Our economy is plagued by a stubbornly high unemployment rate, while global volatility has wreaked havoc on petrol prices, inflation and interest rates. The odds are not in favour of ordinary South Africans and financial resilience is a requirement for financially squeezed consumers to survive. The essence of it is that financial resilience should not depend on a perfect month but rather survive an imperfect one.
Have you ever opened your banking app, seen R0 or something close to that, and still had people depending on you? It is an uncomfortable question, but it is a very real one. In many South African homes, financial pressure is not an abstract idea. It looks like choosing between electricity and transport, groceries and school costs, your own needs and the needs of the people you love. For many South Africans, it is an income that arrives late, changes from month to month, or has to stretch across many households.
For me, the most useful conversations about money are never only about numbers. They are about our responsibilities, our fears, our relationships and the future we are trying to build. That is why we need to talk about financial resilience in a way that does not shame people for having an unpredictable month.
We often define resilience as having an emergency fund or enough savings to absorb a shock; and those are important goals. But resilience must also include the ability to keep essential protection in place when life does not go according to plan. If the moment a household experiences financial pressure is also the moment it loses its safety net, then the product has not absorbed the shock, the family has.
A financial system designed around the wrong calendar.
Research cited by financial services provider Metropolitan estimates that 11.9 million South Africans form part of the country’s “foundation market” – a broad group that includes grant recipients who supplement their income through informal work, domestic workers, seasonal earners, small-scale entrepreneurs and people navigating the gig economy. Nearly 40% of this group are under the age of 40.
These are not people who lack ambition or the desire to plan. These are people who are working, earning, hustling, supporting and building. The challenge is that their cash flow does not always fit the calendar built into traditional financial products.
A fixed debit order assumes that income arrives on the same day, in roughly the same amount, every month. But a hairdresser may have a strong festive season and a quiet February, or a delivery driver may lose working days when a vehicle needs repairs. A domestic worker may lose an employer unexpectedly and a small trader may have stock to sell but no certainty about when customers will buy.
Their responsibilities do not become smaller because their income has changed. Their children still need to eat, or they need to still support their parents – either way the promise to protect a family is still there.
This is why Metropolitan’s estimate of approximately R6 billion in nationwide insurance churn each year matters. A lapse may sound like an administrative event, but for a family it can mean that protection built over time disappears at the exact moment finances are already under strain.
We need to reconsider what “good money behaviour” looks like
Too often, we speak about financial discipline as if it means doing the same thing on the same date every month. That may work for a person with predictable income, but it is much harder for someone whose earnings are variable, seasonal or informal.
Good money behaviour should not be measured only by perfect monthly punctuality; it should also recognise the consistency of intention: contributing when money is available, increasing protection in better months, understanding the rules of a product and making deliberate choices when cash flow tightens.
This requires a shift in product design.
First, we need to move from rigid payment schedules to meaningful participation. A customer should be able to contribute more when income is strong and less – or nothing – when it is not, without automatically losing all the progress already made.
Second, we need to move from product access to product staying power. Financial inclusion is not simply giving someone a policy. It is designing the policy so that it can remain useful through the normal ups and downs of that person’s life.
Third, we need to move from complexity to control. People should be able to see what they have paid, what protection they have built, what threshold they need to reach and what happens if they do not reach it. Simple language is not a nice-to-have. It is part of treating customers with dignity.
Protection that flexes with real life.
Financial resilience is not just the ability to keep paying, it is also the ability to keep protecting what matters when life stops behaving predictably. And in these uncertain times we are living that is truer than ever.
The Metropolitan No-Lapse Funeral Growth Plan is an example of this thinking in practice. Customers can start with a payment of R200 and make further top-ups from R200 when they are able to do so, without a fixed monthly premium or debit order. This also reduces any unauthorized debit orders since you control how you pay.
Once cumulative payments reach R1,500 within the first 12 months, the cover is secured for life; additional top-ups increase the cover amount. The plan can be bought and managed through WhatsApp or at a Metropolitan branch, and payments can be made online or through participating retailers. Customers can also refer people in their community to unlock extra cover at no cost.
What matters here is not only the feature list. It is the principle behind it: the product adapts to the rhythm of the customer’s income instead of demanding that the customer pretend their income is fixed.
That is a meaningful change. It recognises that a temporary cash-flow problem should not automatically become a permanent protection problem. It also gives customers agency. They can use better months to build more cover and know the threshold they are working towards.
Of course, flexibility must always come with transparency. Customers should understand who is covered, how the cover amount is calculated, the minimum payments, the 12-month threshold, applicable waiting periods, what happens if the threshold is not reached, and the full policy terms. A product is only empowering when people understand both its benefits and its boundaries.
Five questions every household should ask
Before taking out any protection product, ask questions that reflect your real life, not an ideal month:
- What happens to my cover if I cannot contribute for a month or longer?
- Can I pay more when I earn more, and pause when money is tight?
- What must I do before my protection becomes secure, and by when?
- Are the waiting periods, refunds, exclusions and claims process explained clearly?
- Can I check and manage the product through channels I already use?
These questions help us move beyond “Can I afford this premium today?” to a more important question: “Can this product still work for me when life changes?”
Financial inclusion must have stayed power
And as individuals, we should give ourselves permission to plan without pretending life will always be predictable. And financial services companies should measure success not only by how many policies are sold, but by how much family protection survives an income shock.
One difficult month should not undo years of the right habits and intention. Yes, your income may change but your responsibility to the people you love does not.
