I don’t know about you, but I’ve perfected the art of being an ostrich when it comes to things that feel too grown-up for me. I mean, I have two young children and a successful freelance business and two bonds and all that jazz, but life insurance? Eek! That all changed this week…
Mainly because I discovered a reason to buy life insurance: investment. IndieFin is a new insurance company in South Africa, backed by Sanlam (a very old insurance company in South Africa). I only know about them because one of my high school buddies is one of the founders and kept posting about how different they are… Which I mostly ignored (see previous point re: ostriches). But then Instagram served me a video ad that caught my eye, because what they do is invest 80% of your monthly premium.
Say what?! So I’m buying life insurance and a long-term investment at the same time? For those lucky ducks who are smart enough to sign up before they turn 30, it’s 100%! And a little less the older you get. The investment is called a Bounty, and they pay it out in full when you turn 70, or you can access 10% of it every 5 years (which I will not do, because I love me some compound interest. I think that’s what compound interest is…?)
The investment angle is what got me to look at the site, but the sheer joy of the process is what made me stay. Look at this homepage! It’s speaking my language.
The entire application process took less than 10 minutes and actually made me smile at points (very clever copywriting). It’s intuitive and simple and it somehow takes life insurance from something I feel I should do, even though I don’t want to, to something that feels empowering and positive.
How did they do this? I don’t entirely know. But I do know that I am adulting hard this week, and feeling great about it! I can get R2 million life insurance for R175 a month, with R140 of that a month invested. That feels great. Disability insurance and income protection are crazy expensive, as usual (thanks diabetes and all the associated complications!) but I have avoided life insurance for years, and it feels great to finally take my head out of the sand. It also precipitated a conversation between Mark and I about what our future looks like if I were unable to earn my income – what would our plan be? How would we deal with it?
It felt clear and calm and (weirdly) unemotional. What a great bouquet. Find out more here if you’re interested – keep ostriching if you’re not (I won’t judge!)
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