Africa-Press – Eswatini. Attending to educational needs will never be the same in Eswatini courtesy of Old Mutual.
The company has launched a new product called Educate-A-Child with a maximum cover of E20 million. The launch was held at the Old Mutual headquarters in Mbabane.
Business Development Manager Nozipho Dlamini said the product was offered to groups especially in places where there was an employer-employee relationship predominantly and it could be other groups which should be well defined.
“In a group there could be people with and without children. For those without children, for their pay-out they could choose for it to go to their estate or any other beneficiary they would have selected,” she said.
She mentioned that the good thing about this cover was that it really did not require one to list only their biological children it could be any relatives they wanted as beneficiaries.
“We don’t have many restrictions because our main focus is when you pass away, the portion of your cover shouldn’t go to unnecessary things but educating the children,” said Dlamini. She stated that should the cover owner pass away after the children had completed school and tertiary they would be able to cash out on the cover and use the money to their desires.
She added that should a member of the cover commit suicide in less than 24 months of opening the cover they would not benefit from it.
Empowering force
“Unfortunately if you haven’t had the cover for that minimum period then your children will not benefit,” she said. Old Mutual Chief Executive Officer, Muzi Bell said they came about this product because they saw education as the key to open the doors to a better life for children.
“Education is the most empowering force in the world. It creates knowledge, builds confidence and breaks down barriers to opportunity,” he said. He mentioned that with the sad reality of the world millions of children may never receive this key and if no one stood up and did something about it, children would continue to form part of these statistics even in situations where it shouldn’t be necessarily be so.
“The death of a breadwinner or an income earner could be financially challenging for any family, especially if that family has children who relied on that person to pay for their education,’ he said. Bell stated that the purpose of the Educate-A-Child benefit was to help reduce the financial strain of educational costs on a family or child after the death of an income provider. “We have noted this gap with great concern and as a company that prides ourselves on our ability to deliver leading solutions and creating value for the society in which we operate, we saw it best to seek ways to try and close this gap as best as we can. Therefore, the birth of the Educate-A-Child product came about,” he said.
Bell urged other different business and organisational leaders in the country to step forward and embrace this initiative. He also urged business leaders that they needed to seek innovative approaches of delivering these results and they must seek to achieve inclusion. The company also donated E5 000 to Illa- Pen boy foundation which will help the foundation buy school shoes for under privileged school children.
…partners with likhwane beneficiary services
Old Mutual new product, ‘Educate-A-Child’ would be provided in partnership with Likhwane Beneficiary Services.
Old Mutual Business Development Manager Nozipho Dlamini said Likhwane Beneficiary Services would be responsible for the administration of schools related payments. “We felt that we needed to give this function to a specialist and that is where Likhwane comes in for this function,” she said.
She mentioned that Likhwane was a specialist in this field and having been registered with FSRA, they had years of experience in beneficiary services and administering beneficiary funds
Likhwane Beneficiary Services Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Peter Shongwe said what they did was investigations on guardians to ensure that they were fit to handle funds.
“We are able to change the guardians and ensure that the kids are with proper families and well taken care off. We do this through our unannounced visits to the homes,” he said. He stated that they thrived to ensure that members of the public received proper education and were well taken care off.
For More News And Analysis About Eswatini Follow Africa-Press
