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·         The most cost-effective temperature to keep your geyser at is 60 to 65 degrees Celsius.

·         Going away for two days or longer? Then turn your geyser off. Switching your geyser on and off regularly will not harm your geyser but turning it off for short periods has a negligible effect on your electricity bill. 

Imagine you’re stranded due to car trouble. You’re on the side of the road, and frantically explaining to your client that you won’t manage to meet their looming deadline. This means you won’t get paid for your current project, and you may even lose them as a client.

Under these – or similar – circumstances, what kind of role will your car insurance play? We answer this question, and consider other ways your insurer will support you during times like these.

Will your car insurance kick in? 

Glenn Anderson, general manager of Dotsure, says that personal lines insurance, which typically covers individuals against loss, differs vastly.

“If your policy specifically stipulates that you’re covered for loss of income, then it will be covered, provided that the claim meets the relevant criteria,” says Anderson.

However, he explains that this is not something you can expect to find as a standard benefit on an ordinary car insurance policy.

Caron Whitfield, head of distribution and marketing at the Apio Group, says car insurance is usually only applicable to sudden and unforeseen accidental damage to a car, such as an accident or theft.

How will your car insurance assist you? 

Unless you have a high tier insurance policy, loss of income cannot form part of your claim. Either way, it’s important to know what else your insurer might cover, and how it could help you in this situation.

“Keeping their vehicle in good working order is the responsibility of every motorist, but we understand that breakdowns do happen,” says Whitfield.

“Emergency roadside assistance is normally attached to comprehensive motor policies. A toll-free number can usually be contacted at any hour, and the team will assist with towing, flat batteries or tyres, and other minor roadside incidents,” she explains.

On top of this, many insurers will supply a temporary car to assist you with your day-to-day travel needs until your car has been fixed. Contact your insurer directly to find out whether this is part of your policy.

According to Christiaan Steyn, head of MiWay Blink, this is called “car hire” on most insurance policies, and it’s usually an optional item at an additional premium.

“The reason for this is that there are multiple options to suit the needs of different people and each comes at a different cost,” says Steyn.

He explains that the first decision you need to make is what type of rental vehicle you would need. This ranges from an entry-level manual hatchback to an SUV or bakkie – it all depends on the number of people you tend to transport and the job that you do.

“The second decision you need to make regards how long you may need a rental vehicle in the event that your vehicle is damaged, written-off, or stolen,” says Steyn.

“You could choose the shortest period – let’s say 10 days – which at least sorts you out for the initial period while your car is in for repairs. This will give you time to make alternative transport arrangements should your vehicle not be repaired by day 10,” he explains.

Steyn adds that the premium you pay for car hire depends on the combination of these two choices. Obviously, the more expensive the rental car option you choose and the longer the period of car hire cover sought, the higher the premium is going to be.

Photo’s by Pexels
Article by Harper Banks
Featured in justmoney.co.za

For most people, moving house is a stressful experience. There is so much to do and usually not enough time to do everything before the removal van arrives.

In this situation, it is easy to overlook important details – like the need to insure your belongings while they are in transit from your existing home to your new home.

Existing cover

If you already have a household contents insurance policy, you should be able to add the cover for protecting your belongings while in transit. Some insurers only require details of the date of the move and the new address and don’t charge extra for this cover. Other insurers may charge an additional once-off fee for including household goods in transit cover in your standard policy.

If your household contents are not already insured, there are other insurance options you can consider. However, make a note to at least consider taking out household contents cover once you settle in your new home. This type of insurance is relatively inexpensive and will give you peace of mind in the event of possible future disasters, such as fire or theft.

Before the move

Moving house is a good opportunity to get rid of all the items you no longer need or want. Do this before you move – don’t take the clutter with you. Remember that the more items there are to be moved, the higher their moving cost.

To make sure that your household contents remain covered throughout your move:

•  Make a list of all the items to be moved.

•  Notify your insurer of any changes, so that your insurance premiums will accurately reflect the value of the contents.

Other options

If you are employing professional movers for your move, the quote from the removal company will almost certainly contain a charge for cover for goods in transit.

This cover is not always included, particularly with smaller removal companies. It is also usually more expensive than cover that is part of a standard household contents policy.

Before choosing an option, you need to compare costs, specific details of the cover offered, and benefits.

If family and friends are helping you to move to save costs, keep in mind that insurers usually only cover loss or damage to your household goods in the case of vehicle collisions.

Claims

When you unpack, take note of any damages caused by the movers. Make sure you submit any claims for damages before the deadline stipulated in the policy.

