R95m recovered for policyholders

MARTIN HESSE martin.hesse@inl.co.za

THE OMBUDSMAN for Shortterm Insurance, or Osti for short, recovered R94.9 million for consumers in 2019 after intervening on their behalf in complaints about short-term insurance claims. This is more than the amounts recovered in 2017 and 2018 (each about R87m), but less than what consumers got back in 2015 and 2016 (about

R100m and R99m respectively).

These statistics, among others, were published in the ombudsman’s annual report for 2019, which was released this week.

Deanne Wood was the ombudsman in 2019 . However, at the end of the year Wood stepped down, and long-term insurance ombudsman Judge Ron Mcclaren became head of both short-term and long-term ombudsman offices.

Wood’s office received 10367 complaints last year, of which 9167 were closed.

Almost half of the complaints closed – 4492 (49%) – were for motor vehicle claims.

The second-highest category was homeowner’s (building) insurance (1843, or 21% of complaints closed). House contents insurance complaints were relatively low (551, or about 6% of complaints closed). did occur”. However, she said the burden of proof lay with the insurer, who should establish a connection between the condition of the property and the damage.

THE LOCAL collective investment schemes industry (comprising mainly unit trust funds and exchange traded funds) reported net inflows of R23 billion in the first three months of this year after having experienced net outflows of R3bn in the fourth quarter of 2019.

This is according to industry statistics for the quarter and 12 months to the end of March, released this week by the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (Asisa).

Total net inflows over the 12-month period were R93bn.

Sunette Mulder, senior policy adviser at Asisa, says that despite the net inflows in the first quarter, the Covid-19-induced market turmoil caused assets under management to decline by R0.22bn to R2.26 trillion at the end of March.

Just under half of these assets were held in South African multiasset portfolios (49%), with the rest in local interest-bearing portfolios (34%), local equity portfolios (15%) and local real estate portfolios (2%).

Mulder says after suffering net outflows of R15.9bn in the fourth quarter of last year, money market portfolios (which fall within the larger interest-bearing category) attracted R22.2bn in net inflows in the first quarter of this year. | Supplied