It feels unfair. You did nothing wrong. Someone else drove into your car outside your house and now you’re paying more. Surely that’s just the insurer clawing back their loss? Maybe. But maybe not. Let me take the scenic route to explaining why. Driving my daughter to school, I occasionally spot someone tailgating or cutting…
I am an actuary, not an economist, although I hold economics in high regard as a field. It tackles questions that are fascinating, ambitious, and sometimes messy in ways that make me slightly jealous. Still, I remain an actuary, and perhaps that makes me a little more sceptical of certain techniques. Maybe it is because…
I received an email with a request that left me genuinely confused. Not because the topic was complex, but because I couldn’t figure out what the person was asking for. Buried somewhere in elaborate sentences and terminology was a request ahead of a regulatory inspection, but I still don’t know what was expected of me.…
Solvency and Financial Condition Reports (SFCRs) are a mature feature in Europe under the Solvency II regime, providing extensive public disclosures of insurers’ risk management, capital strength, and governance practices. However, in South Africa and many developing markets, public reporting at this depth is currently not a regulatory requirement. South Africa used to have a…
ORSA reports are meant to be a strategic cornerstone, connecting capital, risk, and business planning. At their best, they give boards clarity on resilience, regulators confidence in oversight, and executives a compass for navigating uncertainty. At their worst, they become slow, disconnected documents that fail to offer real insight or challenge assumptions. This article outlines…
This is a bit off-topic from my usual discussions on insurance, risk, and capital modelling, but financial and economic risk matters deeply. And for insurers, we’ve seen how things can go very wrong. Hyperinflation, Currency Crises & Insurance Industry Collapse Hyperinflation destroyed Zimbabwe’s insurance sector, and decades later, it still hasn’t recovered. Currency crises in…
As a consulting actuary who has spent considerable time analysing population trends, I’ve observed growing consensus among demographers that we’re heading toward a fundamentally different demographic future than what we’ve experienced over the past century. The data is compelling: global population will likely peak sometime this century before beginning a sustained decline – a phenomenon…
Foreseeable dividends remain a grey area in Solvency II and South Africa’s Solvency Assessment and Management (SAM). While the concept seems straightforward—capital that is likely to be distributed as dividends should not count towards regulatory solvency—its practical application is anything but clear. Regulatory Ambiguity: When Is a Dividend Foreseeable? The official guidance under Solvency II…
