If you’ve been thinking about leaving South Africa and living in another country, you’ll know this can have a big impact on your financial situation. You might need to open a foreign bank account. You might have to buy international health insurance. But what about your life insurance policy? Here’s what you need to know about making a move.

When your big move is temporary

If you’re planning on spending an extended time overseas, be it for work or a wonderfully long holiday, you don’t have to worry about making changes to your South African life insurance policy. As long as you remain a South African citizen or permanent resident, your life insurance policy will remain valid.

Just remember that certain countries are often excluded from coverage. Typically, these are potentially dangerous, strife-affected places like Afghanistan, Iraq and North Korea. This means you can travel there if you’d like to, but if you had to pass away there, your life insurance claim would be denied.

To find out which countries MiWayLife excludes from cover, check your policy document and give us a call to ensure that the list is still up to date.

When you’re moving for a longer haul

If you already have a policy, most South African life insurance companies, including MiWayLife, will continue to provide coverage even if you move abroad. You will need to ensure that you can continue to pay your premiums from your new country of residence. Some insurers may allow for international payments, while others, including MiWayLife, will require that your payments be made from a South African bank account.

 

To ensure that your life insurance policy remains active, contact your insurer, discuss your plans to move and get detailed information on how your policy might be affected.

When you’re emigrating for good

It’s not easy to lose your South African citizenship and most immigration specialists will tell you to hold onto it. However, South African citizenship can be taken away if you don’t apply to retain it before acquiring the citizenship of another country. Also, if you become a citizen of another country, they might require you to renounce your South African citizenship. Learn more about other circumstances in which you could lose your citizenship over here.

Once you’re no longer a South African citizen or lose your permanent residency, your life insurance policy could become invalid. Remember, MiWayLife only offers coverage to South African citizens and permanent residents.

In this case, if you wanted life cover, you’d need to apply for a new policy from a local insurer in your new “home country”. This isn’t always ideal as you’d be older, so your premiums might be higher. Also, most life insurance companies won’t offer cover to those over the age of 65, so these are all things to consider before you make that big move.

Did You Know:

You can now take out life cover with us online in a few simple steps. No calls and no agents! Make sure to take care of those you love today by buying MiWayLife cover online.