In this second podcast of our four-part series “Life behind the numbers”, in partnership with Discovery Life, we look at how you can use life cover not only to provide for the unexpected, but also to save towards your child’s education.

I have two sons, with the youngest currently in matric. So I have another five years of education expenses still ahead of me.

When it came to estate planning, the main concern for me and my husband was that if something happened to one of us, we should still be able to afford to educate our sons.

But at the same time we are also trying to save for their future education. So how does one find a balance between protecting against an unknown risk while planning for a known future?

In this podcast, I am joined by Discovery Life Deputy Chief Executive, Gareth Friedlander and Head of Market Analytics and R&D, Kashmeera Kanji. We unpack the importance and value of having a risk-protection product that enables parents to cover the costs of their children’s education.

They discuss how you can use life cover not only to provide for the unexpected, but also to save towards your child’s education.

We discuss how a risk-protection product, like Discovery’s Global Education Protector, provides the buffer needed when it comes to financing your child’s education – from creche to tertiary level, and even international tertiary education.

The product tries to solve that difficult issue of how to both protect yourself for the unforseen events, but also save for the known events.

Covering your child’s education

By taking out this type of risk protection, you give yourself the peace of mind that your child’s education is covered, but through Discovery’s shared value model, just by being healthy, you’re effectively funding a big pot of money for your child’s future education.

But what do the numbers tell us about whether this type of product is even necessary? We analyse the claim statistics ‒ the extent to which parents or guardians have claimed against this risk protection ‒ and we find out about the type of benefits paid out.

Kanji also unpacks some unsettling figures around increasing illnesses in children and whether this is something we should be concerned about.