PPS expands beyond professionals with new ‘glu’ division

Financial services company Professional Provident Society (PPS) has launched a new business division that will make products available to more South Africans.

PPS’s core market remains graduate professionals, but the new business segment, called glu, opens the door to a wider audience.

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PPS offers products exclusively to individuals with professional qualifications in areas such as business, management, law, and medicine. The company maintains that this market displays certain characteristics such as an unwillingness to unnecessarily terminate insurance coverage, which leads to lower lapses and claims. This in turn supports profitability.

PPS operates under a so-called “mutual model” where policyholders with qualifying investment, insurance, or healthcare products share in the company’s profits.

Profit share model 

The same profit-share model will now be applied to glu policyholders.

Marusha Nariansamy, glu head of actuarial, says that after 10 years of membership, policyholders will be able to access 20% of their profit share balance and an additional 20% every five years after that. The full 100% of the profit share balance is available when policyholders turn 65 or reach the 20-year membership mark, whichever comes first.

Read: PPS boasts more than 1 500 millionaires [April 2024]

glu, which officially launches on 30 January, offers  “straightforward” life products including, financial planning, insurance, and investments, says Michele Jennings, glu CEO.

The products will initially be sold through brokers, with the possibility of direct sales at a later stage.

According to Jennings, the ideal target market for glu products is middle-upper income individuals between the ages of 25 and 55 with a minimum household income of R30 000 per month, ideally with a diploma or degree, or with a connection to an existing PPS member.

“We have a preferred client base of people who are related in some way to PPS, because of the distribution channel. But we’ll amend this strategy as we go along.”

Barry Pretorius, glu national head of distribution, says there will be “no conflict” between the sales team members as they will be allowed to sell both PPS and glu products.

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