Global insurance giant, Marsh, is continuing its push across the continent and is eyeing up opportunities in many African nations. In many cases, the continent is hugely under insured and with an ever growing middle class, there are opportunities in the personal as well as the corporate insurance sector. We talk to Johannesburg-based Marsh Risk Consulting Managing Director, Volker Von Widdern to find out more.
Everyone knows that South Africa is the gateway to the African continent for international companies looking to take advantage of some of the fastest growing economies in the world. Traditionally, it has been businesses from the developed-world setting up in SA to take advantage of continental oil, gas and mineral potential but today the landscape is very different; the growing African middle class is providing a huge market for tertiary service providers. International businesses are not just setting up in SA; they’re localising their offerings to specific regions, investing in local people and communities. The insurance industry is a prime example of this. British insurer Prudential acquired Kenya’s Shield Assurance in 2014 as well as local Ghanaian firm Express Life in late 2013. More recently, French insurer AXA purchased a $250 million majority stake in Nigeria’s Mansard Insurance.
The interesting thing about the insurance business in particular is that the market potential is enormous. Insurance experts and practitioners from around the world see a low insurance penetration rate (insurance market size/GDP) as a sign of high growth potential in the industry. According to Swiss Re, Africa’s insurance penetration rate stood at 3.5% in 2013 versus 6.28% globally, while the market recorded a growth rate of 10.2% versus 2.5% worldwide.
Earlier this year, CNBC Africa stated that only 3.5% of the African market is insured, indicating a vast opportunity for insurance firms. A Standard Bank study of 11 sub-Saharan economies concluded last year that the “middle class” had risen from 4.6 million to 15 million since 2000 and would be over 40 million by 2030, with Africa’s biggest economy Nigeria leading the way.
Of course, there are challenges. Many reports suggest an absence of information on the insurance market in Africa is a main source of reluctance for insurance firms wanting to tap into the continent’s potential market. Then there is the notion that middle-class and lower middle-class customers in Africa are not as affluent as developed-world middle classes and therefore tend to be harder to reach and can require a larger use of face-to-face agents.
But these challenges do not represent enough of a deterrent because there are now obvious rich rewards to be had in Africa and one of the major companies that realises this and is making moves to cement its position on the continent is Marsh and its Risk Consulting division.
Marsh opened its doors in South Africa in 1999 as part of a joint venture with First Bowring Insurance Brokers (now known as First National Bank Insurance Brokers). The business has grown through strategic acquisitions and partnerships, always strengthening its expertise and resources.
One important milestone was realised in 2011 when Marsh acquired Alexander Forbes Risk Services, a move which greatly enhanced its African footprint.
“Connecting Africa to Marsh’s multinational client base and extensive range of resources is what our footprint on the continent is all about,” said Michael Duncan, Executive Leader, Marsh Africa after the deal had been formalised.
“Despite being the acknowledged market leader in several African countries, by integrating our global clients’ African risks into their existing global risk management programmes we have substantially increased our client base and market size on the continent – before even landing one new client,” he added.
AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT
Since the Alexander Forbes deal was completed, there has been a period of integration as the two cultures merge. We’re now a few years on and Marsh Risk Consulting Africa MD, Volker Von Widdern has had time to reflect. He says that one of the big successes of the deal has been retaining clients and staff.
“One of the very strong points, something that is often seen as a risk, is the revenue retention and I think we’ve minimised that risk. The merger did very well in terms of combining and maintaining the two client bases,” he says.
“The next area is people and I think we’ve kept at least 90% of all the people we believe are important; of course everyone is important, but in the context of not losing too many of our top-end specialists. However, the market is the market and every business of our nature has 3, 4, 5 or 6% employee turnover and sometimes when you have new entrants coming into the market like we have had, we are the biggest team and they will come and fish in our pond.
“On the infrastructure side, we are going through the middle and back office elements where we now want to integrate more and more of our systems and those plans are in place,” he adds.
