Funeral services company Avbob celebrates centenary

Avbob held a breakfast briefing session at the Midrand Conference Centre on 13 August, although its centenary celebrations took place on 15 August in Irene.

Funeral services company Avbob was founded 100 years ago in Bloemfontein on 15 August 1918. Avbob CEO Frik Rademan has revealed that the company will be giving away a special bonus of R3,5 billion to its policyholders.

Avbob General Manager of Corporate Affairs Adriaan Bester said, “This is the biggest special bonus in the history of the company. In the past, we would issue special bonuses to our policyholders in the form of automatically increasing its cover payment amount but we have now decided to launch an Avbob Rewards Account (ARA).

“The ARA will be used to store each and every policyholder’s special bonus which will allow them to cash it out while they are still alive at the age of 65, only once it has been running for a minimum of 10 years.”

Bester said this is the company’s way of giving back to the communities who support them, as well as another form of improving its services for customers’ benefit. “We do not have shareholders and we also do not pay out dividends, therefore, when the company makes a large profit we are able to share it with our policyholders through the special bonuses.”

Rademan said Avbob has a huge focus on education and is working hand in hand with the Department of Basic Education.

“Since 2012 we have built 50 container libraries with 3 000 books in each, at various schools around the country. We have also launched another project with Basic Education of about R150 million to renovate nine schools around the country

– one in each province.”