By Tendai Makaripe
Death does not wait for payday in the scattered homesteads of Romsley’s Village 14, about 90 kilometres outside Nyazura. Here, money comes in bursts, after harvests, a good market day, and a piece job.
Not in neat monthly slips.
So, when word spreads that someone has died, the village moves before any office does.
Bicycles and scotch carts rattle into the bereaved yard.
Women steady the pots, stirring sadza and sorting vegetables for mourners.
Men gather under a tree, voices low, already mapping the next steps.
Long before a bank opens or a claims form is filled out, the burial society committee is in motion.
Josphat Jangwela, 42, leads it.
He knows the drill: assign duties, draw from the pooled contributions members have built over time, and organise transport and groceries.
Each death forces a hard arithmetic—grief measured against costs that do not wait.
On March 18, that arithmetic confronted the Chigarisano family. Samuel Chigarisano, 40, died at Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare after battling liver cancer.
“It is not paperwork that helps you here; it is people who arrive when the problem is still hot,” Jangwela said.
By the time relatives brought Samuel’s body home the next day, the burial society had already organised transport and food for mourners.
That is the kind of practical protection formal funeral cover is meant to provide, yet many families say it fails when it matters most.
The gap between promise and reality sits at the heart of Zimbabwe’s inclusive insurance debate, and even the regulator agrees.
Zimbabwe’s insurance regulator’s own numbers underline the problem.
In its life-assurance sector report for the quarter to 30 September 2025, the Insurance and Pensions Commission (IPEC) said sector revenues rose 39% to about US$172 million, but almost 68% of that income came from funeral policies.
Group life assurance contributed another 14%, leaving less than 18% for all other life products.
IPEC warned that heavy reliance on short-term funeral cover is eroding long-term products and could undermine policyholder protection.
Yet funeral cover remains beyond reach for many households. The FinScope Zimbabwe 2022 Consumer Survey found that only about 28% of adults have any insurance: 22% hold formal cover, 6% rely only on informal schemes, and 72% have no insurance at all. Even among those insured, funeral cover dominates—about 72% carry funeral insurance, compared with only 12% who have life cover.
Affordability and lack of awareness remain major barriers, helping to explain why burial societies still matter.
“It is also why burial societies raise an uncomfortable question for Zimbabwe’s insurance industry,” said Joeline Matsika, social commentator.
“But in low-income households, where money comes in small pieces and is spent on emergencies, the gap between a product designed on paper and protection that works on the ground can be the difference between dignity and desperation,” said economist Benedict Marufu.
During the Covid 19 pandemic, funeral policy providers often refused to provide buses because of social distancing rules, and bereaved families had to endure bureaucratic procedures to obtain burial orders and clearance to travel to rural areas.
In a research title Social Protection and Burial Societies in Zimbabwe during Covid-19, social protection scholar Sharon Hofisi notes that: “Burial societies have become the preferred choice to ensure that social rights are enjoyed by assisting the families of those deceased with coffins and food”.
Back at the Chigarisano homestead, that “protection” did not arrive as a theory.
It arrived as immediate costs—and a committee that already had a plan. Under a tree, Jangwela opened the burial society’s notebook and checked the running balance built from members’ monthly contributions.
The money was there, but it could not cover everything: transport from Harare, food for mourners through the night, and other urgent expenses would stretch the fund and leave it exposed for the next death.
So, the meeting was not about starting from zero.
It was about closing the gap.
Jangwela read out what the society could release immediately, then listed what was still needed: vehicle hire, extra groceries and small cash needs that come quickly after a death.
Members pledged top-ups—some in cash, others in kind—adding to what the monthly pot already provided.
Tension peaked when transport was discussed.
“The driver wants payment upfront, but the balance is still falling short,” the society’s secretary Rachael Chikondoma tells the group.
Portia’s mother suggested selling a goat; an older relative resisted, warning that selling livestock in grief would turn one loss into many.
Voices rose briefly.
“Should we draw deeper from the pooled fund and weaken it for other members, or raise an emergency top-up and anger people already behind on contributions?” Jangwela asked.
