NEWS
ESWATINI Royal Insurance Corporation (ESRIC) maintained its top position in the long-term insurance (LTI) sector at the end of 2024. This is according to the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) fourth-quarter bulletin, which states despite a marginal quarter-on-quarter dip of 0.12 percentage points, ESRIC’s market share stood at 36.77 percent from 34.70 percent in 2023 fourth quarter, a year-on-year gain of 2.07 percentage points.
Oracle Insurance emerged as the second-largest player, securing a 16.70 percent share and overtaking Old Mutual, whose share declined from 17.22 percent to 16.08 percent, placing it fourth. Liberty held firm in third place, growing its market share from 15.84 percent to 16.45 percent. Oracle recorded the strongest growth over the past three quarters, underscoring its rising influence in the sector. 〝Other market players recorded modest movements, as United Life stood at 5.33 percent, Orchard at 3.99 percent, Safrican at 3.16 percent, and Finsure saw a decline to 1.53 percent,〞 reads the report. The LTI sector continued to grapple with high claims, as reflected in its persistent loss ratio a comparison of claims to premiums.
In 2024 fourth quarter, the loss ratio rose slightly to 73.04 percent from 69.37 percent in the previous quarter, marking a year-on-year increase of 11.64 percentage points from 61.40 percent in 2023 fourth quarter. 〝The high loss ratio trend was primarily driven by Old Mutual and Oracle, both of which hit the 100 percent mark. Liberty and Orchard also reported increases of 7.68 and 6.36 percentage points, respectively,〞 reads the report. In contrast, ESRIC and Safrican showed year-on-year improvements. Notably, this ratio excludes changes in policy liabilities and only considers insurance benefits and claims. Quarter-on-quarter, total claims in the LTI industry surged by 43.64 percent to E716.64 million, while year-on-year claims rose by 32.14 percent. Retirement fund product claims were the primary driver, rising by 71.09 percent to account for 40.84 percent of total claims.
Additional growth was observed in individual life (11.95 percent), funeral (31.44 percent), and unit-linked savings (38.18 percent) product lines. Year-on-year comparisons revealed particularly sharp increases in retirement fund claims (65.72 percent) and unit-linked savings (77.64 percent), while individual life and disability were the only categories to decline. The sector’s assets were valued at E5.31 billion as of December 2024, marking a 9.67 percent year-on-year increase despite a slight quarter-on-quarter decline of 0.23 percent. This annual growth was driven mainly by a 9.36 percent rise in the market value of investment assets and cash, which also edged up by 0.34 percent from the previous quarter. Investment assets and cash made up 94.29 percent of total assets, a 0.53 percentage point increase. This con-centration underscores the LTI sec- tor’s mandate to maintain adequate resources to settle future policyholder obligations. On the balance sheet, amounts due from related parties and loans receivable grew by 80.48 percent and 3.48 percent, respectively, collectively contributing 3.13 percent to total assets.