A woman who died in Mozambique several years ago was registered dead again in South Africa this year. People claiming to be her extended family then lodged R50,000 claims on new funeral policies at four different insurers, and each claim passed that insurer’s standard checks. XTND’s Veritas platform, which scores claims against data from insurers across the market, linked the four claims and flagged them as high risk. All four were later repudiated.
A single fabricated death led to funeral claims totaling R200,000 at four insurers within seven days of each other, between 26 August and 2 September, according to forensic investigation and claims risk firm XTND. Each claim arrived with a death registered at Home Affairs and complete supporting documents, so nothing in the paperwork gave the insurer a reason to stop payment.
The woman died in Mozambique several years ago, and that death was recorded there. This year her death was registered a second time, in South Africa. The policies had all been taken out recently and each claimant said they were a member of her extended family. No insurer could see the claims at the other three from its own records.
XTND’s investigators spoke to the people involved and got admissions from three of them. A funeral parlour representative admitted registering the false death, and the informant admitted that he paid the representative R5,000 to do so. One of the claimants admitted that she had never known the woman and that the death was made up. The doctor who certified the death and the funeral parlour that handled it are linked to 25 other claims on XTND’s database.
“Each insurer saw a registered death, a family member claiming and an ordinary amount, so nothing in its own records gave it a reason to stop the payment,” says Mouna Eksteen, CEO of XTND. “What gave it away was Veritas putting the four claims side by side, for the same woman and in the same week. No insurer can see that on its own. The pattern only shows when you look at claims across the market.”
Veritas, XTND’s claims scoring platform, compares each funeral claim against claims data from its insurer clients and its own comprehensive database founded on confirmed fraud claims. It flagged all four claims as high risk on arrival: the same deceased on new policies at four insurers, claims lodged within days of each other, and a doctor and funeral parlour already linked to 25 other claims. A desktop assessment found the deceased had few records, no known family ties and out-of-date addresses. The informant, her boyfriend’s brother, could not say whether she would be buried in Venda or in Mozambique. XTND’s field investigators took the case from the first flag to confessions in 14 days, and all four claims were repudiated on the basis of forged documentation.
According to XTND, funeral claims rise from late August to mid-January and fraud rises with them. Eksteen says families arranging a funeral need the money that week, and insurers tend to ask for fewer supporting documents as a result, which syndicates take advantage of.
“We’re heading into the busiest stretch of the year for funeral claims,” says Eksteen. “Scoring claims before payout lets insurers pay most families within hours and send the questionable ones to an investigator with the reasons written down.”
In XTND’s 2026 financial year, Veritas received more than 300,000 claims, and 91% were risk scored and finalised in under four hours. XTND’s teams carried out more than 13,500 investigations across South Africa, and R244.6 million in fraudulent claims was repudiated. Across the life insurance industry, the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA) recorded 5,505 fraudulent and dishonest claims in 2024, up from 4,130 in 2023.
XTND advises insurers to treat a Home Affairs death registration as one check among several, since a false registration will pass it, and to compare claims across insurers so that the same deceased person on more than one policy shows up before anyone is paid. It also recommends keeping track of doctors, undertakers and funeral parlours linked to confirmed fraud, taking a closer look at claims that involve them, and reporting doctors linked to fraud to the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA).
About XTND
XTND is a South African fraud prevention and forensic technology company. For 16 years, XTND has helped insurers, regulated businesses and public bodies find fraud, misconduct and compliance risk early, and act on evidence that holds up. Its platforms include Veritas for insurance claims fraud detection, VeriX for FIC and AML compliance, GRaCe for governance intelligence, AuthentIQ for behavioural intelligence and ExposeIT for anonymous whistleblowing. Qualified fraud examiners, forensic accountants and cybersecurity specialists support every finding. XTND is a Level 1 B-BBEE contributor and a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). Find out more at xtnd.co.za.
About Veritas
Veritas is XTND’s claim scoring and audit platform. It scores incoming claims for fraud risk using predictive models and patterns shared across participating insurers, and maps each result in a one-view scorecard to ensure that low-risk claims are paid quickly and high-risk claims reach an investigator with the reasons set out.
