Corperate Sharks With Itchy FIngers

Losing a loved one is never easy, having a good support structure in place has helped us cope in ways we never thought possible. The same cannot be said for old Mutual and their superfund department. What I have read on hellopeter prior to my post seems an accurate representation of Old mutuals views of other people’s money, families and futures… your just a number and source of income. My mother started working for the SIU in 2015, and had cancelled her existing life cover due to the promises of better benefits and cover in the form of the Old Mutual superfund which formed part of their package at work. In her policy, she had set out different percentages to her sons, name 40%, 30% and 30% respectfully, which was in line with her last will and testament On the 15th of April 2018 we lost our Mother unfortunately due to ill health. She was mother to 3 boys of which I am the eldest and the youngest being 16 who is mentally disabled. Through the help of the HR at SIU we proceeded to lodge the claim through old mutual, little did we know this would be the start of the hardest process since losing our mother. From the beginning till this present day we’ve had nothing but headaches and very little assistance from old mutual. In the initial stages we often called in to get progress reports and updates as to what the status of our claim was and we were often turned away with very little if no information at all. Through the help of the lawyers handling the estate we made some headway as to what was going on and what the procedure going forward would be. The claim had been with old mutual for almost 2 months when we found there was a document missing which we found out once again from us calling in and old mutual not keeping us in the loop, never the less we sent them through the outstanding documents. The policy was now at a stage where it would be sent to a board of trusties who would make final changes and decisions, which we all found very strange and suspect, at this stage the policy was sitting with a lady by the name of Albertina. We at this point struggled to reach Albertina through all channels namely emails, or on her direct line. I managed to reach a gentleman who sits next to her apparently, who informed us she had been at work for the past 2 weeks, the same period all of our correspondence was not being rep**** to. It was at this stage the relationship with old mutual took a turn for the worse and became irreparable. Old Mutual board of trusties who I might add, no one knows their names, contact number or email address, had made alterations to the policy which by looks of things was going to put money in their pockets and leave my brothers homeless. They had changed the beneficiary split to 80% 17% and 7%, When asked why this was done we were told “the exact reason is unknown and can be for many reasons, but most likely to give my youngest brother a better quality of life”. I asked how because this now creates a situation in which the estate becomes insolvent making my brothers homeless having to sell the house as the only asset in the estate. This decision was based on “thumb sucking” as no conversation with any of the parties involved was never had, no home visit or any further investigation. I contacted old mutual to try have this rectified, and this is where it turned south. We further more found out that old mutual was to appoint a company to administer my brother’s estate and issue the funds on a monthly basis being R 9000 pm, which created a shortfall of about R11000 based on a 10% yearly interest which clearly they would be pocketing. SO OLD MUTUAL MADE A DECSION TO MAKE THEMSELVES AS WELL AS THEIR PARTNERS RICHER THROUGH MONEY MY MOTHER HAD WORKED YEARS TO LEAVE BEHIND FOR HER SONS. We have since frozen the policy until the matter is resolved and are in the process of finding our own administrator for the trust account; because it seems old mutual has sticky fingers. All we want as a family is for my mother’s wishes to be upheld and her policy paid out in the manner she had planned, it was thought out because nobody knew her family better than she did. If anyone has been through a similar experience with old mutual I urge you to please get in touch with us so we create awareness of how they treat people, if any business owners read this I urge to strongly reconsider investing your employees hard earned money with such a company as it could and most likely be to their detriment. If anybody can or knows of someone who can help in taking our story forward to the rest of South Africa please feel free to contact me any help would be greatly appreciated. Lastly I will give credit where credit is due, we’ve Dealt with 2 individuals who have been forth coming compassionate to our situation and I thank you for your efforts, Arno and Mpho.