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Research evidence excerpt

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CEEMEA Equity Research

CEEMEA First to Market 10 July 2026

Today’s Morning Meeting | Also Published Today | Key Changes | JPM Events | Upcoming Earnings

Today’s Morning Meeting

South African Financials (Baron Nkomo)

Banks are winning in life—driving a 15% surge in SA life-insurance industry policies and capturing

26% of the profit pool

Our research indicates that South Africa’s total life insurance policy count has stepped up sharply over the past 12 months,

averaging 15% YoY growth across the last four quarters (accelerating to +23% YoY in Q1) and reaching 60 million policies (see

Figure 1). This inflection matters because policy growth was largely subdued from 2014 to 2024. Funeral insurance remains an

important driver of volumes, but the recent surge in both policy count and premiums also coincides with Capitec’s expansion

into life insurance, following the launch of its limited underwriting life product in June 2024. More broadly, we see traditional

banks pushing an increasingly aggressive digital and bancassurance distribution model, accelerating sales of simple life

products—helping to address South Africa’s low insurance penetration—while also compressing traditional insurers’ VNB

margins, as highlighted in our recent half year market share monitor (link). Banks now capture 26% of the life insurance profit

pool, and we forecast this to rise to 30% by 2028, driven by 13% CAGR in banks’ insurance earnings versus 7–8% growth for

traditional insurers (see Figure 4). As banking and insurance continue to converge, we see banks as best positioned for the

theme—particularly Capitec (OW rated), FirstRand (OW) and Standard Bank (Neutral rated), which we forecast to grow