Then a late top-up arrived, cash sent through a neighbour, with a promise the sender would catch up fully at month-end.
Jangwela counted it, updated the total and nodded once, the way a man does when the math finally agrees with reality.
The conversation softened.
Someone muttered a tired joke about how death never waits for payday, and a few people laughed, not because it was funny, but because it released the pressure.
By dusk, the society had agreed on what to pay from the pooled fund, what to raise as top-ups and who would follow up absent members.
It was enough to confirm transport and spare Portia from bargaining away the family’s remaining assets.
That scramble to make a workable plan, using channels the community can actually reach, captures what regulators say inclusive insurance should look like.
IPEC’s public relations manager Lloyd Gumbo stresses that inclusion must extend beyond product sales.
“True inclusion requires that claims submission, assessment and payment are accessible using channels that are realistic for the target market,” he said in written responses to questions.
Gumbo added that an insurance product “cannot be described as genuinely inclusive if the claims process is structurally inaccessible to the very communities it targets”.
His remarks underscore why regulators are pressing insurers to offer offline or low-tech claims channels and agent-assisted processes in rural areas.
When the rules don’t fit
Those channels matter because many families lose coverage long before they ever reach a claims desk, not out of choice, but because the rules punish irregular income.
Formal insurance policies typically require regular premiums and can lapse quickly when payments are missed.
That rigidity often clashes with rural incomes shaped by drought, inflation and irregular harvests.
Sithembiso Ntuli, a policyholder in Bulawayo, said her insurer refused to pay out when she missed a few premiums before her husband died in 2017, even though she had contributed for years.
Her burial society, by contrast, weighed her payment history and still helped.
“Self-organised community burial societies offer a more welcoming environment,” Ntuli said.
In many villages, participation is enforced through community accountability rather than contract terms; people who fall behind may face social pressure, but they are rarely abandoned at the moment of need.
Burial societies, however, have limits.
“They depend on volunteers and can weaken if key members relocate or if several deaths occur in a short period,” said Rodwell Kufandada Musonza, a village in Goromonzi’s Musonza kraal.
Disputes can also erupt when enforcement relies on relationships instead of formal rules.
Research has also shown that their small scale can be a problem when costs spike or inflation erodes contributions.
Regulators say inclusive insurance should bridge the gap between informal solidarity and formal reliability.
Experimenting with new models
Microinsurers such as EcoSure are trying to borrow from burial societies rather than replace them.
EcoSure, a subsidiary of Econet, has partnered with community groups to design products that allow members to contribute collectively through mobile money.
Group leaders help collect premiums and coordinate payments, while social accountability reduces dropouts.
EcoSure’s managers say the model works because community trust and testimony can travel faster than advertising.
IT analyst Fortune Nyamusa argues that even mobile-based cover can exclude the people it targets.
“Network coverage is uneven, electricity to charge phones is not guaranteed, and many older residents struggle with digital steps,” he said.
In a bad season, after drought, job losses or price shocks, even small deductions can become impossible.
FinScope’s 2022 survey showed how exposed families are to risk.
About half of adults reported facing a major risk event in the previous year, often illness, livestock losses or crop failure, yet most households coped by cutting back or leaning on relatives. Only a small minority claimed on insurance.
The findings show the collision between frequent shocks and low, fragile uptake.
For now, burial societies remain the safety net of choice.
When Samuel Chigarisano was laid to rest, Jangwela recorded each top-up in his notebook and later updated members who were absent.
The committee with the help of relatives, raised enough to hire a vehicle, bring the body from the mortuary and feed mourners through the funeral.
Portia did not have to sell livestock or take a high-interest loan that would swallow the next harvest.
Inclusive insurance must be built for irregular incomes, delivered through trusted channels and judged not by policies sold, but by what happens when death comes.
If formal providers hope to earn the trust of families like the Chigarisanos, they must make protection as immediate, flexible and dignified as the neighbours who show up when “the problem is still hot.”
