Can I still claim my provident fund and UIF from agencies where I used to work?

The long answer

Thank you for your email asking if you can still claim your provident fund and UIF from agencies where you used to work but that may not exist now.

You will not be able to claim UIF while you are currently working. How it works is that you have to submit a claim within six months of being retrenched or fired, or your contract ending or your employer going bankrupt.

UIF will not pay if you quit your job yourself or were suspended for fraud.

As far as your provident fund goes, what happens is that the unclaimed money is transferred to an unclaimed benefits fund, which you should still be able to access, even though some funds’ rules say that the amount must be written back after a set period.

To find out if there are any unclaimed benefits owing to you, you can access a central database on the Financial Sector Conduct Authority website at www.fsca.co.za. 

Here you can input basic information such as your name, ID number, fund name, name of employer etc, so that the search engine can check for a match. If there is a match, you will be given the contact details of the fund or the administrator. From there you will have to contact the fund yourself and follow the normal claims process to prove that you have a valid claim.

You can also email the FSCA at info@fsca.co.za or phone their contact centre at 0800 20 37 22.