NBWPF encourages beneficiaries to claim benefits
According to the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority, the retirement fund industry in Namibia, saw a total of N$218.7 million unclaimed pension benefits by pensioners and their beneficiaries, in 2023; which is an improvement from the N$229.1 million reported in 2022. It is in the interest of any pension fund provider to ensure that benefits are claimed upon retirement by their members or indeed, in the event of death, by their family members and more specifically, the determined beneficiaries.The Namibian Building Workers Pension (NBWPF), an umbrella fund for the construction sector, historically had a relative large amount of unclaimed benefits. One of the biggest difficulties was the fact that members that had exited the fund had become untraceable, despite efforts to find them. Another fundamental reason was that some of the beneficiary forms had not been updated by respective members.
NBWPF felt it was necessary to have a hands-on approach in order to improve the administration of the fund. Accordingly, EPIA Financial Services, recently created by the NBWPF, is now in charge of the handling all administrative activities of the NBWPF. One of the main strategic actions was to get the records of their members, and where possible, previous members, up-to-date. With more recent and accurate records, some unclaimed benefits have now been resolved, and future traceability will be drastically improved.
Mr Enwich Kazondo, principal of the NBWPF: “It is very important to us that the administrative foundation of EPIA Financial Services is very strong, so that we can provide an excellent service to our stakeholders, and part of this is that benefits can be claimed and accessed very quickly”.
“We realise how important it is that a pension fund is not burdened by excessive amount of outstanding claims. It not only negatively affects the life of the retired member or indeed their dependents or beneficiaries, but it practically remains a liability on the books of the fund. The unclaimed benefits also becom a burdent as as they need to remain locked within the fund which makes resource allocation and investment planning more difficult. This needs to be avoided.”
Since the NBWPF had dis-engaged from their previous administrative services provider and engaged their own company - EPIA Financial Services - to administer the NBWPF, the fund has seen very big improvements. As of 2022, an estimated 2,500 benefits remained unclaimed. The fund initiated a tracing process for these unclaimed members in September 2023. Since then, over 1,900 members have been located, and payments have been successfully made to more than 800 of them. Additionally, the fund has inherited a group of deferred members, which are Active non-contributing members; and the fund is actively working to trace this group of members along with the traditional unclaimed beneficiaries.
Enwich Kazondu elaborated: “We believe that this is a big achievement. It is really important to us. Ultimately, we want our stakeholders to know and trust that we make every effort to ensure that claim benefits are paid out – either to the retiring members themselves or to their determined beneficiaries. This is one of the major priorities to us. We also want retiring members to indeed benefit of their savings for old age, and in the event of their death, we would like to see that their dependents or beneficiaries are also supported through benefits paid out by the fund”.
In this regard, NBWPF encourages current members – as well as their employers – to ensure that beneficiary forms are updated when necessary and at least once per year. In addition, the NBWPF encourages those that had worked in the construction sector, and had made pension fund contributions but had failed to claim the benefits, to get in touch with the fund immediately. The same would apply to those whose deceased family member was a member of the NBWPF. The offices of the NBWPF can be contacted at:
Ongwediva Branch: 0837222702
Swakopmund Branch : 0837222700
Windhoek Head Office: 0833305521
Enwich Kazondu, principal officer of the NBWPF says: “We will continue to focus on reaching out to potential claimants. We realise how important it is. In fact, over the last few years, so many persons have been affected due to retrenchments, earlier retirement or indeed deaths especially during Covid-19. Many of these claims have already materialised. Now, we will continue to focus on those before that time. Of course, the longer one waits, the more difficult it will become to trace those that should benefit.”