Funeral Cover for Your Parents: What It Costs at 65, 75 and 80, and Why the Cheaper Plan Changes

Covering a parent is one of the most common reasons South Africans buy funeral cover. It's also the one where the price is hardest to find. Most insurers will tell you the most they'll pay out on a parent, but not what it costs to cover one.

We went back through the documents behind the 14 funeral plans sold to individuals in Vulo's data and recorded what each says about parents: how much cover, up to what age, and at what price. AVBOB's two employer group schemes are in our data too, but you can't buy those yourself, so they're left out.

Only 2 of 14 plans publish a price for a parent

Nine of the 14 plans state how much cover a parent can have. Only two, Assupol and 1Life, publish what it costs. The other seven price a parent through a quote only.

Plan	Most cover for a parent	Parent's age	Published price?
Assupol Excellence Family	R 100 000 to age 64, R 50 000 at 65–74, R 40 000 at 75–84	to 84	Yes
1Life Essential	R 50 000	to 84	Yes
Old Mutual EasiPlus	R 50 000	to 84	No
Old Mutual Care, Standard and Comprehensive+	R 50 000	to 84	No
Metropolitan Funeral Plan	R 50 000	under 85	No
Capitec Funeral Cover	R 50 000	26 to 85	No
African Bank Family Funeral	R 50 000	18 to 85	No

No plan covers a parent over 64 for more than R 50 000. If you were hoping to put R 80 000 or R 100 000 on a 70-year-old, none of these plans will do it.

FNB also lets you cover your parents and publishes one worked example, which we come back to below. For Clientèle, Sanlam and African Unity, we hold no parent-specific figures.

What it costs: a parent aged 60 to 84

Both price your parent individually by their age when you apply. Assupol has a separate table for parents and parents-in-law. 1Life puts a parent on its extended-family table, the same as an aunt or a cousin. The two sell slightly different amounts (Assupol R 10 000, 1Life R 10 500), so we compare the closest tiers.

Smaller cover, monthly premium for one parent

Parent's age	Assupol R 10 000	1Life R 10 500	Assupol R 20 000	1Life R 22 500
60–64	R 107	R 213	R 215	R 311
65–69	R 172	R 254	R 344	R 365
70–74	R 180	R 307	R 360	R 472
75–79	R 296	R 354	R 592	R 556
80–84	R 344	R 440	R 688	R 689

Larger cover, monthly premium for one parent

Parent's age	Assupol R 30 000	1Life R 35 000	Assupol, most it sells	1Life R 50 000
60–64	R 290	R 417	R 445 (R 50 000)	R 647
65–69	R 465	R 495	R 714 (R 50 000)	R 772
70–74	R 486	R 570	R 747 (R 50 000)	R 790
75–79	R 800	R 619	R 1 019 (R 40 000)	R 825
80–84	R 929	R 767	R 1 184 (R 40 000)	R 963

Assupol's 55–64 band is a single price, so the 60–64 row is the same as for a 55-year-old. 1Life splits it at 59.

Why the cheaper plan changes

Read across those tables and the answer to "which is cheaper" flips twice: once with the amount of cover, and once with your parent's age.

Up to 74, Assupol charges less in every column. R 10 000 for a 65-year-old is R 172 at Assupol against R 254 at 1Life (for R 10 500), and R 50 000 is R 714 against R 772.

From 75, it depends on the amount. At R 10 000 Assupol is still cheaper: R 296 against R 354 at 75 to 79, and R 344 against R 440 at 80 to 84. From about R 20 000 up, 1Life costs the same or less and gives more cover. For a parent aged 75 to 79, 1Life charges R 619 for R 35 000, while Assupol charges R 800 for R 30 000. At 80 to 84, 1Life's R 50 000 costs R 963. Assupol won't sell more than R 40 000 at that age, and charges R 1 184 for it.

The reason is how each one builds its prices. Assupol's premium rises almost in step with the cover: for a parent aged 80 to 84, R 10 000 and R 20 000 both work out to R 34.40 a month per R 1 000 of cover. 1Life's bigger tiers are much cheaper per rand. At the same age, its R 10 500 tier costs R 41.90 per R 1 000 and its R 50 000 tier R 19.26.

There's a catch with 1Life, though. A parent's 1Life premium is added on top of your own 1Life plan, which costs at least R 230 a month, and you have to be 18 to 64 to take one out. If you already want cover for yourself, that's no extra cost. If you only want to cover your parent, it is.

The price doubles between 65 and 80, and jumps at 75

At Assupol, R 10 000 for a parent costs R 172 a month at 65 and R 344 at 80: exactly double. Most of that rise happens at one birthday. From the 70–74 band to the 75–79 band, the same R 10 000 goes from R 180 to R 296, a 64% increase. At 1Life, the same step is R 307 to R 354, about 15%.

