Almost 400,000 people with ‘full cover’ funeral insurance with the company Yarden will have to pay supplementary charges from next year.

The NOS broadcaster reports that the company has been struggling financially, with rising costs and lower interest rates. The oversight body had warned that it had insufficient financial buffers and its response has been to freeze the cover level of these policies.

From 1^st January next year, it says, a family with a ‘from casket to cake’ policy can expect to pay ‘more than €600 for a funeral with total costs of €4000. There are 380,000 ‘full cover’ policy holders.

Réné Collé, director of Yarden, told the NOS that the policy no longer covered the level of costs today. ‘This is a historic product, which used to be standard but just doesn’t work today,’ he reportedly said. ‘Previously, funeral costs were low and investment costs were strong and stable, but this hasn’t been the case for years. The product has become unaffordable.’

Previously, the company has tried to buy customers out of their policies but this approach was withdrawn after a legal challenge. Policy holders will be informed in writing about the latest proposal.

But policy holder Peter Baak protested that the firm could not renege on its side of a contract and threatened to take legal action. ‘I have signed a contract, which means that one party cannot just change things because they don’t suit them any more,’ he reportedly said.

But Joyce Donat, a spokeswoman from the Consumentenbond, pointed out that this might be a better option than failing to fulfil the policies at all. ‘There is a whiff of a Yarden bankruptcy in the air, and then a million people with insurance would lose their money,’ she reportedly told the NOS.