Beware Funeral Insurance ************

Hatlane, FinCrew, African Unity Life and Kula Partners who are all affiliated with each other from broker to administrators to holing/underwriting company... they do not even deserve a rating. I should have done my homework as African Unity Life is the only company I could even find mentioned on this site for previous reviews which appear consistent with my experience of them which was extremely BAD!!! ...I see they didn't even bother to comment or reply to previous complaints in this platform so if they are not reading this I hope that if you are considering doing business with them that you stop yourself and never ever ever take out any policies with them as they are just money grabbing *********** who will take your last penny and have every intention not to pay out your claim when you need them. I submitted my application for 2 x funeral policies to Hatlane, who I assume is a broker, giving authorization for commencement of the policies from 1 May 2021. They subsequently only commenced 1 June 2021 and claimed to the ombudsman to whom I referred this matter , that their administrators only received the documents on 28 May 2021 to procees for 1 June 2021 -miraculously they could proces in less than three days for the debit order to come off my account but it apparently took the Broker, Hatlane more than a month to pass the documents on to the administrators being FinCrew. I never received any policy confirmation documents. My husband died 21 August 2021 and I submitted my claims. Due to Covid-19 I myself was hospitalized during this time but had to constantly call or email to follow up with them as I had no reference. After much ado I was informed that they would not pay out the policy as the initial waiting period of 3 months was incomplete. I requested this matter be reconsidered by them via Hatlane and was informed that African Unity Life/ Kula Partners was not going to further entertain this claim. I was advised to take this up with FAIS Ombudsman. I submitted my complaint to the ombudsman immediately and received confirmation on 2 September 2021 that they had received my complaint. I tried calling and left messages for the FAIS Ombudsman office and eventually got an email toward December 2021 requesting that I send more information as African Unity Life claimed to not have received my complaint, which I did...including the original application and authorization forms which showed that I submitted documents in April 2021 already for commencement 1 May 2021. So the initial explanation that the waiting period was incomplete would never have been in dispute had they loaded and commenced the policy as per our agreement. So they penalized us because my husband died literally 10 days before this period was completed although they had already collected 3 months premiums...which would have at least been 4 months but because of their mistake and lax attitude all round, we were penalized. They even continued to collect 2 more premiums from the deceased before terminating the policy without any refund. My husband and I were both unemployed. We used what little we had to try and cover our family in case of an unfortunate loss. They took our money and when the time came to assist us they looked for a reason not to pay. I was not even offered a refund. The Ombudsman ruled in their favour today (six months later and after many calls and emails going unanswered) as African Unity Health/ Kula Partners claimed to only have received the documents from the broker on 28th May 2021. I have not seen this evidence for myself and therefore have included the entire lot named in this complaint until I am satisfied with the handling of this complaint and receive what is due. I am proceeding with further legal assistance and interference and hope you never have to go through a predicament like this at a time of a loss of a lived one.