So if your parent is 74, the age they are when you apply makes a real difference to the price you're quoted. What we can't tell you from the documents we hold is whether either insurer moves the premium up as your parent reaches the next age band later. Ask before you sign. (Capitec, which publishes no rates, does state that its premiums don't rise each year while your cover and beneficiaries stay the same.)

When the premiums add up to more than the payout

This is the arithmetic most people don't do. At those prices, here's how many months of premiums it takes before you've paid in more than the policy pays out:

Parent's age	Cover	Monthly premium	Months until premiums exceed the payout
65–69	Assupol R 10 000	R 172	59 (R 10 148)
65–69	1Life R 50 000	R 772	65 (R 50 180)
75–79	Assupol R 10 000	R 296	34 (R 10 064)
80–84	Assupol R 10 000	R 344	30 (R 10 320)
80–84	1Life R 10 500	R 440	24 (R 10 560)
80–84	1Life R 50 000	R 963	52 (R 50 076)

For a parent in their 80s, small cover can cost more than it pays within two to two and a half years. That doesn't make it a bad buy. Nobody knows when a parent will die, and if it happens in year one the policy pays many times what went in. But it is insurance against an early death, not a way of saving for a funeral. Do the sum for your own parent's age before you choose an amount.

Parents cost less than other relatives at Assupol

Assupol prices parents and parents-in-law on their own table, which is cheaper than its table for grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives. For a 70-year-old:

R 20 000 of cover, age 70–74	Monthly premium
As a parent or parent-in-law	R 360
As a grandparent, aunt, uncle or other relative	R 450

At 80 to 84 the gap is R 688 against R 860. Assupol also caps other relatives over 64 at R 35 000, against R 50 000 (to 74) and R 40 000 (75 and over) for a parent. 1Life prices every relative on the same table.

A published rate table isn't automatically the cheapest

FNB publishes no rate table, but it does publish one worked example that prices a parent. Lerato, 31, pays R 473 a month to cover her parents, aged 55 and 52, at R 30 000 each, plus her grandmother, aged 74, at R 20 000.

The same three lives on Assupol's published tables would cost R 915 a month: R 290 and R 175 for the parents, and R 450 for the grandmother on the extended-family table.

That's one example from one insurer, and it doesn't prove FNB is cheaper for every family. But it does show that the insurers you have to ask for a quote aren't necessarily the expensive ones. Get at least one quote from a plan that doesn't publish rates before you settle on one that does.

Do you have to insure yourself too?

Not always, and the plans say different things:

• FNB: you can cover your family without covering yourself.
• Metropolitan: you may cover your parents and extended family without covering yourself, but you still pay the premium.
• 1Life: a parent is added on top of your own plan, so you're covered too, and you pay for both.

For the others, the documents we read don't say. Ask.

The six-month clock starts when your parent is added

Adding a parent starts a new waiting period for that parent. 1Life says its six-month natural-death waiting period "applies equally to lives added after the policy starts". Old Mutual's runs "from the date a person was added to the plan". So a parent added in year three of your policy isn't covered for natural death until six months later, even though you've been paying for years. Accidental death is covered straight away on every plan that states it. Our waiting periods post has the full detail.

What we can't tell you

These are the providers' own documents as we recorded them between 23 and 26 August 2026. Insurers revise their rates, so check the current document or quote before you buy. Only Assupol and 1Life publish parent prices, so the price comparisons in this post cover those two plans. A blank or "no" in a table means the documents we read were silent, not that we assumed an answer.

How to choose cover for a parent

1. Decide the amount first. No plan here covers a parent over 64 for more than R 50 000, and Assupol stops at R 40 000 from 75.
2. Match the plan to the amount and age. In our data, Assupol is cheaper for a parent up to 74, and for R 10 000 at any age. For R 20 000 or more on a parent aged 75 or over, 1Life costs the same or less, if you also want cover for yourself.
3. Check whether you must insure yourself, and what that adds.
4. Do the break-even sum for your parent's age: the payout divided by the monthly premium.
5. Get at least one quote from a plan that doesn't publish rates.
6. Ask whether the premium rises as your parent gets older.

Compare funeral cover on Vulo →

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Sources. Each provider's own published brochure, rate tables, policy terms or product page, recorded between 23 and 26 August 2026: Assupol's 2025 funeral cover brochure (page 4 rate tables), 1Life's Essential Plan brochure (page 3), Old Mutual's EasiPlus, Care, Standard and Comprehensive+ brochures, Metropolitan's 2026 brochure, Capitec's 2026 funeral cover flyer, African Bank's policy terms and FNB's funeral plan page. The source for every plan is linked on its Vulo listing. Counts cover the 14 plans sold to individuals. "Months until premiums exceed the payout" is the payout divided by today's monthly premium, rounded up, and ignores any future premium increase.