Funeral policy not paid out due to technicality.

My late Mother had a funeral policy with Nedbank. Upon her passing I wanted to implement a claim on said policy. I was told that no beneficiary was listed. At the end of the day I had to pay for said funeral out of my pocket. I was wondering why, with all of the legislation protecting customers, do we still have situations where customers pay for a critical service and at the end that service cannot be used? So if I'm paying for a funeral policy, surely the beneficiary should be me by default? Because I am paying for it. So Nedbank- how about me getting my money back?