 I'm Ray Knitling, I'm Olympic gold medalist and shareholder and marketing director of Alderview State, which recently acquired Pearl Valley State. I've been living in the beautiful Paul Frontwick Valley for the last five years. We are situated right in the heart of the Cape Wildlands. Security is our number one priority and it's something we work on every day. This has earned us the reputation of being the safest state in Africa. The lifestyle that this area has to offer truly is country living at its best. We're just five minutes away from the historic town of Pearl. Pearl really is an incredible area to explore with little gems like the spice root and fairview farms. But the biggest attraction is the excellent schools. Frontwick on the other hand is a major international tourist destination and also known as the culinary capital of South Africa with a diverse offering for every palette and occasion. Our recent acquisition of Pearl Valley is a major game changer for us. Our residents can now enjoy a wide range of amenities unmatched anywhere else in the world. There's the world famous Jack Nick the signature golf course which is consistently ranked among the top golf courses in South Africa and there are some beautiful properties on the course. Folder v really is the ideal family environment. We also cater to equestrian lovers with facilities on offer for every discipline from the two Hurlingham standard polar fields to our state-of-the-art equestrian centers and miles of trails. Our horses live in paradise too. Older v has its own wine farm and cellars producing award-winning wines which every resident can be proud of. I've been blessed to travel the world but this is the place I come home to. I'm sure you can see why we call it the valley of life and this is my neighborhood. In a world filled with uncertainties where lives are put on hold, business paused and working together means staying apart. At Epsom being a bank means staying connected. It means being a part of your future, providing relief at a time of need and doing this through effective secure online platforms. It means staying in touch whenever an else seems distant. Being a bank means knowing that we've come from far and are yet to go further. Sebuya go de fute si saia go de. And that possibly this could be a time for a new beginning, an opportunity to reflect and rebuild. We are alongside you, helping you to finance your dreams and grow your legacies. We are in this together. Regal feila si so ke. Once es al-Mulsana. That is African Nascita. Good evening and welcome to episode 28 of the Private Property Podcast. I'm your host, Zaman Dunwa Qumali. We're on day 55 of the national lockdown. We're going to make it to 100. I've called it. We all know it's going to happen. I think if anything, we probably just need to find different coping mechanisms to help us get there. Now, this evening, of course, it is a Wednesday so we are joined by Apsa. And tonight, we will be looking at the importance of insurance in the property market with Apsa and to help us better understand the different kinds of insurance you can find, the different ways you can utilize them. And some of the solutions that Apsa has for us, given this pandemic that we find ourselves in, I'm joined this evening by Eugene Strauss, who's the managing executive of life insurance at Apsa. Good evening, Eugene. Thank you so much for joining us this evening. Good evening, Zaman Dunwa. Thank you very much for having me. It's great to be here. So I think before we even get to some of the different products that people could potentially access and why they're so important for us to have, let's perhaps look at the importance of insurance in the property market and let's look at both long-term and short-term insurance. Yes, thank you. I think if I have to summarize it in one word, it's really about protection. So you're protecting a couple of things. Firstly, I mean, for all of us, when you're buying properties, it's a significant investment and you want to make sure that the asset's protected, but also you want to make sure that if something happens to you from a health perspective, which are able to service it, especially if you've had to incur debt, which most consumers have to get into place. So insurance protects in two ways. The short-term insurance cover, which usually is referred to as homeowner's cover, protects the actual physical asset in an event that is damaged to it from hail storms, flooding, whatever the natural causes they might be. And then life insurance typically covers you against the health events. So if you fall ill and or in a very unfortunate event of death, that you're able to still keep that property for your family with you. And I think it takes away the financial burden to life insurance assist you like that. So it really is about protection of the asset physically and keeping it in your family or with your loved ones. And I think insurance is one of those things that sometimes we typically tend to shrug off because it's almost like that extra debit order or an extra second debit order. And so many of us think that we are overly insured. I mean, it's car insurance, then you've got your household insurance. Some people insured their cell phones separately. So it's almost as though we're always paying for insurance. So sometimes when you're kind of sitting down and doing a tally off, you know, some of the expenses that you want to do away with some of those line items that you see going off in your bank account that