Headquartered in Kenya, the company recently opened a regional office in Harare bringing the number of stations to four in its 19 years of operation.The office will serve Botswana, Swaziland and South Africa.
ZEP Re provides reinsurance capacity in both life and short-term insurance products such as marine, property, engineering, liabilities, motor and aviation; and accident and health.
ZEP Re regional manager Jephita Gwatipedza told Standardbusiness Zimbabwe is an important market on the continent but its short-term insurance market had shrunk to an estimated US$170 million last year from US$1,2 billion in 1996.
He said estimates showed that the insurance market would grow to about US$250 million this year.
“We see great/big opportunities in Zimbabwe in areas of fire, engineering and bonds guarantees insurance as the country starts the process of reconstruction,” he said.
Reinsurance is whereby insurers transfer portions of risk portfolios to other parties by some form of agreement in order to reduce the likelihood of having to pay a large obligation resulting from claims.
In Africa, South Africa contributed 1,24% of the world’s short-term insurance market income estimated at US$5,5 trillion last year.
At US$53 billion, South Africa contributed 80% of Africa’s income.
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Other contributors on the continent include Morocco (US$2,592 billion), Egypt (US$1,585 billion), Nigeria (US$1,196 billion), Algeria (US$1,162 billion), Kenya (US$889 million) and Namibia contributing US$776 million.
“Zimbabwe used to be bigger than some of these markets in 1996. ZEP Re wants to help in the rebuilding of the country through the provision of reinsurance capacity and obviously help Zimbabwe regain its premier status in the African insurance market,” said Gwatipedza, who has 19 years of experience in the reinsurance business.
He said the idea of setting up a regional office in Zimbabwe is meant to increase the necessary retention capacity which will result in more premiums being retained within the Comesa region.
The shareholders of ZEP Re consist of six governments, 12 private companies, 12 national reinsurance companies and two regional organisations. Some of the major shareholders are PTA Bank and the African Development Bank.
Gwatipedza said ZEP Re was doing business with 15 local insurers and expected to do business with the majority of the 29 short-term insurers.
The insurance industry is clawing back to recovery with the increase in confidence bolstered by the use of multi-currencies. Before then, confidence had sunk to an all time low as players failed to honour its obligations.
Gwatipedza said ZEP Re would pay all the claims made.
“My challenge is to ensure that we are masters of writing all classes of business. We are not masters of writing business but masters in paying claims,” he said at the launch of ZEP Re recently.