And, whichever option you choose, make sure the household contents in transit are insured at the correct value. You want to be able to replace all your goods being transported if anything does go wrong. If you are under-insured your insurer will only admit part of the claim. If you are over-insured, your premiums will be higher than they should.

Check with your Broker first because goods in transit insured under a household contents policy offers limited cover.

Photo's by Pixabay
By Sarah-Jane Meyer
Article featured in privateproperty.co.za

The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) has announced the development of an 'AI-based automatic pothole detection system'. The system is designed to be installed on the windshield of a vehicle to detect potholes on the road surface in real-time. Potholes can damage cars and may even lead to life-threatening accidents.

South Africa’s ageing road infrastructure is fraught with dangers. As motorists, we have to be aware of other vehicles, animals and pedestrians. We also have to take defensive action against an increasing number of potholes.

In Johannesburg the city claims it fixes up to 4 500 potholes per month.

The City of Cape Town reportedly spends more than R110 million per year repairing 250 potholes per week. Despite their efforts, potholes are still prevalent.

In particular, potholes can cause problems in the rainy seasons. 

In Korea, the number of potholes reported across country from 2016 to 2018 was 657 993. Total damage compensation amounted to R58million nationwide.

Road surface management starts with quickly detecting damaged sections, and this involves vibration-, laser scanning-, and image recognition-based detection technologies. In particular, with the recent development of the detection technology using deep neural networks, image recognition-based road surface management methods are receiving attention. In addition, the image-based technique can be used with personal devices, such as a vehicle or smartphone camera. This makes it easier for local governments, which have relied on visual inspections by humans, to employ the technology.

A research team at KICT led by Dr Seungki Ryu developed this system that detects potholes in real-time by photographing the road surface while driving with a vision sensor installed on the windshield of a vehicle. The AI inference model semantically segments damages on the road surface using an encoder-decoder network based on the FCN (fully convolutional neural network) architecture.

A common problem in image-based detection is that even at the same location images can vary in the pixel unit information depending on changes in the external environment. In particular, it may be challenging to identify damages on the road surface with the AI inference model as the brightness of the road surface changes over time. To solve this issue, a new CNN (convolutional neural network) model for image preprocessing was developed and combined with the semantic segmentation model to show robust detection performance with road images taken under different brightness conditions.

This technology consists of a mobile app for gathering data using the AI model and a map-based cloud server platform to identify potholes based on data transmitted from the mobile app. Currently, several local governments in Korea, such as Gwangju Metropolitan City, Goyang-si, and Gimhae-si are piloting this technology. Dr Ryu’s research team aims to further expand and introduce this technology to other local governments.

Dr Ryu said “It is essential to maintain road facilities in good condition in the coming era of autonomous vehicles. This AI-based technology will make effective road surface management much easier.”

Photo’s by Pixabay, Ian Taylor, Matt Hoffman.
Article featured in Insurance On Line. (iol.co.za), by staff reporter

The insurance industry has responded robustly to the Covid-19 pandemic and it needs to meet the climate change challenge similarly. 

There’s consensus in the scientific community that the climate is changing and global temperatures are rising. Though individual weather events cannot be attributed directly to climate change, the overall trends point to an increase in both global temperatures and extreme weather events. Climate change has already caused the earth’s temperature to rise by more than 1 degree above pre-industrial levels.  

There is clear evidence that climate change is causing more frequent severe weather events, from floods to fires to droughts, leading to higher and more volatile weather-related insurance claims. We are seeing this trend in our statistics. We’ve had more frequent floods and fires, especially in the last 10 years, with the Knysna fires in 2017 being our worst ever weather catastrophe, as well as several floods and hail storms over the past 3 years in KZN, Gauteng, and Limpopo. Not to mention severe drought and the threat of “Day Zero” in Cape Town in 2018/19. We see this trend even more alarmingly on a global scale, for example, recent wildfires and severe weather events in Australia and California.

Risks to the insurance industry

In South Africa, physical losses are exacerbated by declining infrastructure in municipalities. Inadequately equipped fire brigades and poorly maintained stormwater drains.

The greatest risk is that the insurance industry won’t be able to keep up with increasing weather claims; insurance premiums will spiral; we may need to remove/reduce cover in some areas. This is already happening on a wider scale in the US and France, where the government is needing to step in with special catastrophe insurance pools. We believe we have a responsibility to help our customers and communities reduce the impact of climate change, and to underwrite responsibly.