you want to eliminate, more often than not, people will sometimes go and say, you know, I'm actually going to cancel this insurance. I haven't claimed in 18 months, sometimes even more. Why should I, you know, actually maintain it? Perhaps you can, if you can share with our kids at home, what some of the important things to remember are when it comes to insurance? Because I think so many of us might want to, you know, cancel insurance policies at the time thinking, OK, I'm going to maybe cut down maybe 2,000 with some people, 3,000 rands in terms of my monthly expenses. But really, what are some of the things that we should be mindful of when it comes to insurance? Yes, obviously, the first thing I would say to that is please keep your cover intact, I will say that. But I think that one of the first things to start with is the price you pay for insurance is largely based on insurers are assessing the risk associated with using an individual, whether it's, you know, on the property, looking at the value of the property, looking at, you know, the construction of the property when it comes to your, you know, your own, your own, if it comes to life, that's about your health and your age and these sort of things. And that's why it's very important. One of the first things to remember, it's very important to be, you know, very truthful in what you disclose at the time when you take it out in terms of what you're filling in on the form and what you say. Not only would it enable you to pay the right price, but you're also making sure that, you know, if something does happen, that the cover does actually pay out. So the disclosure you provide, having that accurate just takes away the risk of the cover not paying out for any reason. The second thing is, you know, having the right amount. I think that's quite important, because as you said, I mean, we really appreciate that, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you pay with your heart and cash for that, you know, and there's a lot of other things it's competing with, you know, you have to put food on the table, etc. So and, and there's a couple of things that that impacts that. And from a shortened perspective, when it comes to the cover that you've taken out over your home, just making sure that you, you know, on a frequent basis, assess that, you know, the replacement value that's specified in your policy is still accurate because that helps you to make sure that you don't have, you know, a too high or too low amount of cover in place. And then when it comes to life, the life part, what we see in life insurance is when it comes to home, homes in particular, people incur debt, home loans to take it out. And then, you know, they, they seed a life policy, either a session of security so that in the event that something happens, you know, that the installment can be serviced or the debt can be serviced. And what you need to consider when you're doing that as a session is that if actually taking out that life cover to sustain the livelihoods of, you know, your loved ones or the people that you're pledging the policy to, and that with the session, actually what ends up happening is a chunk of that we're going to actually settle in the debt. Or, and from that perspective, you just need to make sure that there's, you know, sufficient amount left to still sustain the livelihoods of whoever you had in mind when you bought the policy for protection. I think the third thing I would say is when you're uncertain, get advice. I think there's obviously we do know that there's there is quite a lot of things that's, you know, for us, it's common language. But, you know, we do know that it's not concepts that's always widely understood. Banks have people that, you know, either through telephony channels or face-to-face and in branches, we have advisors, we have fire spirit people on the line. And so if you if you ever are stuck, talk to someone, you know, because I think they can help you and guide you and actually have the right sort of sort of event in place. And then something I would add quite recently, you know, there's a last sort of point you can mind is that life cover actually covers not only death, people associated with death, which it certainly covers, but some policies also have temporary disability benefits, if you're unable to work for 30 days and it has loss of income benefits or income protection, if you're unable to earn an income. You know, so also to just think about those benefits, don't just think about the death cover when you're buying the policy. You know, something that you actually mentioned is when people choose to see their life cover in the event of their death, you know, to ensure that they pay for their home loans, what are some of the things that somebody should actually be watching out for in the event where they choose that option? I mean, is that even an option you'd typically recommend? Or is it better to simply, you know, have the life cover? Let's say it's a million rand or two million or whatever that amount is and then have a separate cover for the home loan itself so that in the event that something happens to you or you pass away, that that insurance essentially then pays off the rest of the home loan. And then your family essentially has the money for from the life cover. You know, I think the first thing to say is that it is it is it is very difficult to situations do vary and it's advice is quite important. You need to consider your unique circumstances because sometimes the