Chapter 1- South African General Business Environment Flashcards
List the 7 main factors in the general business environment that influences Life insurance companies?
- New business volumes
- Wider competitive environment (non-life savings vs. traditional life savings)
- Operational risk
- Corporate finance and securitisation
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Demutualisation
- Cell captives (interesting)
List the 7 sub-factors in the general business environment regarding writing new business that influences Life insurance companies?
- Regulation
- Tax (policyholder)
- Economic conditions
- Publicity
- Technology
- Target markets
- Micro-insurance
How does the Insurance Act and long-term insurance Act (regulation) impact the writing of new business (6)
- Authorisation: Life insurance licence which allows the company to sell a particular type of business (9 types in total)
- Commission: Limit on commission payable (Regulation 3 Section 49 LTA)
- Product design: minimum surrender values (or maximum penalties)
- Solvency valuation and capital adequacy requirements –> increases company costs and hence premium rate
- Reporting requirements –> increases company costs and hence premium rate
- Statutory actuary must be satisfied that the premiums, benefits and other values of a policy are actuarially sound
How does the Other regulation and FAIS Act impact the writing of new business? (5)
• Policy quotation: Governances around info to be provided in policy quotation so as to reduce risk of misleading policyholders (ASISA)
- Testriction Rating factorse.g. HIV status, DNA testing
- TCF guidelines
- Marketing and admin of living annuities
• The representatives and independent brokers needs to be FAIS compliant e.g. certifications and conducting a needs analysis
How does taxation impact the writing of new business?
- Beneficial tax treatment is a key incentive for people to choose life insurance savings products over other options
- Companies aim to design products to take advantage of tax rules
How does the state of the economy influence writing new business? (1)
• Affects new business levels and retention of existing policyholders
How has new business been affected by poor publicity in the past? (4)
- Poor surrender values
- Brokers promoting living annuities instead of life annuities (lack of disclosure)
- Benefit projections on policy quotations were shown using unrealistically high investment returns
- Financial advisers encouraged policyholders to surrender one policy in favour of another, to the detriment of policyholder value
How does technology influence writing new business? (3)
- Marketing through texts and the internet have increased significantly
- The internet allows prospective policyholders to compare price quickly resulting in additional competition
- Policies could be purchased online
How does target market influence writing new business? (4)
- Affects: distribution method & type of product sold
- Wide range in RSA (high-earning, low-earning, rural areas)
• Rural areas with limited infrastructure:
Partner with a bank or retailer to sell products
Gives insurer access to many smaller areas while keeping costs low
Simple risk products
• Affluent market:
Complex products
sold through brokers and company branches
How does mirco-insurance influence writing new business? (2)
• New category of insurers
Permitted to sell only simple risk products of limited size
• These insurers will have reduced regulatory and capital requirements
to produce lower cost risk products
and compete in the low-income market
List the financial instruments impacting the competitive environment for savings products? (6)
Banks and investment managers sell unit trusts and capital guarantee investment products which compete in insurance savings products and guaranteed return products.
Examples of non-life savings products: • Unit trusts • Fixed term and call deposits • Money market accounts • Exchange traded funds ("closed ended" investment trust of index funds) • Guaranteed investment in the market • Direct Investment in the market
What tax advantages do insuranance savings products have over non-life savings products? (4)
• High net worth individuals taxed at lower rate
taxed at rate applied to the Individual Policyholder Fund (IPF) 30%,
likely lower than their marginal rate
• Excess E (XSE) position in IPF (for some insuers)
due to relatively low reserves (and hence investment income) compared to expenses
provide tax-free investment income on savings products
• Retirement annuities (EET)
Tax-free savings for retirement
Premiums are tax-deductible
Income at retirement is taxable (but now in lower income bracket less tax)
& part of proceeds can be taken as tax-free lump sum
• With-profit and smooth bonus products have offered:
Policyholder returns with lower volatility than the equity market
Possible profits on other business lines
What tax disadvantages do insurance savings products have over non-life savings products? (4)
• Access to savings and guarantee return products offered by banks / investment managers has vastly improved
o Internet
o Target customers and distributors more effectively
• Insurers have higher expense loadings to cover costs unique to insurers
Regulatory reserves and SCR
Training and regulation of the sales force – although FAIS requirements for non-insurance also
Additional regulatory requirements
(e.g. statutory actuary to review premium rates)
• Life savings products less flexible
inability to adjust premiums and benefit withdrawals without incurring penalties
Commission and acquisition expenses are typically allocated to policies upfront, reduce policy value for early terminations
• With-profit and smooth bonus have become less popular due to lack of transparency in the return achieved
How does operational risks influecne life insurers?
• Assessment of Oprisk included in SCR calculation
Require input from all areas of business
If approx. methods inadequate then dedicated oprisk model may be needed
• If the risk cannot be mitigated, then capital held to cover the potential cost
Provide examples of operational risk? (7)
- Mis-selling
- Mis-pricing
- Administrative errors
- IT failures
- Data issues
- Standards of policy service (poor) ( lead to reduced NB)
- Staff retention (poor)
Additional causes third party dependencies, poor internal controls, human error, security breach, staff resources