We must respond 

The insurance industry has responded robustly to the Covid-19 pandemic and it needs to meet the climate change challenge similarly. The industry needs to have the relevant infrastructure in place to measure climate change and manage its impact. To achieve this, data is key. 

Here are the key data sets we need and how we should make use of these sets. 

• Accurate data on our existing exposures and their location
• Data and models on the impact of climate perils by location
• We need to understand which properties we insure in coastal areas and which of those areas are at the highest risk of flooding, as well as how that flood risk will increase over time, and possibly destroy infrastructure and interrupt business
• Despite historical data, a lot of climate science research and expert judgement will be required to capture the possible future impacts of climate change
• We must run comprehensive scenario tests to understand and plan for the impact of climate change

In addition to managing climate risk, we need to look at our responsibilities to society. We need to make responsible decisions about the carbon footprint of our building and staff. For example, the Old Mutual Group has installed greywater systems, light sensors, solar panels, and recycling in many of our buildings. We are encouraging all our staff to do what they can in their homes through staff campaigns to “Save our Planet”.

We are also adapting our investment philosophy to be more environmentally friendly. Th Group has made investments of R34.5 billion towards clean energy projects across Africa and developmental assistance to vulnerable areas most affected by climate change. We are formalising this commitment by launching our Initial Public Coal position this year. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has given us a rare opportunity to recalibrate our priorities and reconsider our possibilities. We have learned from the current crisis that concerted action can make a real difference.

Photo’s by Pixabay
Article By Lisa Pines, Old Mutual Insure, Chief Actuary

In sectional title schemes, it is the body corporate that is responsible to ensure that the buildings in the scheme are sufficiently insured.  Owners of units in the scheme will note that the insurance premium is included in their monthly levy contribution.

Photo’s by Pixabay
Article by STBB

Contracts with short-term insurers tend to be automatically renewed, which means cover may be outdated and inadequate. It’s vital to do annual check-ins to go over the finer details and ensure a policy is up to date. An annual insurance ‘spring clean’ is highly under-rated and should be part of getting a financial house in order. Plus, it might save money in the long run.

Marius Neethling, Personal Lines Underwriting Manager at Santam, gives five tips on how you can clean up your insurance policy.

It is important to ensure that you update your insurer about any major changes to avoid any disappointment when an incident that requires you to claim occurs.

Help us help you by ensuring that you are adequately insured for your household contents, building and vehicle.

Photos by Pixabay
written By Vernon Pillay
Article featured in Insurance on line (iol.co.za)

SA’s state-owned short-term insurer, Sasria, expects insurance claims arising from last week’s looting and anarchy to be so daunting that it might be forced to ask National Treasury for financial assistance. 

Approaching the Treasury (or the SA taxpayer) for financial assistance will be a first for Sasria in its 40-year history as the state-owned insurer has relied on its healthy balance sheet and not government bailouts for survival. 

Sasria now expects insurance claims of between R10-billion and R20-billion from businesses that have incurred damages to their insured property as a direct result of social unrest in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. But this is a preliminary estimation, as Sasria’s team of insurance/claim adjusters is still counting the cost of the damage that has left 200 shopping malls and 3,000 stores destroyed.

The billions of rands in insurance claims might break Sasria and force Treasury to come to its rescue through a taxpayer-funded capital injection to its balance sheet. Put differently, Treasury might bail out Sasria, the only insurer in SA that provides cover for losses or damages to insured property as a direct result of civil unrest, including rioting, strike action, and public disorder. The political violence and riots before SA embraced democracy in 1994 have pushed private sector insurers to no longer provide cover for social unrests — leaving Sasria as the only insurer that does so. 

Cedric Masondo, the MD of Sasria, told SAfm’s Stephen Grootes that the insurer has been working with Treasury and the government to “prepare for the worst” as the value of insurance claims from affected businesses is likely to exceed the amount of cash that Sasria has on hand. 

“Should we exceed our capacity, there is an option on the table to work with the government so that we can pay the claims – even if it means that we require a capital injection,” Masondo told the radio station.  

“But the government, as a [sole] shareholder [of Sasria], is expected to provide capitalisation to Sasria. That’s what happens to companies when they run into trouble.”  

Masondo was not immediately available to comment further when Business Maverickreached out to him. 

A government bailout for Sasria would create a headache for Treasury, which is facing growing demands to fund income-relief measures for poor households and businesses affected by the social unrest. Business, labour, and community partners have agreed – through several meetings at the National Economic Development and Labour Council – on a range of income-relief measures, including using Sasria as the main mechanism through which destroyed businesses could be compensated for financial losses. 