life cover in place is sufficient. But if you look at how cost of living increases over time, what tends to happen is that the life cover has not get tracked with that. So most circumstances tends to be quite useful to actually take out a specific cover to cover the facility, the home loan. And because what it does is that the original policy then does what it's supposed to do, which is to actually cover the you know, the cost of living that you want to provide for for your loved ones. But it is also true that, you know, extension of the existing cover can also be a solution. And it would be important to just look and compare the two options. And fortunately, you know, within banks, we offer both those. We also offer some low value products, even products that you can buy with the cover almost. And you really would need to consider your circumstances. The general thing to consider, though, is, you know, how long ago did you take up that policy? Have your lifestyle expenses grown quite a lot? Because that's what you're trying to cover. And, you know, if you haven't taken you haven't taken out a cover recently, I mean, you're not sure that it's actually adequately covering what you need to do when you get this able to or if there is a big event, then I would say, you know, rather consider both. So it has been situation by situation, but what we do see is that, you know, people tend to be underinsured in South Africa. So, Eugene, I mean, a lot of people are currently finding themselves in quite a difficult financial position due to the COVID-19 crisis and the effect that it has, you know, on the economy, the state of jobs, multiple people losing their jobs and their livelihoods or their source of income. What if, you know, somebody is unable to meet their insurance, you know, payments during this particular period? Is there any assistance from APSA to assist, you know, customers who are unable to make those payments? Yes, absolutely. I think one of the first things I wanted to start with is there's a life insurance company in APSA. I mean, our ethos is one of care. I mean, we believe that policies, buying a policy is not just about the piece of paper and the claim. It's actually about peace of mind. It's actually about making sure that, you know, when you pay that claim, you're enabling a future generation's possibilities, you know, and I think we took that really as our guiding principles and how we wanted to be there for our customers right now. So, I mean, in addition, I mean, the banks offered, obviously, the payment relief, which is, you know, where you could stop paying installments for a month or two or further. And what we've done on the life insurance side is if you have a life policy with us and you are unable to pay, we've provided the two month grace period. What that means is for two months, you will allow you not to pay the premium. The cover will stay in place, will not be reduced. And then at the time when there is a benefit, pay out, you know, whatever benefit it forms, we'll just recover the premiums. We couldn't pay at that stage. And it's really a way that we are there for our customers during this time. And it's this additional relief. We already have some of these grace periods in our policies and some of our policies already have a two to three month period where we will allow people not to pay the premiums. So essentially, you know, depending on the policy, you've got to provide two to four to five months relief and for payment. And so if I if I understand that correctly, so if somebody essentially is unable to make that payment, you're essentially able to give them suppose June and July grace periods to not pay due to their financial circumstance and the policy that they essentially have would still hold. But then what happens to those whose situations don't change after July? Because as we know, kind of seeing we might be easing into level three, hopefully next week, and we might stay there for a couple of more weeks. And we don't even know if we might end up coming back to level four. So there's so many uncertainties and question marks around, you know, the future that some people's financial circumstance might not necessarily have changed after July. Well, no, I think the first thing to say is we do acknowledge that there is a lot of uncertainty and, you know, it's very difficult to actually be decisive and call, you know, when, when, when, when will we see be able to emerge out of this? So I think the first thing I would say is that, you know, we as a bank has come out and say, we starting to think about, you know, the next version of some of that relief. Well, on the life insurance side, as I've mentioned, you know, the two months you've provided is already in addition. So it essentially does give a couple more months of relief. But my general advice would be to talk to your bank, especially if you bank with us and then your life provider, as well as your advisor, because, you know, there are options available like you could potentially, you know, sell by a lower value cover. I mean, all these sort of options to become available. Like I've pleaded before, I think it's very important to try and keep your life cover in place. I know it's one of the first place where people go into to go to save costs, but, you know, with the elevated risk at the moment, you know, it's a good idea to keep your life cover in place. But also, and what people must understand is that, you know, if you if you have lapsed the policy and you go for it, especially