Insurance Industry And Country Risk Assessment: South Africa Property/Casualty

S&P Global Ratings assesses insurance industry and country risk as moderate in the South African property and casualty (P/C) sector. This reflects our view of country risk as moderate and industry risk as intermediate.

Our expectation is that the P/C insurance sector in South Africa will show constrained real premium growth in the next two years as a result of weak economic growth prospects.

The overall assessment is comparable with other P/C markets such as Brazil, Italy, Morocco, and Turkey. Country risk is a relative weakness due to heightened economic risks within the country. We consider growth prospects to be limited in South Africa's P/C market due to the economic environment and near stagnant GDP growth. We view the balance of industry factors as a relative strength, reflecting our view of the P/C insurance sector's earnings as positive (based on our forecast of industry return on equity [ROE]), barriers to entry as modest, and the regulatory framework as supportive. 

The full report can be downloaded here ( 327KB  PDF)