Life covers, risk and security — anthropological perspectives of social insurances: a case study from Namibia

With the end of apartheid in Namibia, private insurance companies opened their product range to what they call the “black market.” The increased demand for social insurance is not only because of a lack of security and state-provided welfare programmes but also because of the attractiveness of the products: they allow for merging individual provision with social obligations. With rising incomes, life cover has become more affordable and is mostly taken out as pure term life policies, due for payout only after the death of the policyholder. Since the contracts may involve high payout amounts, companies advise their customers to sign a testament to settle the estate in good time. However, neither insurance companies nor brokers are adequately familiar with the provisions of the prevailing customary laws of inheritance for Namibia’s many cultural groups. This article investigates the role of insurance brokers and the cultural appropriation of formal insurance as a means of safeguarding the future of the living and the dead.