in what we call an underwritten policy again, which is for the higher value covers, which you need to do. You know, things like what age plays a role. So if you come older, you would have you would like to pay a higher premium. You know, your higher health has moved and there's also waiting periods and more exclusions. And I think in most circumstances, it tends to be quite useful and more and better from a price perspective to keep the cover. And again, you know, if you're uncertain, you know, make sure you speak to someone, your bank or your advisor or your life continue to help you see that. Apologies, I seem to have lost the connection. What is a bank at a time like this? In a world filled with uncertainties, where lives are put on hold, business paused and working together means staying apart. At Apsa, being a bank means staying connected. It means being a part of your future, providing relief at a time of need and doing this through effective, secure online platforms. It means staying in touch whenever one else seems distant. Being a bank means knowing that we've come from far and a year to go further. And that possibly this could be a time for a new beginning, an opportunity to reflect and rebuild. We are alongside you, helping you to finance your dreams and grow your legacies. We are in this together. Rigo Felo says OK. Once is almost done, that is African Leicester. I'm Brandon Rubin. I'm an entrepreneur from Durban. The suburbs of Brea and Morning Sard are built on a natural ridge that overlooks the home of the sharks, the Mozambique stadium, Durban Country Club. It's just got an incredible outlook elevated over the city. Living in Morning Sard makes so much sense to us because everything is so central. Anything that we choose to do is back to episode twenty eight of the Private Property Podcast. I'm your host, Zaman Donga, Kumalic Seeds of Gremlins, and it may have just gotten the better of us before the break. Of course, I am joined by Eugene Strauss as the Managing Executive of Life Insurance at Absent. We're talking about the importance of insurance and property, you know, from or rather in the property market and in collaboration, of course, with Absent, understanding the different, you know, products that are available and also just why it's so important to ensure that you are adequately insured when you have a property. And sometimes even if you don't have a property, because I think there's so many different types of insurance that a person can have. Of course, we are taking your questions and comments at home. So if you do have any, do send them through and we'll get to some of the questions that we received from our viewers at home routine. I think one of them is perhaps if you could, you know, share for us the importance of credit life, because we've been hearing a lot about credit life and how some people might have it, but they don't know that they have it. They just contact their service provider. What is it and why is it so important to essentially have it? Thank you for that. And yeah, I think that one thing to just start with is that we started talking previously about life insurance policies being seeded usually on on home loans where the values tend to be higher. It tends to be underwritten products. So we go for a medical test and it's sold by an advisor. Credit life tends to be and not underwritten in the sense that, you know, it's it's a it's more written as a pool of risks and you don't do individual assessments of risk. And they therefore tend to be for smaller amounts of loans like credit card, personal loans, for example, vehicle and gas finance. But you do even find some low value loans that is also a form of credit protection policies on them. So and in short, you know, the whole purpose of credit life policy is it's a package of benefits that covers installments or the outstanding balance of the credit facility for for a couple of events being death, temporary disability, permanent disability, as well as retrenchment and loss of income. And and the reason why it's so important is that I think if you think about a scenario where what you've talked about with someone is you know, under strain for a continued period, what happens is if you with bank payment relief out then if there is a credit life policy, the credit life policy will essentially service a couple of installments. Then there's also the option of the bank payment relief that the customer can can can can opt for. And then on top of that, you know, in a situation like death, what it means is that the life cover will then go towards your loved ones. Protect the future livelihoods, whereas the credit life will cover the death. So it's not another burden on your state and on your asset value and on your asset values. And that's really why it is so important. And I think if anyone has been involved in the process of an estate, liquidity is a challenge, usually in the states and in trusts. And what credit life does, you know, actually frees up the cash in the sense that the facility is settled. And it certainly doesn't mean I can just imagine if somebody is heavily indebted in the event where your credit life, they have credit life on some of that debt. It does essentially ensure that none of the proceeds that you would that would essentially be yours have to go towards, you know, assessing those outstanding debts. We do have questions from our viewers at home. And the first one comes from bonds to chair Lasababwe. Now who asks, life cover bond or home insurance, which