Climate change poses the most significant threat for South African insurance companies and risks raising premiums and the cost of reinsurance, a top official at its biggest insurer by assets said.
After staying almost flat in the decade to 2020, the cost for reinsuring against catastrophic events for Old Mutual Ltd. has climbed as much as 30%, according to Garth Napier, managing director at Old Mutual Insure Ltd., the group’s non-life unit.
In addition to COVID-19, reinsurance costs have jumped due to the worst flooding in almost three decades that drowned more than 400 people in landslides and washed away houses in 2022, he said in an interview Friday.
