Editor-at-large Everson Luhanga speaks to the South African Insurance Crime Bureau (SAICB) to uncover how syndicates exploit cracks in the system — using stolen IDs, fake deaths, and corrupt officials to rake in millions from life insurance claims.
Mortuaries, hospitals, old age homes, and the homeless are some of the targets that the syndicates of the dubbed “death industry” operate in. They do this by bribing their connections.
Criminal syndicates recruit runners to buy identity documents of dead people. The kingpin will then insure them (insuring the dead person’s ID) and “kill” them again in order to pocket millions.
Scrolla.Africa interviewed Johan Steyn, the Head of Life and Operations of the South African Insurance Credit Bureau (SAICB), who said the fraudsters have turned the industry into a money-making scheme.
Steyn said criminals buy the ID of a dead person. Insure the dead person. Wait for their contacts at the mortuary to notify them of an unidentified body. Obtain a death certificate from a crooked Home Affairs official or internet café. Take the unidentified body from the mortuary. Claim the insurance money and make millions out of it.
He said some people even fake their own deaths to claim money, some, shockingly, for their weddings!
Although the proportion of people doing what he called “insurable interest” is small, the country is facing a serious problem as more and more people have found this a way of making easy money.
Other scenarios are targeting the homeless, people taking care of the sick, and the aged.
Steyn said, “We have dealt with cases where professionals like police officers, teachers, pastors, security guards, health officials, lawyers, and people in other professions are implicated in killing people and claiming money out of their death.”
Steyn says it is very easy to get a funeral policy. “As long as you have the date of birth for the person you are insuring and your bank account, you are set to go.”
He said he has worked on heartbreaking cases. One of them was two sisters who collaborated with their boyfriends to kill the girls’ mother. “The mother was killed and dumped on the street to look like it was a hit and run. Investigations revealed that she was killed by her daughters and their boyfriends who were then arrested.”
He also remembered another case of a fraudster. “He took a homeless man to his home, cleaned him up, opened a funeral policy, and then killed him. He then claimed the money,” he said.
Scrolla.Africa is exposing South Africa’s deadly life insurance fraud industry in this eight-part series, inspired by Everson Luhanga’s explosive investigation into serial killer cop Rosemary Ndlovu. Missed it? Go read the full series now.
This is the final part of Scrolla.Africa’s eight-part investigation into South Africa’s deadly life insurance fraud industry. Read the previous parts below.
In part one, we reported that in South Africa, fraudsters easily create fake funeral policies, recruit corrupt officials, and even commit murder to claim payouts—all exploiting an industry with virtually no security checks
In part two, we reported on insurance fraud in South Africa. Everson Luhanga reported on the murder of Dumisile Khumalo, a young mother from Alexandra, in a chilling insurance scam.
In part three, we report on a wife’s chilling plot to murder her husband for life insurance money.
In part four, we exposed the case of Amos Mbongiseni Zulu — a pensioner declared dead by fraudsters who used his identity to cash in on a funeral policy, leaving him to live as a “dead man” in the eyes of the state.
In part five, we uncovered the black market for corpses — where fraudsters rent the dead, hire fake mourners, and exploit the nameless to cash in on funeral policies.
In part six, we met the ex-cops turned private investigators who are hunting down life insurance syndicates. With their knowledge of the system and years of frontline experience, they’re exposing how corruption, weak regulation, and corporate greed fuel South Africa’s deadly death industry.
In part seven, we uncovered the world of “ghost children” — babies who were never born but existed on paper to claim Sassa grants for years, only to be “killed” for funeral policy payouts. The scam reveals how fraudsters exploit every stage of life — even ones that never happened — to bleed the system dry.
Pictured above: Johan Steyn.
Image source: Supplied by SAICB
