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Funeral insurance is small policy life insurance.

Profitability comes from three prongs: many policies are canceled before a covered event, premiums are often collected for many years and have time to be invested before a covered event, and bundling with inappropriate investments.

For examples of inappropriate investments, you can look at whole life and variable annuities. Most people would be better off spending the same amount on term life + a stock index fund; assuming access to stock index funds, which is probably not a given in many African countries.