Chronicle Editor
Michael Magoronga, Midlands Correspondent
Back in 2019, Tafadzwa Moyo (not real name), a teacher by profession, made headlines when he successfully breached the insurance sector security procedures by faking the death of his child and successfully claimed insurance from a funeral assurance company.
Having been successful the first time, Moyo decided to ‘murder’ his second child a year later and went to make another claim.
But this time around, he was not lucky as the insurance company smelt a rat and launched an investigation which led to the unearthing of the fake deaths and subsequent arrest.
Moyo was arraigned before the courts facing charges of defrauding an insurance company and was sentenced to 12 months in prison with an option of restituting $2 500 to First Mutual Insurance Company.
Moyo told the court that ‘economic challenges’ had pushed him to commit the crime.
The outbreak of covid-19 that same year brought the global economy to its knees and Zimbabwe’s economy was not spared leading to the government imposing a lockdown to try and curb the covid-19 positive cases which were on the rise.
The funeral assurance sector had to be on its toes as covid-related cases continued to soar and more claims were now being made.
The sector had to tighten its security measures to avoid fraudulent claims on one hand while on the other, it had to render satisfactory services to its clients.
Fears were that more fraudulent claims would be recorded in the sector amid an increase in deaths as well as pressure the country had generally owing to mounting covid-19 deaths.
The ‘Teacher Moyo’ debacle had served as a wake-up call and the sector tightened its security measures and zero cases of fraudulent claims were recorded during the covid period.
Zimbabwe Association of Funeral Assurers (ZAFA) General Manager Mr Taka Svosve said they have put in place measures that have helped in plugging the loopholes.
“We have not been having such cases lately; if so, they have not been reported. We dealt with matters that have been bedeviling the sector and we managed to plug the loopholes that were used by the fraudsters,” said Mr Svosve.
The first and major move was to reduce cash payouts.
“We made the claims less attractive to fraudsters by reducing cash payouts. Rather we now concentrate more on offering services and
providing equipment like transport, food and coffins amongst other things rather than giving client cash,” he said.
Constant updates and upgrading of systems are also imperative.
“Besides making a background check, we also made sure that our system within the organisations should be water tight to avoid any loopholes that allow fraudsters to do what they do best,” he said.
In liaison with the Registrar General’s office, the issuance of death certificates and burial orders is now going through rigorous checks.
“We also discussed the matter with the R.G officials and we agreed that the way burial orders were being offered before should be revised. This also went a long way in curbing the fraudulent claims as the burial orders and death certificates are no longer awarded willy-nilly,” said Mr Svosve.
While it is a success story for the funeral assurance sector, the rest of the insurance is still grappling with the scourge.
Insurance and Pensions Commission (IPEC)Commissioner, Dr Garce Muradzikwa recently said 20 percent of claims were fraudulent.
She however, said the fraudsters had designed new methods like, making multiple claims, overvaluing and overstating of properties.
According to Mr Svosve, this was not the only positive the sector drew from the covid-19 lockdown era.
“The covid-19 induced lockdown era was and is still an opportunity to reflect on ourselves. All this time we thought we were well resourced but it gave us the opportunity to see that we were not. This is the time we got close to most of our stakeholders as we looked for solutions to deal with challenges that were facing,” he said.
“We came closer to Government, local authorities and other key stakeholders like regulators as a result of the covid 19 challenges. We also came up with online and digital platforms where our clients can access their service from, which is a major positive drawn from the covid-19 experience,” said Mr Svosve.
The sector is now looking for ways of acquiring new business which is one major challenge the sector is facing as most people put funeral assurance at the bottom of their priority list in times of trouble.
Generally, according to Mr Svosve, the sector is on the rebound and the Covid-19 experience provided a platform to upgrade its operations.
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