Will, Policies etc etc

[KCT]

Can anyone assist on what do most people do that have left SA regarding your will, life cover and all those other policies.

Do you cover the life cover etc for a few months and get similar in OZ then cancel SA??

In addition we have flexiclub which we have been trying to sell for the past 2 years without luck.

[Tiermelk]

We just reviewed our will in SA and the lawyer that did it said we need to get a will in Australia as the SA will only covers assets in SA. So it seems you need a will in any country where you have assets as that county's laws will apply.

[chzaau]

You need to read the fine print of your life cover policy, as they may not be valid if you are no longer resident in South Africa. 2nd in the event of a claim they will not pay out to an overseas account due to exchange controls, so if they are valid you would need to find out how the payout works if you are resident abroad. Third you need to identify tax implications, there may be all sorts of tax situations you must prepare for.

On the flexiclub, not sure what it's worth, but maybe you could run a competition, raffle or something where people buy a ticket for 100 bucks to win it, just have to make sure you sell enough tickets. Other option is an auction. My understand has been that these things are not easy to sell.

Edited April 30, 2014 by chzaau

[patrice]

Can anyone assist on what do most people do that have left SA regarding your will, life cover and all those other policies.

Do you cover the life cover etc for a few months and get similar in OZ then cancel SA??

In addition we have flexiclub which we have been trying to sell for the past 2 years without luck.

Hi KCT

As per Tiermelk's advice - We re-did our will here in Oz, as the ZAR one will not be valid here in Oz.

Life insurance - we kept our existing life insurance going with PPS until we replaced it in Oz - here you can place your life insurance 'inside' your super fund, which means your payments essentially are with pre-tax money, which makes this more tax efficient and saves you some $'s. Appart from this tax saving, this is one of the 'costs' we found much cheaper here :-)

This would also include other personal insurance cover - not only 'life' but also disability, income protection etc..

Other insurance, such as house, car, etc we took this out as we acquired these insurable assets - here is a link to a site which lists providers and where you can compare these costs

http://www.insurancequotecompared.com/

Hope this helps.

edit = added link

Edited May 1, 2014 by patrice

[Kanniewagnie]

Cashkows will be able to provide the best informed advise.

[Gerhardk]

As noted you require a will in Australia else (as I understand it) the estate will follow the normal family path i.e. to wife then to kids etc.

After 3 years we still have PPS life but minimal disability and income protection cover. PPS claims that they will cover even if incident abroad although they will only pay in SA. Life insurance is cheaper here and most employers provide 5 or 6 time annual salary as death benefit. Paying it via Super makes sense but keep in mind that income protection cover (in most cases) is tax deductible and paying this via your super you may lose the ability to claim it on your tax return. The reason we still have PPS is that we joined when we were young and healthy, entering into a new policy over here there will be exclusions on any medical conditions we now have. We could stop payments to PPS for 12 months, not sure if you can still do that and then proceed with cover after that.

We cancelled all our investment policies and combined (what we can not yet bring over such as retirement annuities) it into one product, easy enough to do it from here.

[KAZ]

Gloomy question, but have to ask... what happens to money transferred to an Australian bank account before moving over to OZ and something happens to you? Would this money be refunded and paid out as per your wishes in your SA will?

[Gerhardk]

To KAZ, I have never dealt with this but since you are at that point a South African citizen only, I guess the foreign bank account will be part of your estate in South Africa. For Australia you are a foreigner (with possibly a permanent resident visa which you paid for) so I doubt the Australian laws will apply to you. Hopefully a lawyer on the forum can answer that question.

Just keep in mind that any interest earned on the money in Australia will probably suffer withholding tax of 46.5%. Although you may get the benefit of the Australian tax paid when you do your tax return in South Africa, since SA has an interest earned threshold, it is possibly that you may not be able to use the benefit (depending on how much interest you earn).

[KAZ]

Thanks Gerhard for your reply to this.

[OzzieWishes]

My biggest reason for organising a will on this side is so that my kids get immediate guardians and don't become wards of the state. Still have to organise life cover. We have in SA and assume our broker (who knows we've immigrated) will have advised us if it didn't pay out with us being resident abroad. I do need to get my A into G though and regroup on this side!!