Zurich South Africa

Zurich South Africa is a short-term insurance company headquartered in Johannesburg and listed on the JSE Limited. Our two main shareholders, Zurich Financial Services Limited and Royal Bafokeng Finance Limited, effectively hold 84.05% of the equity. The remaining shareholding comprises a number of other minority shareholders.

We currently employ approximately 755 people and provide insurance products and services to meet the needs of individual, commercial and corporate customers. We have a network of sales areas and a series of service outlets across the country. Subsidiaries are based locally, as well as in Botswana. We also have investments in Mauritius and Swaziland.

For our commercial and corporate customers, we offer a range of insurance solutions, including specialty lines of business such as engineering and marine. In addition, we provide tailored products for specific industry trades. For individual customers, we offer personal motor and home insurance, as well as bespoke products to cater for specialist areas of cover.

Our local South African operation forms part of the Middle East and Africa division of the Zurich Financial Services Group. With South Africa representing the largest business unit within this region, there are significant benefits flowing from this membership, including the strengthening of our propositions and services delivery for our customers.

Our ambition

We have a clear and bold aspiration – “to be the leading empowered insurer in our chosen markets”.

Our business strategy

We will maintain a clear focus around the four core areas that underpin the delivery of our growth aspirations and strategic repositioning in the market:

• Enhance technical capabilities and develop our people.
• Focus on continuously improving our business and expense management.
• Global and simple approach to serving our customers.
• Focused value-creating growth initiatives.

By continuing to align our business priorities to these four areas we are confident that we will grow the organisation profitably whilst at the same time ensuring we are able to meet our customers' evolving needs.

Our markets

We aspire to be a market leader known for our innovative thinking and for developing products and services that meet a rapidly changing African economy. As a result, in addition to taking a renewed and refreshed approach to our existing markets, we are exploring potential new market segments and distribution opportunities where we are able to create an enhanced focus on our customers and demonstrate market leadership in these selected segments.

Our brand

Our unique position in South Africa, as a global insurer with a strong local market presence, allows us to bring significant benefit to our customers and their communities. We are able to leverage the strength of the wider Zurich Group to support our local expertise and service delivery. From sharing products and propositions, through to delivery of risk management and claims expertise, we have the ability to draw on our global network of specialists to provide the products and services that our customers value most, underpinned by the strength and stability of the Zurich brand and reputation.

Our customers and shareholders can have confidence that we are committed to developing our business from strength to strength. In addition, we will continue to support the development of our society and in so doing positively impact and make a difference to the communities and individuals that we serve.

Our business model

Having successfully transformed our business, the focus for 2011 was to stabilise the organisation and further strengthen the platform to position the Company for future sustainable growth. With customer centricity at the core of our business model, we increased the scale and intensity of our market facing activity, placed a renewed focus on our claims environment to streamline and improve our claims proposition, whilst continuing to ensure that the governance and control which our customer expect, remains firmly in place.

Providing service excellence is at the top of our agenda and our market propositions are supported by an underwriting and claims service proposition that is enhanced on a regular basis to ensure our customers have access to specialist decision-makers where and when required.

Our people

To fulfil our aspiration – "to be the leading empowered insurer in our chosen markets" and be recognised as industry thought leaders and experts in our field, we acknowledge the importance of realising our people’s potential. We therefore have robust talent development, performance management and career development programmes in place which will enable us to enhance and develop the skills and capabilities we need to be recognised as the employer of choice within our industry.