Paper short abstract:

This paper looks into the backdrops of increased sales of life covers and redirected monetary flows. It is argued that striving for a good life and caring for those who stay behind impacts not only savings behavior but also notions of solidarity and the relations between the living and the dead.

Paper long abstract:

With a share of more than 80% of all insurances sales, the Southern African countries of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana are dominating the African life insurance market. Namibia, though being only a small country in respect to its population size, stands for the “new targets” of insurers, where more life premiums than non-life premiums are sold covering up more than 1,0 billion USD per year. Life insurances turned out best sellers, including funeral covers which are sold out immediately after death.

The paper looks into the backdrops of increased sales of life covers and redirected monetary flows to insurance companies and banks. It is argued that striving for a good life and caring for those who stay behind impacts not only savings behavior but also notions of solidarity and the relations between the living and the dead. Since those who passed provided for covering the costs of their own funeral (by insurances) – what is left to those who stay behind whose task it used to be to care for the dead by organizing a costly funeral covered by solidarity contributions?