One of South Africa’s biggest insurers set to boom

The first three quarters of Santam’s 2025 financial year show a strong performance from the short-term insurer, with an annualised return on capital of over 30%.

Santam is South Africa’s biggest short-term insurer and is listed on the JSE with a market cap of R49.78 billion.

On Tuesday, 11 November, Santam released an operational update for the nine months ended 30 September 2025.

This update revealed a strong performance since the end of June 2025, which saw the insurer deliver results exceeding its longer-term targets.

The company highlighted double-digit growth in gross written and net earned premiums, an underwriting margin above the upper end of the 5% to 10% target range and annualised return on capital in excess of 30%. 

It noted that its net income growth was in line with the performance for the first half of the year. 

In the first half of its 2025 financial year, Santam posted 11.62% growth in insurance revenue to R27.50 billion.

The company’s basic earnings per share grew by 19.53% to 1,873 cents per share, while profit for the period rose by 22.54% to R2.47 billion.

In its nine-month update, the insurer said its conventional insurance business achieved net earned premium growth of 16%.

It said this was driven by solid contributions from all major businesses except for Santam Specialist Solutions.

The group’s gross written premium increased by 10%, with solid growth across all major insurance classes, excluding the impact of the portfolio restructuring at Santam Re, which resulted in a shift between insurance classes.

Santam noted that favourable interest-rate market returns and outperformance of benchmarks supported its investment returns earned on insurance funds, which amounted to 3% of net earned premiums.

It added that the group experienced limited significant claims in the period. However, the company warned that the conventional insurance underwriting performance for the remainder of the year remains susceptible to adverse weather-related and other significant loss experience.

“Additionally, investment market volatility could potentially impact the investment returns earned on insurance funds and the shareholder capital portfolio,” it said. “These factors may impact earnings growth for the full year.”

This strong performance comes as Santam is looking to launch a syndicate aimed at significantly improving the group’s international growth and diversification.

In this update, the company said it has received in-principle approval by the Lloyd’s Council to launch its Santam Syndicate, adding that final approval and “permission to underwrite” by Lloyd’s are expected towards the end of 2025.

“Lloyd’s provides an efficient and scalable platform to access specialist insurance classes – an area where Santam has a leading position and skill set in South Africa,” it said. 

“Good progress is being made in the operationalisation of the Santam Syndicate in preparation for final approval.”

Santam expects to release its full-year results for the 2025 financial year on 5 March 2026.