This is the reality for drivers in South Africa’s towns and cities but that may be a thing of the past should authorities properly enforce the upcoming demerit system.

This is because one of the implications for drivers is that they could potentially lose their driver’s license for committing road traffic infringements.

Not only could this leave you, or an employee of your company, not able to drive, but it could potentially influence your short-term insurance.

With the new Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Amendment Act due for implementation on 1 July, these are stark realities that individuals and employers will have to be aware of.

That is because the Aarto Act includes a demerit system whereby a person, operator or company juristic person, will not only pay a fine but will also incur demerit points when a traffic infringement is committed.

This could ultimately lead to one’s driver’s licence being suspended or cancelled or, complicate the employment of an individual hired explicitly to perform a driving function.

The concept of a demerit point system to encourage drivers to abide by traffic laws might be new to South Africa, but it is an established practice internationally. Countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom have long had such systems in force.

As much as it has not been implemented yet, South Africa’s demerit system was signed into law in September 1998 already as part of the Aarto Act, Act 46 of 1998.

How will the point system work?

Once the system is implemented drivers will start with zero points. For every infringement – which includes laws regarding the roadworthiness of a vehicle – demerit points will be allocated.

For example, the published guidelines state that if a brake light is not working on the vehicle, one demerit point will be allocated, as well as a fine of R1,000.

Some infringements can lead to up to six demerit points. The full schedule of the more than 2 500 separate charges can be viewed in the Aarto Act.

Drivers will be allowed to accumulate a maximum of 15 demerit points over a three-year period. Learner drivers, however, will only be allowed a maximum of six points.

Should a driver exceed this number, their licence will be suspended for a period of three months. If you drive while your licence is suspended, you will be subject to a fine or even jail time.

The good news is that demerit points decrease by one point every three months. This means that drivers can work their way back to zero points over time.

A licence may be suspended twice, but on the third instance, the licence will be cancelled. The person will then have to apply for a new learner’s licence and driver’s licence.

A business plan is the foundation of your entire venture and is the platform on which your whole business will be built. When compiling your business plan, ensure that it includes a detailed financial plan that includes product funding, budgeting, loan repayments, cash flow, salaries, risk management, sales projections, profit margins, and break-even points. With the benefit of hindsight, make sure you have a disaster recovery plan for your business.

As a business owner, it is important to be aware of the tax obligations of running a business, bearing in mind that the entity you have chosen for your business will have different tax consequences. Different tax compliance rules, tax incentives and tax rates apply to different entities, and it is important to understand the difference at the outset so that you get it right the first time.

Understanding basic accounting is a vital skill to have if you want to run your business properly. It is not necessary to have a financial background, but it is important to grasp the fundamentals of accounting. Depending on the nature of your business, you may want to install an accounting software package to make your life easier and your record-keeping on point.

There are many hidden and unforeseen costs when it comes to setting up a business. Keeping a careful eye on your cash flow – both personal and business – is key. In the excitement of getting your business off the ground, it is perfectly possible to lose track of expenses. Our advice is to put a cash flow management system in place and monitor it every day.

Although this is one of the first rules of entrepreneurship, it is often the most overlooked. Many business owners feel compelled to put everything back into their business, while at the same time compromising their credit scores, insurability and personal finances. The ideal is to be able to draw enough from the business to cover your living expenses, medical aid, insurance and to service your personal debt.

In the first few years of business, you will want to keep your fixed expenses at a minimum – although this may involve making some tough decisions. Many entrepreneurs choose to downgrade their accommodation, drive smaller and more cost-effective cars, forego eating out, and cutting back on the nice-to-haves. If you have a solid business plan and an unwavering belief in your product, these early sacrifices will be easy to make.

Remaining on your medical aid is imperative – even if you have to downgrade to a more affordable plan option. As a minimum, ensure that you have a hospital plan in place which covers your in-hospital at 100% of the medical aid tariff. In general, medical aid network options are more affordable. Ensuring no break in membership is essential to avoid future waiting periods or late joiner penalties. As and when your earnings increase, you will seamlessly be able to upgrade to more comprehensive cover.

If finances allow, consider insuring your business overheads. Business overheads protection is effectively insurance for your business which provides a temporary source of income should you be unable to work through illness or disability. This cover will ensure that your business can continue to operate even without your contribution to the business, and will cover the costs of specific business-related expenses while you are incapacitated.