Sasria SOC Limited (Sasria), South Africa’s leading special risk insurer, has announced strong financial results for the fiscal year ending 31 March 2024.
Despite ongoing economic challenges and rising global uncertainties, Sasria has demonstrated robust financial health, reinforced by significant revenue growth, effective claims management, and prudent capital management.
Financial Highlights:
• Total assets increased to R16.4 billion (2023: R14.1 billion).
• Insurance revenue grew by 17.67% to R5.25 billion (2023: R4.46 billion).
• Profit for the year stood at R3.33 billion, reflecting Sasria's operational resilience and efficiency.
• Investment income saw a notable rise to R1.02 billion (2023: R693 million).
• Accumulated losses improved from R11.19 billion in 2023 to R7.86 billion, bolstering Sasria's equity position.
• Reinsurance Costs: Net reinsurance expenses increased slightly to R1.33 billion, suggesting that Sasria continues to manage its risk exposure effectively, although reinsurance costs remain a considerable expense.
Sasria’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Dirk Kunz, attributes the company’s continued profitability to a combination of healthy premium growth, solid investment return due to high interest rates and benighn claims environment.
"Despite global economic pressures and ongoing local socio-political challenges, we have managed to maintain steady growth and enhance our operational efficiency. Our strong performance in 2023/24 is a testament to our financial resilience to protect South Africans against special risks while ensuring the sustainability of our business,” said Kunz.
Resilience and Strategic Focus "Through a focus on sustainable growth, operational efficiency, we have successfully strengthened our balance sheet, enabling us to build that puts Sasria in a strong footing to future catastrophic events," added Tyikwe.
Enoch Godongwana, the Minister of Finance, reflecting on the financial results, said: “The Executive Team (Exco) has done an exemplary job of improving the entity's financial position and performance, as demonstrated in this Integrated Report. Given that the entity has returned to sound financial footing, it can now focus on risk planning as it future-proofs itself to be agile and competently deal with future claim.”
“Treasury, Sasria, regulators and other stakeholders on potential ways to expand its mandate to put South Africa in a better position to deal with Natural Disasters that have become more frequent due to climate change. During 2023/24, these engagements centred around possibly extending Sasria’s coverage towards climate risks, extreme weather, and cyber-attacks. The intent is to ensure Sasria’s ongoing sustainability and its capacity to address risk while renewing faith among policyholders that the insurance industry works to their benefit,” further said Godongwana.
As the only non-life insurer in South Africa offering special risk coverage for events such as civil commotion, public disorder, and terrorism, Sasria remains a vital player in ensuring the resilience of businesses, government institutions, and individuals against these events.
Appointed in January this year as the new chairperson of the Sasria board, Dr Nolwandle Mgoqi, reflecting on the financial results, said: “I am confident that Sasria’s renewed strategy will support our contribution to South Africa’s stability, growth, and transformation. Key to Sasria’s Strategy is a focus on advancing our data analytics and to develop insights to better manage the isks. Our aim is to build an organisation that is proactive in managing risks as well as in realising opportunities for sustainable growth and strengthened socio-economic development.”
Sasria continues to identify and manage the issues inherent to the business while equally creating value for all its stakeholders. Our focus is to encourage business to infest in South Africa to grow the economy and increase employment opportornuties.
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