A rogue funeral parlour has been ordered to refund four families after repeatedly failing to honour payouts for their funeral policies.
Luvuyo Burial and Consulting, from Khayelitsha in Cape Town, has again been embroiled in a controversy and this time around their transgression involves their continued failure to pay R10,000 to each of the four families for funerals whose claims were submitted as far back as June 2024.
In one of the cases, Noxolo Ntantani, the complainant, reached out to the Ombudsman for Financial Services Providers (FAIS) for intervention in November last year after the funeral parlour did not honour her R10,000 funeral benefit submitted in September 2024 for the death of one of the beneficiaries, Siviwe Mbuzwana. Ntantani took out the funeral cover policy with the funeral house in October 2018.
The complainant did not receive the claim payout despite attempts to follow up with the respondent.
— John Simpson, advocate
According to the FAIS ruling in the matter, Ntantani's claim was valid as she had provided evidence of the claim form, the death certificate, the identity document of the deceased, the policy document, and the monthly premiums paid, said Adv John Simpson, the adjudicator in all the four complaints.
“The complainant did not receive the claim payout despite attempts to follow up with the respondent. Despite multiple correspondence sent to the respondent, the office (FAIS) received no response regarding the complaint,” said Simpson.
The complaint remained unsolved until the prescribed period of six weeks which it is meant to be resolved within, passed. It was then referred to the Office of the Ombudsman who ruled in the family's favour.
“The respondent is ordered to pay the complainant the amount of R10,000, and pay interest on the said amount at a rate of 11.25% per annum from the date of this determination to the date of final payment,” read the order. The order was the same for the three other families.
Luvuyo Burial and Consulting has faced similar complaints in recent months which went in their clients' favour. The amount of complaints received led to the ombudsman’s office early this year to escalate one of its previous rulings to the Financial Sector Conduct Authority after it was discovered that Luvuyo was operating without an underwriter, a serious breach of the rules governing funeral parlours in SA.
The parlour's relationship with Sanlam as its underwriter was terminated on May 1 2021, meaning that the parlour could not carry on operating unless another reputable company underwrote its products and services. Its operating licence was withdrawn on August 25, due to repeated failures to honour valid funeral claims and operating without an underwriter.
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