one is the best? Look, I think home insurance, I would say, ideally, you shouldn't be choosing the green bond insurance and life and life cover. I think you need both cover different risks. The one one covers the actual something happened to the physical asset. The life insurance then obviously covers the actual outstanding facility. And to my earlier point, I think what helps then is that, you know, that the life, if you do take out life cover to cover your bond, what ends up happening is that that debt does not pass into a state. You keep the house and you get the proceeds from any other life cover to actually fund future livelihoods. I just missed the third, so bond insurance and life cover all. So it's life cover bond or home insurance, home insurance. And then the home insurance obviously is usually the home contents insurance, which is the insurance that of the stuff physically in your building. Your furniture, your equipment, et cetera, and really is actually a package deal. And I think the way to think about it is there's different risks covered by different insurance, you know, the physical assets covered by the home owners cover, the home owners contents covers the actual property, the stuff in your house and then life cover. It's it's it's different by situation, but in general, it tends to be more effective for large value cover. You know, if you if you really have to if you really have to choose, make sure you look after the big insurance events. I think that's the ones that's more difficult for consumers to come back from, you know, and but ideally you should have it as a as a package and have to be comprehensive. But, you know, and I would say make sure you cover it for the large events. That would be the most important things to look out for. We've got another question, Eugene, this time coming from Bruno Santos, who asks, is life insurance a better option and short term insurance? Would it be better to have a savings account where you put the money in that is invested and used for a short for short term snacks that way you're not necessarily throwing away money? So I think I think the that is a very good question. The one thing to say, though, is that the benefit of getting life insurance that works on the pooling of funds and what that means is, you know, there's a there's a there's a number of risk events that you're pricing for that could happen. So now what happens in that timing is spread out. So if you have a large book, so you have a large number of customers, you know, they have a less chance of that event happening to that customer at a certain point in time. And what what pooling of risks means is that we actually share across across the pool. And what that means, though, is you end up having more money in a pool to invest to get return to then cover those big events. And so in most scenarios, I think if you if you are starting out and if you're building up still building up, you know, a sizable invest portfolio, it tends to be better to have life cover because what you have to save on your own to actually cover real big lifetime events like, you know, covering your your outstanding balance on your bond in the event of something happening or your house burning down. It is quite a significant investment due to or savings to put aside that quite a good deal, whereas what life companies are able to be in short insurance and able to do they pull the risk. And therefore it's got a lot more scale because investment can end up being able to be at a lower cost. Now, Eugene, you know, the unfortunate thing is, of course, many people, as we said earlier, are very likely going to find themselves without a job because they're ultimately going to to probably get retrenched. We're seeing a number of companies doing a lot of restructuring due to the effect of the COVID-19. Now, could you talk to us a little bit about the retrenchment and loss of income benefits that ABSA has on offer? Yeah, thank you for that. I think that's the first place to start is to say that, you know, we are so aware of, you know, that that uncertainty and risk gets in the system. And it's with that in mind that we've looked at what we offer. So in terms of create life, as I mentioned earlier, it's a bit of a package product. So without you get death, disability and loss of income, retrenchment cover, but it's also contracts been written over a long period of time. And therefore some contracts cover formal retrenchment. So in other words, you've been forming a great retrenchment by employer and doesn't cover other forms of losses of income. So what we've looked at as ABSA as we've looked at that definition and saying, we really want to be there for our customers right now. And we've widened that temporarily. And what that means is that if you've got a credit life policy with us, which had retrenchment cover that only covered you in the event of formal retrenchment, what we now will do is we will also cover for loss of income. So for example, if you've been forced to go on unpaid leave, we will cover installments for up to three months. If you are a contract worker and unable to perform your contract due to COVID-19 lockdown, et cetera, we will cover a couple of installments. And it's really another step we're taking. So look, during these times, we don't want to be strict in terms of how we apply that. And we've temporarily given some relief. And it's important to understand that if someone bought a policy where they only really paid for formal retrenchment cover