Head of Marsh International, David Batchelor told Business Day that during the merger, client focus always remained a priority and improving the strength of Marsh in its specialist lines of business was another key aspect. These specialist lines include financial institutions; mining and metals; agriculture; aviation; energy; hospitality and gaming; the public sector; construction and infrastructure; and political risk.
“I believe we know the risks in these businesses and know how to price the risks right for the client,” he said, “and our Joburg office doesn’t just get information from these industry groups. It also contributes to them.
“I believe that in this merger we did not wrap ourselves into a cocoon but kept an external focus. I don’t think our clients could say they weren’t looked after,” he added.
Industry commentators are now describing Marsh as either the number one or two broker in South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. But the business is showing no signs of slowing down its growth drive.
“The most obvious growth path for us is to follow our clients into African markets, and we are excited as they are high-growth markets compared with the mature markets that report to me in the UK and Europe,” Batchelor said.
Von Widdern reiterates this idea, saying: “The broad strategy that has been indicated is that we’re seeking to establish a credible footprint across Africa to an extent which we can synergise with the Alexander Forbes that did exist and can come into the Marsh fold. We are still looking at this and any other business that is complementary to our footprint in Africa but are of a scaled nature and a highly prioritised nature. Definitely, there’s a plan to have an ongoing focus in developing our footprint in Africa and its evolving in due course.”
Partnering with local organisations who know the regional conditions is vital in expansion of this type as Innovation Group head of insurance, Jonathan Holden explained to CNBC Africa: “It’s about carefully selecting where good business is and, in many cases, partnering with people who’ve been there and can provide some sort of synergy in the business relationship. It’s very important to understand the market you’re going into.
“One of the issues is Africa is seen as a country, when the reality is that it’s 54 countries, multiple languages, multiple risks including legal systems, monetary systems.”
ECONOMIC HINDRANCE
Obviously, when considering a growth and expansion strategy, you have to consider the threats and right now in South Africa (and around the world) one of the primary difficulties is economic uncertainty.
In South Africa, the economy is slow and the Rand has seen significant difficulties over the past 18 months partly due to falling commodity prices, electricity supply constraints and lower confidence levels. Unemployment is high (currently around 25%) and Stats SA announced recently that the economy contracted by 1.3% (seasonally adjusted and annualised) in the second quarter of 2015. Figures like this cast doubt in the financial markets and, after the global recession of 2008, everyone is hoping that growth rates will improve.
When the economy is slow, everyone is looking for their money to work harder and businesses and large corporations are no different. You can perhaps forgive some businesses for downgrading their insurance packages when their purchasing power has been so severely diminished. However, Von Widdern says that this isn’t always the best decision.
“In an economically constrained environment, there are whole sets of issues that are relevant and that become opportunities but you have to be careful about the competitive dynamic, the way decisions are made, multiple stresses on declining budgets; so where one might have been going down the road of a strong value proposition with high quality services, it’s remarkable that significant corporates will shift their buying patterns to just getting the basics even if the quality is just in the middle percentile versus the upper percentile.
“You could be preparing for a renewal and next year’s services based on an underlying plan and all of a sudden the rug is removed as only half of the services that are perceived to be relevant are within the scope of purchase,” he explains.
“That level of caution of expenditure creates less freedom of movement for other players who are entering the industry or for those who have a less solid business model so they might go back to their existing customers and to preserve their own economics they might cut their rates and services drastically to secure a longer term contract. It’s really aggressive, knee-jerk stuff.
“Now you’re in a space where important things are left out and it’s very hard to demonstrate an intangible benefit against an immediate cost saving.
“The dynamic of growth, cost pressure, budget pressure, and pressures in economic and competitive activity can have multiple consequences on the higher order quality provider like Marsh. We need to be responsive, alert and innovative when preparing for those kind of conditions.”
Going forward, a number of key parameters will determine the continued impact of the financial turmoil on the insurance sector – namely, credit and interest rates, equity and market performances and the strength of the real economy.
