GroundUp stands by its articles and will continue to investigate the shenanigans at 3Sixty Life

Khandani Msibi takes issue with our article on 27 September titled “Fate of NUMSA’s funeral insurance company hangs in the balance”,  characterising it as false and unethical. Our purpose in the article was to recap the court battle over the curatorship of 3Sixty Life, a funeral insurer owned by Numsa’s investment trust.

Msibi makes much of the fact that we did not use the term “provisional” before the word curatorship. His letter must have been written before 30 September because it hasn’t aged well. On that date, Judge Fiona Dippenaar in the High Court in Johannesburg ruled that 3Sixty Life is to be placed under final curatorship, as we wrote about in “Court confirms curatorship for NUMSA’s funeral insurer”.

In any case, our 27 September article explicitly stated that the curatorship (as of 27 September) was interim, which means the same as “provisional” in this context.

Msibi is upset that we didn’t approach him for comment and instead quoted the response he gave to another publication. He is presumably aware that we asked him for comment on 28 February. We are still awaiting his response.

The article Msibi objects to now was based on sworn affidavits before the court. Usually, when quoting from court papers there is no need to go to the parties quoted for further comment.

Msibi places great stock in the opinions of (former) provisional curator Yashoda Ram. But, as we learnt after Friday’s judgment, the court clearly didn’t accept Ram’s views. In fact, Judge Dippenaar described her conduct as “prejudicial, belligerent and erratic”. The judge wrote that Ram acted in her own interests, rather than in the interests of the policyholders.

We draw readers’ attention to our article “Yashoda Ram, NUMSA’s insurance company’s curious curator” for some background as to why Judge Dippenaar may have come to this conclusion.

Msibi says we lied by stating that 3Sixty Life was placed under curatorship after two years of operating under insolvency. He says that the company operated under actuarial insolvency for eight months before the Prudential Authority applied to place it under provisional curatorship.

In fact, 3Sixty Life reported to the Prudential Authority that by the end of the third quarter of 2020 it was operating below the statutory solvency requirements. It was placed under curatorship in December 2021, which is at least 16 months later, so not quite two years. But the company’s annual reports for a period covering two years (2020 and 2021) have not been submitted.

Nevertheless, we’ve amended our article to say 16 months instead of two years. (Our previous articles were more precise on this point — start here: “Irvin Jim’s birthday party paid for by embattled life insurer”.)

Also, as our articles have shown, 3Sixty Life’s statutory troubles date from before 2020. For more on its troubles (back to 2017), read “Millions of rands siphoned from NUMSA’s insurance company, report shows”.

Msibi states that there is no such thing as Numsa Investment Trust, that 3Sixty Life is owned by the Doves Group and that the ultimate shareholder is the National Manufacturing Workers Trust. But we actually wrote “NUMSA’s investment trust” not “NUMSA Investment Trust”. We’ve explained the ownership structure in previous articles.

Msibi claims “the evidence on the ground is that the Prudential Authority is purging and destroying all black insurance companies”. We have not seen evidence to support racism by the authority but we will keep an open mind. Msibi claims that “white-run” Constantia Insurance appears to have been treated altogether more nicely by the Prudential Authority. But after a brief interim/provisional curatorship that was not opposed, Constantia Insurance was placed into liquidation.

Let’s be clear about why we, GroundUp, are focusing on 3Sixty Life: most of its customers are Numsa members. Numsa, the country’s largest union, is 3Sixty Life’s owner. The company appears to have grossly mismanaged workers’ money, spending some of it on laptops for family members of a Numsa official and a lavish birthday party.

Numsa’s leaders have been accused of purging members who have questioned the organisation’s role in the 3Sixty Life debacle. This is a story of profound public interest. We stand by our articles and will continue to investigate the shenanigans at 3Sixty Life. DM