THI Insurance has entered into an underwriting management agency agreement with Zimnat General Insurance that will result in THI being underwritten by Zimnat, in conjunction with Santam Agriculture, through Zimnat’s shareholder partnership with Sanlam, the largest non-banking financial institution on the African Continent.
The agreement, which came into effect on January 1, 2019, will enable Zimnat to leverage off THI’s agricultural insurance heritage and expertise, whilst THI will ultimately become part of the much larger Zimnat/Sanlam Insurance Group.
“THI has an 80 year heritage of agricultural insurance expertise, a market presence and brand reputation that will give Zimnat and Santam Agriculture immediate access to a sector of the insurance market that has pledged to assist in the resurgence of agriculture within the Zimbabwe economy,” explained Zimnat Group chief executive Mustafa Sachak.
“Agriculture requires a completely different approach to designing insurance products that respond to the changing needs of the Zimbabwe farmer and their upstream and downstream service suppliers. THI, Zimnat and Santam Agriculture have the resources and determination to respond to this demand”
“In return, THI will ultimately become part of a much larger insurance group with Zimnat’s A security rating for writing business and the international backing of the Sanlam/Santam group which has a triple A rating.
“Santam Agriculture, a specialist division of Sanlam, has developed technical assistance and state-of-the art agricultural insurance services, using worldwide and regional research, backed by leading international reinsurers.
“All these resources will be made available to assist in developing unique risk management and transfer solutions that the Zimbabwe insurance market can offer to its clients,” he said.
“This powerful combination of experience, skills, resources, security and brand heritage will bring significant competitive advantage to THI and Zimnat and this will translate into better service and enhanced product offerings to our broker and client relationships,” said Stanley Mazorodze, the Zimnat General Insurance managing director.
“This is a really exciting development for the Zimbabwe insurance industry and will prove to be of immense benefit to the economy at large and more specifically the agricultural sector.
“We look forward to rolling it out over the next few months and adding more value to our relationships with brokers, clients and all elements of the agricultural industry chain” he said.
