Financial Risks Fuelling Fears Of A Downturn Among African Insurance CEOs
By Africa Ahead
Worries about financial risks, including currency depreciation and inflation, are topping the risks facing businesses across Africa as 2022 draws to a close.
A survey conducted by Continental Reinsurance among leading insurance professionals found that depreciation and inflation are impacting business results and fuelling fears of dampened growth in the year ahead.
Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe were identified as the three countries most at risk from these threats.
Some 90% of the CEOs surveyed warned that their perception of these risks has increased in the past 12 months – compared to 63% who believe opportunities are growing. Only 3% believed that threats were diminishing, a reflection that CEOs are increasingly worried about business prospects in the year ahead.
Some 13% of those surveyed saw climate change risk as a growing threat and warned that businesses must adapt their business models to manage changing weather patterns, whether this is increased drought, cyclones or floods.
Those surveyed were also concerned by the lack of a robust regulatory framework. Without strong frameworks, they said, it is harder to engender confidence in business sectors, including insurance.
Other risks identified by the CEOs included too great a dependence on external economic factors (6%), again a recognition that currency depreciation and inflation are largely beyond their control. Africans need to support African business, they argued, while admitting that in a globally connected world, this was hard to achieve.
In terms of opportunities, the CEOs felt that the insurance markets do have an opportunity to broaden consumer understanding of the benefits of insurance and to develop products that were better suited to customer demands.
Some 21% of the CEOs suggested that a lack of understanding of the benefits of insurance was actually an opportunity for their business, while a further 21% admitted that products were not evolving fast enough to suit consumers.
However, they saw this as an opportunity to grow their business in more consumer-centric ways.
In all, 63% of the CEOs surveyed felt that there is still an opportunity to grow business and they identified Kenya, Botswana, Ghana and Rwanda as the countries in which the greatest opportunities lie.
Commenting on these results, Lawrence Nazare, group CEO of Continental Reinsurance, said it was no surprise that exchange rates were causing concern as increasing numbers of insurance entities report results impacted by local currency depreciations.
It was also a concern, he said, that inflation was growing so fast – something that may well impact insurers’ results but also see premium rates increase at a time when consumers could struggle to pay other bills.
Source: https://afahpublishing.com/
