Would Your Family Know Where to Find Your Important Information?

None of us particularly want to think about the difficult or unforeseen moments in life.

We take out funeral policies. We buy life insurance. We write wills. We join medical schemes. We save important documents somewhere safe.

And then life carries on.

Years later, would your partner know where your funeral policy is? Would you know where to find your parents' policy details if you suddenly had to help them? If you manage the affairs of another family member, could you quickly find the information you needed?

It is one of those questions that often isn't asked until the answer becomes urgently important.

Having the cover isn't always enough

South Africa has a significant funeral insurance market.

According to the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA), there were nearly 17 million individual recurring-premium funeral policies in force at the end of June 2025.

Yet having a policy and successfully accessing its benefits are two different things.

Back in 2018, FNB Life reported identifying more than R130 million in unclaimed insurance benefits, with R54 million relating to funeral insurance.

There can be many reasons for insurance benefits remaining unclaimed. But one very human problem sits amongst them: sometimes the people left behind simply don't know that a policy exists, who it is with or where to find the information they need.

Think about your own household

If you needed to find an important document right now, where would you look?

Perhaps it's in an email from six years ago.

Maybe there's a policy schedule saved on an old laptop.

The will could be with an attorney whose name only one person in the family knows.

A policy number might be in a filing cabinet. The insurer's details might be on someone's phone. Another document could be sitting in a cloud folder nobody else can access.

None of these systems necessarily feels problematic while everything is going well.

The problem becomes visible when circumstances change.

It's bigger than funeral policies

Funeral cover is a particularly powerful example because of the circumstances in which the information is needed, but the same principle applies to much of our important household information.

Consider whether the appropriate person in your household would know where to find your:

• funeral and life insurance policies
• last will and testament
• medical aid information
• home and vehicle insurance
• policy and membership numbers
• financial and legal contacts
• important account information
• property documents
• vehicle information
• emergency contacts
• warranties and proof of purchase
• information relating to people whose affairs you help manage

The question isn't whether all of this information exists.

It's whether it can be found when it matters.

The person who knows everything can become the problem

Many households have one person who knows where everything is.

They know which insurer the family uses. They know where the will is stored. They know who the broker is, when the car licence expires and which folder contains the important documents.

It works remarkably well — until that person isn't available.

That creates an information dependency that most households probably don't think of as a risk.

The answer isn't necessarily to give everyone unrestricted access to every sensitive document. Some information should remain private and secure.

Instead, it is about making deliberate decisions about what information exists, where it is kept, who may need it and how the appropriate person could access it if necessary.

A simple household information check

There is an easy way to see how prepared your household really is.

Choose five important things — perhaps your funeral policy, will, life insurance, medical aid details and home insurance.

Then ask:

Could the person who would need each one find it without asking me?

If the answer is no, that's useful information in itself.

You don't need to reorganise your entire life in one weekend. Start with the information that would be hardest to recreate or most important during an emergency.

Record what exists.

Record who it is with.

Keep the relevant reference or policy number.

Know where the original document is stored.

And think about who else may need to know.

From storing information to managing it

Modern households generate an extraordinary amount of information.

Our homes aren't just properties anymore. They're connected to insurance, purchases, maintenance histories, warranties, contractors, vehicles, pets, documents, projects, reminders and the people we support.

Yet the information behind them is often still scattered across filing cabinets, inboxes, WhatsApp conversations, cloud drives, spreadsheets and people's memories.

That is the problem Axario Home was created to help solve.

Axario Home gives households a central digital place to organise and connect the information behind everyday life — so instead of trying to remember where something was saved years ago, you have a clearer record to come back to.

Because sometimes information is merely useful.

And sometimes, unexpectedly, it becomes incredibly important.

How are you managing your important information?

You don't need to wait for an unforeseen event to discover the gaps.

Ask the question now:

If someone in my household needed our important information tomorrow, would they know where to find it?

If the answer makes you hesitate, perhaps it's time to start getting it organised.

Axario Home Your digital memory for the modern home.

Sources

• FNB Life identifies over R160m in unclaimed policies — FAnews (2018)
• SA life insurers conclude the first half of 2025 — ASISA (2025)

This article provides general information and is not legal, financial or insurance advice. Please consult a qualified professional about your own circumstances.