Retail Services News South Africa

Green insurance for solar geysers

Homeowners, facing the costs of burst or damaged geysers, can take advantage of the Nedgroup Insurance pilot project that offers a seamless facility for its home owner clients to install solar geysers as replacements. Furthermore, a portion of home insurance revenue generated will be channelled to the Green Trust, which champions sustainability issues and projects.

The company, part of Nedbank group, believes this project will aid its clients in reducing their electricity consumption and their household running costs, while also assisting to reduce the burden on the national grid.

The company will pass on Eskom's solar rebates to its clients who choose to go with the solar geyser replacement option, for as long as the rebate programme is available. It facilitates the entire rebate process on behalf of the client, ensuring that the client is not out of pocket during the process. It has also created a seamless process for clients by sourcing high quality, Eskom-accredited and SABS-approved suppliers and products for national solar geyser installation and maintenance, thereby removing the burden of costing and supplier management from the customer.

Ordinarily, the cost of installing a new solar geyser would be between R15000 and R35000. However, its clients will be able to enjoy the benefit of their insurance cover and the Eskom rebate to access solar geysers. Clients who opt to replace their existing geyser with a solar geyser will only have to cover a shortfall of between R8000 and R12000 on the cost of the solar geyser, depending on the size and type of geyser they elect to install.

"As a bank, we are totally committed to increasing the adoption of environmentally-friendly practices, not only internally, but amongst our customer base. This aligns with the philosophy of integrated sustainability in that it results in economic, social and environmental benefit," says Brigitte Burnett, head of sustainability at Nedbank.

She adds: "This initiative is yet another example of Nedbank's innovation in the green economy, which demonstrates that sustainability and business development are not opposing values in a business such as ours."

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