I have lost touch with members or policyholders

A retirement fund or an insurer often holds money for people it can no longer reach. Some of them have died, and an estate notice is a public record of that.

What a notice tells you

The person's name and, in most notices, their ID number. Their dates of birth and death, and the Master's office that holds the estate file. The estate number, and the executor with an address.

A notice is not a death certificate. A fund or insurer still asks for one before it pays.

Who to contact

The executor named on the notice. They act for the estate and usually know the family.

A life policy with a named beneficiary is paid to that beneficiary, not to the estate. A policy with no beneficiary is paid to the estate, through the executor.

A retirement fund's death benefit does not form part of the estate. The trustees decide who receives it, under section 37C of the Pension Funds Act.

If there is no notice

An estate worth R250,000 or less usually publishes no notice. Neither does a death whose estate has not been reported yet. So finding nothing does not mean the person is alive.

The page on finding nothing lists the other reasons a name can be missing.

Where this leaves you

Last checked 20 September 2026. The law behind these pages is the Administration of Estates Act 66 of 1965.