DEAR VALUED CLIENT,
With the past election we hope everyone had time to rest and reflect after what could be considered one of the most important periods in our country’s history.
This year marks 30 years since our founder Toni van Zyl opened our doors. Over the past 30 years we have built up wonderful relationships with our clients that extended to their Children, Moms & Dads, Oumas & Oupas, Ooms & Tannies, Neighbours, Colleagues etc. We have seen our clients go through so many life stages: From the first contribution towards retirement to retiring, young parents starting to save for a child’s education to that same child graduating, young parents and couples taking steps to ensure their families are taken care of if they are not around anymore to assisting families with the death of a loved one.
Antoni & Marco went from tagging along with Toni & Elmarie to see clients and dropping off calendars during December holidays to becoming financial planners ourselves and taking over the reins of the company when Toni & Elmarie retired.
In 30 years, we have been through a global pandemic, numerous global market crashes and rallies, deaths, births, divorces and weddings, but the one thing that has remained is our unwavering commitment to our clients.
We are grateful for every single one of you and thank you for putting your trust in us. We are also grateful to our founders/parents for instilling in us our core values of honesty, integrity and humanity.
DAILY OPERATION:
At TvZ we are always keeping our eye on the latest trends in technology. As most of you have seen in the media, AI & ChatGPT is technology that is impacting various industries around the world – including finance. Not one to fall behind, our company have also implemented ChatGPT to assist us in analyzing & simplifying large amounts of data. This technology has already had a major impact on businesses and society as a whole and will continue to do so in the future. At TvZ we see this technology as a handy tool to help us deliver excellent service to our clients, however we strongly believe that our true value lies in the human touch and personal service, and we will continue to give exactly that to our clients.
We have also included WhatsApp as a communication medium. This medium works particularly well for sending & receiving information related to short-term claims like photos. Please feel free to let us know if you would like to be added to our broadcast list to receive industry news & feedback via WhatsApp. You simply have to click on below WhatsApp logo, follow the prompts and send us HI with your name & surname.
Please note that the WhatsApp line is only set up for messaging (not calls) and monitored during working hours. Email and our office telephone line is still the preferred communication method.
SAVINGS & INVESTMENTS:
Unfortunately, CPI remains stubbornly high at 5.2%, which implies interest rates will continue to remain at the current high level. This causes a lot of strain on people with debt, but it also implies interest earned is at a high level. The JSE All Share Index have underperformed over the past year at 2.2%. The shining light was the performance of the international funds with the MSCI global market index achieving 17.3% over the past year.
We have seen strong growth in clients’ investments over the past year. The biggest contributing factor for this performance growth is our well diversified Investment Models which include a healthy allocation to international funds.
TAX:
SARS announced the upcoming Tax Season will open on 15 July 2024. The auto assessments will commence between 1-14 July.
The auto assessments are done automatically by SARS, but we monitor the assessments for any errors and will handle each case separately. If you receive any correspondence from SARS please forward to Janneri, our tax practitioner, to check the status on e-filing. There are a lot of fraudulent emails/SMS’s doing the rounds where fraudsters try to duplicate correspondence from SARS trying to obtain funds or personal information. Please send any correspondence received from SARS (or seemingly from SARS) to Janneri to verify.
As is the case every year, we have some clients who are in a hurry to finalize their Tax return submission. We understand this completely and would like to assure each & every client that we aim to complete all the Tax returns as accurately and speedily as possible.
Please understand that we have +/- 300 Tax returns to complete annually, which does take some time. We are also dependent on the effective operation of the e-filing website. If SARS requests additional information for a client, we provide the information as soon as possible and we also follow up on each case depending on the timelines specified by SARS.
Please note that we also have no influence on speeding up the audit process or refund payments due to clients.
You are welcome to send your tax documents as soon as you are ready. Janneri works from a first come first serve basis:
- For medical expenses paid from pocket (for period 1 March 2023 – 29 Feb 2024), please send the summary as well as the invoices/ proof of payments (SARS accepts the attached Excel spreadsheet for summarizing the information of the medical expenses). If possible, please send the medical aid certificate as well.
- Logbook (you may use SARS’ logbook attached)
- Any other expense receipts
- Donation certificates (if applicable)
We will be able to retrieve the Retirement Annuity certificates from Old Mutual, Sanlam, Allan Gray and Liberty ourselves. Any other company please forward as well. Janneri will handle and capture the necessary tax data during the month of June to make the submission process as seamless as possible when the system opens.
Your patience in this matter is greatly appreciated
SHORTTERM INSURANCE:
The insurance industry continues to be under severe pressure with climate change and increased inflation is the biggest culprit.
Inflation on Vehicle parts are currently around 13%, significantly higher than the current consumer price index of 5.2%.
Catastrophe claims like storm, fire, lighting, earthquake etc. have seen a drastic increase in recent years. Insurer data shows that between 2000 and 2011, the average annual cost of CAT claims was R39 million. However, in the last decade from 2012 to 2022, the average annual CAT claims amounted to R371 million.
These factors have had a significant impact on premiums and risk tolerance. We have seen numerous instances where insurers are unwilling to accept clients with a high claims history.
Please rest assured that our team is constantly engaging with the insurance industry to address the current challenges and to negotiate the best possible premiums for our clients as we are fully committed to providing you with the correct cover at the best possible rate.
Please read your renewal emails and summaries carefully as we highlight potential risks and offer solutions to address them as well as ways to potentially save on premiums like increasing excess amounts.
LIFE INSURANCE & RISK COVER:
Similar to the short-term insurance industry, the life insurance industry has also suffered significant claims in recent years largely due to COVID. We have found that this has made underwriting stricter than normal and have had many instances where clients were denied cover due to pre-existing medical conditions.
We therefore encourage you to contact us should you have any queries about your own life/ disability/ severe illness insurance or if you would like to apply for more cover.
IN SUMMARY:
It is important to remember that economic indicators like inflation and interest rates work in cycles. The world recently went through a low inflation/ interest cycle mostly due to Covid 19 and is currently going through a high cycle as a result. Be assured that the cycle will turn again as it has done numerous times in history. It is therefore important to stick to your long-term goals and avoid lapsing/ cancelling risk cover policies as insurers could decline cover or increase the premium of the cover due to low risk tolerance.
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Warm Regards from all of us here at TvZ