“In these situations, you have to try and find where you can really save money for clients with the right risk management, with the right risk structuring so that you can economise in areas where premium or other money is being spent that may not add the right value and redirect that expense, cost and capacity into areas where it does protect he corporates and the clients in terms of the new or current exposures,” says Von Widdern.
“It’s certainly true that the SA economy is not growing as fast as everyone initially predicted and those predictions are going south. There are still pockets of strong activity and we would have hoped that one of them would’ve been tourism but because of visa regulations and other factors, that is also not doing what we hoped it would so there are influences in the economy that are not as good as we would have hoped. Then you look at the general responses and you realise that big corporates are now being very cautious about how and where they spend their money.”
Even in these tough times he says that most organisations will still try and protect themselves reasonably but that companies have to try and pick out what remains important and then see whether it will have an operational hazard and/or a financial strategic implication.
One thing that is for certain in these uncertain times is that if you prioritise an effective risk management strategy with Marsh, you will go some way towards building an effective business management strategy and you will be well looked after when it comes to the actual insurance offering.
“From a client point of view; and this is where the marsh resources, skillsets and other things come into play; our risk managers come with very strongly researched technical views, principles and precedence, and are strongly motivated both on the legal side and the policy structure side with the financial and forensic accounting teams that we have. If there was a complex claim, we show up with a serious bank of people and that equally meets whatever the skill set is on the opposing side,” explains the MD.
Last month, in our focus on Nedbank, Dennis Dykes, Chief Economist for the bank explained that while economic growth is poor right now, people should remain positive and try to look further ahead than just the next 12 months. “You have to look through the cycle and our long-term strategy will not change. There is a lot of interest in Africa,” he said.
Von Widdern is always looking to the future and he has identified areas where the business is performing well despite the sluggish economy, however there are some spaces where improvement is desperately needed.
“Areas that are consumer and services focussed are always stronger and they reflect the kind of employment patterns that we have,” he says. “The areas that we were looking for more positive signs of growth are fixed infrastructure projects and the like. That’s a concern as we don’t see specific evidence of that coming out to the extent that it’s been published or planned.
“We are aware of significant funded projects that are coming through in Africa and we are happy that we’re well represented there and we are also doing very well in the renewable energy space so I think there are pockets of project activity where we are well represented and where we are seeing growth but what we really need is a broad base of manufacturing output increase which would drive many other ancillary industrial related growth activities. An area that we also really hope will bounce back and produce other kinds of income is tourism because in South Africa it has gone backwards.”
The movement of Marsh into more African markets will continue to spread the business risk that is thrown up by fragile economic times in SA and with the huge amounts of energy and construction projects being commissioned on the continent as the African middle class grows will only provide further opportunities for a company that is now a truly pan-African insurance powerhouse in addition to being the industry world leader.
Of course, one has to consider where the real growth opportunities are situated and right now, for the insurance industry, it looks like that could be in life and pensions. Rapid economic growth in countries such as Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria has increased the number of people with money to spend on insurance to protect their wealth, while regulatory changes are encouraging the growth of domestic savings and pensions.
“The attraction lies in the populations that are huge, and that is because the personal market, or the man on the street, that insurance market is relatively untapped. That’s where the growth opportunity lies.
“I think what is critical is educating people and getting consumer awareness about the benefits of insurance that is lacking in the lower end of the market in Africa, including South Africa,” explained Jonathan Holden.
There are many reasons to be upbeat about Africa’s insurance industry and many companies are only just starting on their African journey. Fortunately, Marsh is ahead of the game and is already taking advantage of the many prospects that the continent has to offer. The company’s African vision is summed up by Marsh Africa CEO, Jurie Erwee who said at the time of the Marsh-Alexander Forbes merger: “Together, as we unite our growth ambitions to become the continent’s pre-eminent broker and risk adviser, we are committed to bringing the world’s best to Africa.”