Executive Summary
- Strategic acquisitions and partnerships can help traditional insurers diversify offerings, scale operations, and integrate advanced technologies, creating synergies that strengthen their market position.
- For private equity investors, traditional insurer partnerships with insurtechs present opportunities to capitalise on the sector’s growth by backing these insurers.
- Hollard Insurance, South Africa’s third-largest non-life insurer, has utilised this inorganic growth strategy via partnerships with Naked Insurance, Lumkami, and, prospectively, Absa’s insurance businesses in Mozambique, Botswana, and Zambia.
- Hollard’s aggressive approach led to gross written premiums increasing at a 9.2% CAGR between 2019 and 2023, with its South African market share rising from 13% in 2020 to 22% in 2023.
The South African insurance industry is experiencing heightened competition driven by technological advancements and product innovation led by insurtechs. Strategic acquisitions and partnerships offer established non-life insurers a pathway to enhance top and bottom-line growth. Simultaneously, these developments present private equity investors with compelling opportunities
