You currently have Injury on duty cover (COIDA) through us, which also provides national funeral expense benefits for employees.

But what happens…

• …if the death was not related to work?
• …if it is the employee’s family member who has died?

…to the family if the member has died?

We have a solution just for that

We have designed a funeral cover to ensure your employees and their family will have a dignified funeral and that the costs involved with planning a funeral are met.

Employees expect their employers to take care of them when they get injured or contract an occupational disease as a result of the work they do.  As administrators of occupational injuries and diseases for the Mining and Metals industry, our mandate is to help employers protect their employees from the financial burden they could be faced with when they can’t work due to contracting an injury or disease while on duty.

However, we can only provide the services efficiently to compliant employers, this then means that non-compliant employers expose their employees to financial risk when they cannot work due to injury or occupational disease. 

Impact of non-compliance to employees

• Delayed claim liability acceptance
• Delayed benefit payments to injured employees
• No financial support to the employee’s beneficiaries in the event of a fatal death

RMA’s investigators involvement

To detect non-compliance and fraud, we employ full-time investigators and numerous external service providers who investigate suspicious cases and visit employers as required. 

Where claims are found to be fraudulent, a case of fraud is opened with the relevant law authorities. 

Cases which constitute non-compliance include:

1. Intentional declaration of incorrect number of employees
2. Under declaration of earnings to RMA
3. Not registering with RMA and submitting your ROE’s
4. Reporting of falsified claims

How to do the right thing:

Familiarise yourself with the provisions of the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act (COIDA), particularly section 82, subsections 1, 3 and 5 referring to return of earnings and ensure that you comply with the provisions of the Act. 

This will assist you in understanding the responsibilities of the employer and the employees relating to injuries on duty.

If an employee passes away from a work-related injury or disease, RMA will provide continued financial support to their dependants. Dependants are people who have been gaining financial support from the deceased employee.

These are the benefits that the beneficiaries will get:

Spouse’s lump sum payment

This is a once-off lump sum payment paid to the spouse. If there is more than one spouse and are married in terms of customary law, this payment will be shared between the spouses.

Spouse’s pension

This is a monthly benefit that is paid to the spouse at 40% of the pension the deceased was earning at the time of their death (bearing in mind that their pension was paid at 75% of their accident earnings). This pension will be paid out to the spouse for the rest of their life, regardless of whether they remarry.

Child pension

The child pension is a monthly benefit of 20% of the pension the employee was earning at death (bearing in mind that their pension was paid at 75% of their accident earnings). This benefit is payable to each of their minor children until the month in which they turn 18 years. If their child studies beyond 18 years old, they can apply to RMA for an extension.

Here’s an easy view of spouse and children pension

Dependant	% benefit of deceased’s pension
Spouse/s	40% of pension (or divided by number of spouses if more than one spouse)
Child 1	20% of pension
Child 2	20% of pension
Child 3	20% of pension

If the employee had more than 3 children, the 60% of their 75% of accident earnings will be divided equally between them. 

Funeral Benefit

Over and above the spouse and children benefits, the beneficiaries of the employee are also entitled to a funeral expense benefit payout of R18 251 to cover funeral expenses.  

This benefit is paid out automatically to the spouse if they were married through Civil Marriage, Customary Marriage or Co-habitation with the deceased.

If the deceased was not married, the claiming beneficiary needs to provide RMA with all the funeral expense receipts. The amount that will be reimbursed is according to the proof of spending received, and it is paid up to the gazetted amount of R18 251. This amount is revised each year. The proof of spending will be collected by RMA during the document collection process.

Download our RMA Guide here for more information on how employees are covered under COIDA

Our Care Facility, in Welkom, Free State for pensioners and beneficiaries with occupational injuries was officially opened on 18 April 2016.  The facility was built to ensure that our beneficiaries get specialised care after experiencing life changing injuries. 

Since its opening, the facility has expanded its mandate from just taking care of beneficiaries to providing skills development programmes. The programmes are meant to uplift, reskill and educate our beneficiaries, their families and members of the community. 

Currently the facility runs two programmes:

• Sewing skills development
• Computer skills development

Each course enrols 20 leaners for a six weeks period where they are given an opportunity to acquire new skills of NQF level 2 that they can use to improve their own lives.

To date, the sewing programme has benefitted 72 learners and 11 of these are RMA beneficiaries, while the computer programme has befitted 60 learners and 8 of these are RMA beneficiaries.  

The skills development programmes have been highly welcomed by the community of Welkom, this is because of the number of lives that are being positively affected by it.

The next graduation ceremony for the current group of learners will be held on 7 December 2018, the ceremony will take place at the Care Facility. 

We want to satisfy you by making your RMA experience hassle free through the download section on our website which is there to help you gain access to a host of documents that are meant to make your life easier, these include:  

• Brochures
• Integrated reports
• Government Gazettes
• COID Tariffs
• Claimant forms
• Pensioner forms
• Healthcare provider forms

Visit our website to explore what value it can add to helping you understand your employees’ cover better.