Abstract
The complex world of insurance law is not readily understandable to a “gogo Dlamini” on the streets. This is due to the fact that traditional insurance, as we know it, has primarily been focused on serving those who have the financial muscle to consistently pay premiums. Less attention has been given to the market in the informal sector and thus many insurance products have not been designed with such a market in mind. In recent years, the South African government has taken an initiative to include those who have been excluded in the financial sector. One of the mechanisms chosen to achieve this goal was the introduction of microinsurance. Microinsurance is intended to introduce affordable insurance to the poor. Its main objective being to help manage everyday risks that the poor find themselves in. The success of microinsurance will however depend on the number of claims that are successfully paid out by microinsurers. Therefore it is important that a system is put in place to assist consumers of microinsurance in the insurance value chain to ensure that they are able to lodge successful claims. It is against this background that this paper investigates the impact of the 2018 Policyholder Protection Rules on claims handling in microinsurance. The crucial question being whether the rules make claims handling simple enough for microinsurance consumers to successfully claim from their insurers. This paper takes a stance that the features introduced by the 2018 Policyholder Protection Rules across the insurance value chain have the potential to make claims handling simpler for microinsurace consumers.
LL.M. (Commercial Law)