or they didn't have that cover on their credit life policy, we still would offer that. So it's almost something that we do irrespective of us, the fact that we haven't been able to price for that. And it's another relief measure we've implemented. And I think you've already touched a little bit on contract workers. Perhaps talk to us a little bit about some of what is on offer for people who are perhaps self-employed or those contract workers because the nature of their work is already relatively unstable when the economy is functioning in its normal way. Now more than ever, there's particularly people who are self-employed. And a lot of them are uncertain about how they're going to go about getting their next income. Some of them will probably need to pivot in terms of the nature of the work that they're doing. What are some products that are available for them to be able to access and really help them weather this economic storm? So credit, it is a very good question. And it's something that also looked at extensively in the sense that credit life usually excludes self-employed. And if I can maybe spend a couple of seconds explaining why, I mean, what you're trying to do in life insurance pricing is you're trying to avoid anti-selection risk. What that means simply is, if you are self-employed, you could cause harm to your business and your business could lose income and then you claim. So, and we're trying to avoid that moral hazard. And there's an elevated moral hazard when someone self-employed because they literally can cause the event. And we're trying to, it's very difficult to price for that. It will make the cost of life insurance very expensive. However, what we have said though is we do understand that we're in unusual circumstances. And at the moment, while self-employment is an exclusion in our credit life policies, what we do offer is that we encourage customers to still contact us, submit the claim. If you go onto our website, you can see the credit life claims email address. And in there, we will still consider it on a case-by-case basis. And if we see that there's a very strong causality in the specific event, in the specific event, we can manage the risk of the moral hazard, then we will still consider those claims. So while it's an exclusion, it is something we do consider. You know, Eugene, before I let you go, any other tips that you'd like to share with our viewers at home in order to help them, you know, certainly financially navigate this particular space, whether they're already insured or whether they're considering taking on a particular product, any tips for our viewers? I think my general tips would be, you know, at the moment, I mean, reach out for advice we needed, talk to your bank early, I mean, the earlier you talk to your bank, the earlier that we can make plans to accommodate. I would also just guard against, you know, making decisions that expose you to big risk. Like for example, you know, stopping some of the key covers like your life covers, your homeowner's cover. I mean, they might in the short term help, but in the longer term, you know, of course, kind of cause quite a lot of damage. And yes, they just didn't say, I mean, we do appreciate that this is quite trying times and we really want to be there for our customers. And I think what we're all sharing as a bank is a lot of flexibility around how we solve for our customers. Eugene, thank you so much for joining us this evening. That was Eugene Strauss, the Managing Executive of Life Insurance at APSA, was helping us understand the importance of insurance in the property market and really, you know, sharing light about why it's so important to be adequately insured, but also the different steps that we can now take. I think the really big one is speak to your financial provider more than anything. This isn't the time to, you know, kind of take a passive perspective. And I know it's so overwhelming. There's so much happening. I think even the anxiety of us working from home and our homes becoming offices is already so much. You certainly don't want any financial stress to add on to the stresses that we currently face. So do reach out to your financial service provided in the event where it's absent. Do reach out to them. They seem to be taking quite a proactive approach, but also catering to, you know, people who are self-employed, but also contract workers and really wanting to help them make sure that they can economically and financially weather these uncertain times. Eugene, thank you for joining us. That's been episode 28 of the Private Property Podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Hoakumalua. Back again tomorrow evening. Members, stay home and stay safe until tomorrow evening. What is a bank at a time like this? In a world filled with uncertainties where lives are put on hold, business paused and working together means staying apart. At absent, being a bank means staying connected. It means being a part of your future, providing relief at a time of need and doing this through effective, secure online platforms. It means staying in touch whenever an else seems distant. Being a bank means knowing that we've come from far and are yet to go further. Sebuya go de fute si saia go de. And that possibly this could be a time for a new beginning, an opportunity to reflect and rebuild. We are alongside you, helping you to finance your dreams and grow your legacies. We are in this together. Regal feila si soke. Once es al mal san, that is african nasty.