
The story behind DiscloseAll
- Posted by Roger Hendricks
- On 09/06/2016
- 0 Comments
- disclose, life application, life insurance, life policy, non disclosure, rejected claim, repudiated claim
DiscloseAll: the story of a bright eyed couple, and the parents of 3 young boys, who started an unforgettable journey that would change not only their lives, but many other peoples’ lives too.
My dad was my hero, his ideas were far too big for the small farming community that he had served for so many years.
My father, Hannes Combrink, started his career in Vryburg in the early 80’s and he quickly became a very successful insurance broker. Not long after he started, he was accepted by insurance companies as being one of the top 20 brokers in the business.
My dad was no saint, he made mistakes – some he could recover from and others ended up taking over his life. In 2012, it all became too much for him and he took his own life in the bathroom of his house in Klerksdorp. I was devastated.
Before my dad ended his life, he took out a life policy as part of a special offer through the insurance company he had worked for for the last 30 years. I took it upon myself to pay for this in order to protect my mom, a sufferer of Multiple Scleroses. At the age of 35 she became disabled and when she reached the age of 47 my dad made the decision to move her into a retirement home – she relied on him for everything.
30 years later and the industry my dad had dominated in failed his family in every way. Following his death, the insurance company refused to pay out his life insurance claim due to non-disclosure. This non-disclosure arose from one appointment with a doctor he saw when he first moved to Klerksdorp, which resulted in a ‘diagnosis’ of insulin resistance. When my dad was taking out his policy he didn’t think anything of this appointment, given it was just the one appointment and the fact that he never saw that doctor again. Unfortunately the insurance company thought otherwise.
I put my life on hold for a year whilst I fought with the insurance company, even escalating the matter to the Ombudsman for long term insurance, but I was unsuccessful. It really felt like my whole world had come to an end.
After a year of non-stop fighting and going back and forth to all the doctors that my dad had seen throughout his life, I gave up the fight and lost R3.4 million. Not only did I lose my father but my disabled mother also lost her home. By the end of it, I had lost all faith in life insurance and what it stood for.
I began to question myself: if I have been an insurance broker for the last 10 years and I cannot get my dad’s life insurance claim paid out, then how on earth is the man on the street, who has very little knowledge on the matter, going to get it right?
It took a lot of courage and determination to lift my head up and move past this.
Not long after my father’s death, myself and my husband Roger stumbled across Johan Van Wyk and his company Repudiated Claims. Johan showed us why so many life insurance policies failed and how that could change – he coached us in a way that would change the way we looked at life insurance forever.
The formula is simple: if we took the existing information available to us on our medical history and disclosed this on our life policy applications then this would ensure that our life policies do not get repudiated. However, unfortunately, most insurance brokers out there do not want to scan through the last 15 years of their clients’ medical aid claims history.
That is where we are different.
Here at DiscloseAll we help you to disclose all of your medical aid history on your application form which in turn ensures that you are sitting with a policy that will not get repudiated – is this not why we are taking out our life policies?
At DiscloseAll we make certain that every client has a life policy that is truly reflective of their past and of their circumstances so that they are protected correctly should anything happen. This is something we will continue to do – we will never be able to sell another life policy that has not eliminated the risk of loss for the beneficiaries.
We are good at what we do and we are changing lives one policy at a time. We are the future of life insurance.
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