, a legal marketing specialist at Liberty weighed in, “A retirement annuity is used either by individuals who do not have a company retirement fund or by those who wish to supplement their company retirement fund.”

She went on to say that a retirement annuity was helpful if you have started saving a bit later on in life and need to boost your retirement funds.

What is a Retirement Annuity Fund?

A retirement annuity is usually utilised by self-employed people or those who do not participate in a pension or provident fund.

The benefit of contributing towards a retirement annuity is that it is a tax-free investment vehicle. This means that all money accrued thereafter is tax-free.

5 Reasons to Start a Retirement Annuity Fund

1. Preparing For Retirement

The most obvious, but still the most important reason, is to generate an income for when you are unable to work or retire.

A retirement annuity is used to build capital during your active working years in order to have enough income to be able to enjoy the same standard of living once you have retired.

2. Ensuring Sufficient and Disciplined Savings

We all say that we will set aside a small portion of our salary every month that goes straight into our savings account. But do we always do it?

A retirement annuity is designed to ensure you save a sufficient amount of money every month. So. when you retire, you are well-looked after.

You also only have access to your retirement fund at the age of 55. This removes the temptation of dipping into your savings and potentially depleting your account.

3. Did We Mention Tax-Free?

When contributing to a retirement annuity fund, you are able to invest as much as 15% of your total income. This is less any other pension fund contributions, but is all tax-free.

Investment growth is also higher over a longer period of time. All growth remains in the policy and offers a better after-tax return as opposed to other types of saving. This also means that a turbulent investment market will not affect you as much. This is due to your consistent contributions which averages out any variability.

When you retire, you are allowed access to a third of your investment as a lump sum. The remaining capital is invested in an annuity that provides you with income during your retirement. A wise move and a way to make sure you don’t blow your retirement all in one go.

4. Supporting Your Dependents

This should honestly be at the forefront of your focus, especially if you are the breadwinner of the family. A retirement annuity can help your spouse and dependents survive and keep up with expenses that could have possible been passed on to them.

5. Diversified Portfolio and Room to Grow

A retirement annuity offers different asset classes which allow you choice and flexibility. You can either invest in direct property, private equity, fund of funds or house up to 20% of your savings offshore without needing Reserve Bank clearance.

Lastly, a retirement annuity gives you the flexibility to slowly increase your contributions over time. Whereas a pension fund is a fixed portion of your monthly salary. This may come in handy when, for example, the kids leave the nest and you have a little more money to invest as a result.

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The post Top 5 Reasons Why You Need a Retirement Annuity appeared first on Insurance Quotes 24.

“Can you pay my bills? Can you pay my telephone bills?”

Perhaps Destiny’s Child were also trying to figure out where to find extra cash to start saving for retirement. Just like us, mere mortals.

Pay Off Your Past Or Invest In Your Retirement

When asked, someone once told us that they paid their debts according to whoever called first. This (over-indebted) individual obviously did not have enough to go around at the time. But, say they had a bit more freedom to choose, would they pay off their debt? Or grow that cash for retirement?

It’s a valid question for any of us. Especially in a ‘financed’ culture, where we’re paying off everything we think we own. More than half of South Africans owe as much (or more) than 75% of their salaries to debt repayments. It comes as no surprise, then, that many people choose to fast-track debt repayments – and delay boosting retirement contributions in the process.

But, what you save in interest with this method, you pay in compound interest lost by not saving for retirement. Considering the statistics from our National Treasury that only 6% of South Africans will be able to retire without having to change their standard of living, this is a considerable cost.

Steven Nathan, 10X Investments CEO, shared on the 10X blog that the reason for this dire statistic is that people don’t understand the retirement savings industry. He says that it is crucial people understand how retirement funds work in order to achieve a comfortable retirement.

Most people underestimate the losses incurred when they delay saving for retirement. An example would be someone who needs to free up some cash short-term and chooses to make a retirement annuity ‘pay up’ instead of cutting DStv for a year.

Nathan advises you ask yourself: “How much money do I need to save to have the same standard of living in retirement? Am I saving enough? Am I on track? Am I saving the right way?”

3 Important Considerations

Christo Davel, 22seven CEO, said that where debt and retirement are bidding for priority status in your budget, the question shouldn’t be ‘either/or’.

“The practical solution is to find money. We believe that there is almost always some money to be found … it may be R100 a month or R1 000. Once you know where it is, then you can think about the ‘debt or retirement’ question practically.”

Financial adviser, Bray Creech, recently shared on the Citizen Times (a subsidiary of USA Today) that implicit in the ‘debt or retirement’ question, is that you are paying all of your minimum monthly loan payments (obviously). He advises that there is no one-size-fits-all answer, but emphasises some important considerations to make.

1. Know How Much You Owe

“…Make a list of all your debt. For each loan, jot down the following: how much you owe right now, your interest rate, and your minimum monthly payment,” advises Creech.

He advises you focus on those loans with an interest rate of 10% or greater.

“Assuming you’ve made your minimum monthly loan payments, pay off the highest after-tax interest rate debt first. If that’s credit card debt at 17%, for example, then by paying that down you’re effectively getting a 17% return on your money. … In contrast, getting a 17% return on your money through investing is difficult, high-risk, and anything but guaranteed,” he adds.

2. Take Advantage Of Benefits

Besides retiring comfortably, there are other added benefits in saving for your own retirement. For example, SARS offers a rebate on your retirement contributions equal to the rate you’re taxed (up to a maximum of 23% of your income). That’s what we call a ‘cash money’ incentive… in hip hop terminology. Word.

But, some employees have an even greater incentive. A company that offers to match the contributions on your company retirement plan. As in, what you contribute to your retirement, they match.

“If, for example, your employer offers a 100% match on the first 3% of your contributions, then you should contribute 3% of your salary into your retirement plan. Why? You’re earning a 100% return on that portion of your retirement account contributions,” says Creech.

3. Don’t Set Yourself Up For Failure

Creech confirms that, according to behavioural finance research, we’re more inclined to save and invest on auto-pilot. In other words, debit orders, stop orders, or automated payments from your bank account.

“That way, you don’t have the pain of writing a check or sending a payment each month.”

This applies to paying off your high-interest credit card, as well as contributing to your retirement. He also says some people respond to the psychological benefit of seeing debt disappear more quickly and prefer to pay their loans with the lowest balances first.

“While you may pay more interest with that approach, if it helps you stick with a plan, then stick with it,” he concludes.

The post Pay Off Your Debt Or Save For Retirement? appeared first on Insurance Quotes 24.

It’s important to note, however, that you will only start receiving benefits as much as eight weeks after you have registered. This should be the maximum amount of time it should take for payment to begin.

Payment is an interim process that is designed to help ‘bridge the gap’ between jobs. It is important to note that you can only claim from the fund if you have been actively contributing to your unemployment fund, your employer goes bankrupt, you are retrenched, or fired, or if your contract ends.

What Benefits Do You Get With UIF?

The Unemployment Fund provides the following benefits:

• Unemployment benefits
• Illness benefits
• Maternity benefits
• Death benefits

Benefits received from death include the death of a spouse or parent, whereby the deceased’s’ contribution to UIF can be accessed.

DID YOU KNOW? You can claim when adopting a child under the age of two years old. This, however, only applies if you have left work and is only available for one adoptive parent.

DID YOU KNOW? An unemployment officer might request that you go for career advice, counseling, or training. If you refuse or fail to attend, your UIF benefits may be stopped.

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Who Cannot Claim From UIF?

You cannot claim from UIF if you:

1. Quit your job.
2. Were suspended from work for committing fraud.
3. Refused training or advice.
4. Already qualify for a benefit from an unemployment fund under the Labour Relations Act.
5. Already received benefits from the Compensation Fund.

According to the Department of Labour website, The Unemployment Insurance Act and Unemployment Insurance Contributions Act applies to all employers and workers, but not to:

• Workers working less than 24 hours a month for an employer
• Learners
• Public servants
• Foreigners working on a contract to be repatriated at the end of their contract
• Employees in receipt of an old age pension are, since 07/02/2007, no longer excluded from contributing towards UIF
• Workers who only earn a commission

• They work for more than one employer, and lose their job at one of the employers
• Their employer dies

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This Is How You Claim From UIF

Visit your nearest Department of Labour Office to sign an unemployment register.

You will need: 

1. Your South African identity document or passport
2. A service certificate from your employer
3. Copies of your last six payslips
4. The UI-2.8 form which shows  your banking details
5. The UI-19 form which shows you are no longer employed

After you have registered you will need to bring your proof of registration each time you claim from the fund.

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How Often Can You Claim?

You can claim every four weeks from the Department of Labour office where you registered.

How Much Do You Receive?

UIF pays out a percentage of the wage or salary that you earned while you were contributing to the fund.

The highest that can be paid out is 58% of what you earned in a day. If you earned less than R12 000 per month, you will receive between 26% and 56%.

In the scenario where you have been contributing to UIF for more than four years, you can claim up to 238 days, or eight months. If you have been contributing for less than four years, you will receive one day’s pay for every six days that you contributed to the fund.

If your company does not provide maternity leave, UIF will pay out for 121 days.

The amount will be determined based on how much you were paid and, contrary to what you may have previously thought, the more you earned in your last job, the less you will receive from UIF.

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