{"id":852419,"date":"2026-02-27T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=852419"},"modified":"2026-02-27T09:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T07:01:15","slug":"south-africa-beats-australia-and-ireland-for-outsurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/852419\/south-africa-beats-australia-and-ireland-for-outsurance\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa beats Australia and Ireland for OUTsurance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

OUTsurance Holdings Limited’s (OHL’s) South African operations saw massive normalised earnings growth for the six months ended 31 December 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a trading update, the group said that it saw substantial gross written premiums and annualised new business growth across its core direct short-term insurance operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A strong claims and expense efficiency performance delivered by the South African short-term insurance operations, despite marginally higher natural perils exposure,” said the group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The large reduction in the share-based payments expense, which bolstered the results of the South African operations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reduction in share-based payments was due to replacing the Employee Share Option Scheme with the Conditional Share Plan, which is less sensitive to share price movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s overall normalised earnings, including South Africa and international operations, are expected to grow by 10% to 15% over the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the group’s core South African short-term insurance operations are expected to grow by between 66% and 72%. The difference comes amid weaker performances in other subsidiaries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s Australian venture, Youi, is expecting a weakened financial performance, with its natural peril exposure more than doubling in the comparable period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This came off the back of catastrophic events in Australia and higher storm frequency. Outside of the high retained natural peril losses, the group said that Youi delivered a strong performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Youi delivered a strong performance in terms of its working (non-natural perils) claims ratio and cost to-income ratio and remained on track in respect of its ‘long-term organic growth strategy,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Youi is expected to see its normalised earnings decline by between 40% and 46% from the R1.2 billion seen at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s new business, OUTsurance Ireland, also continued its incremental scale-up strategy over the current period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said that the Irish business’s monthly loss profile is expected to reduce over the second half of the current financial year in line with the forecast break-even profile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Returning to South Africa, the group said that OUTsurance Life delivered a pleasing performance marked by new business growth and improved cost efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the group said that the impact of the extraordinary reduction in the South African yield curve following positive macro-economic developments in South Africa offset the strong performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The OUTsurance Life business is thus expected to have normalised earnings ranging from a 2% decrease to a 4% increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group, however, noted that the lower interest rate environment and the strong performance of the South African equity market continued to support earnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Segment<\/th>Reported \u2013 Six months ended 31 Dec 2024 (R million)<\/th>Expected % Increase \/ (Decrease) \u2013 Six months ended 31 Dec 2025<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
OHL (Group consolidated)<\/td>2 219<\/td>10% to 15%<\/td><\/tr>
OUTsurance SA (short-term operations)<\/td>1 172<\/td>66% to 72%<\/td><\/tr>
Youi Group<\/td>1 198<\/td>(40%) to (46%)<\/td><\/tr>
OUTsurance Life<\/td>142<\/td>(2%) to 4%<\/td><\/tr>
OUTsurance Ireland<\/td>(218)<\/td>(18%) to (24%)<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Outsurance Group <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The latest trading statement highlights OUTsurance’s relatively complex ownership structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OUTsurance Holdings Limited owns the group’s operating businesses and is 92.8%-owned by OUTsurance Group Limited, the listed entity, with the remaining stake owned by employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OUTsurance Group Limited (OGL) was previously a subsidiary of Rand Merchant Investment Holdings (RMI).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After being directly listed, OGL still holds non-core assets from the old RMI Treasury Company structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the latest results, the group said that the RMI Treasury Company\u2019s associate income delivered a strong performance in the past comparable period, which did not recur in the current period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This outcome resulted in normalised earnings growth differences between the OHL and OGL group.s <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, OGL expects normalised earnings per share to increase by between 4% and 10%, to a range of 145.6 to 154.0 cents per share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s earnings and headline earnings per share are expected to be between 11% and 17% higher compared to the prior period, in a range of 147.5 to 155.5 cents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

OGL\u2019s financial results for the six months ended 31 December 2025 will be released on Wednesday, 11 March 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Metric<\/th>Reported \u2013 Six months ended 31 Dec 2024 (cents)<\/th>Expected % Increase<\/th>Expected Range \u2013 Six months ended 31 Dec 2025 (cents)<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
NEPS<\/td>140.0<\/td>4% to 10%<\/td>145.6 to 154.0<\/td><\/tr>
HEPS<\/td>132.9<\/td>11% to 17%<\/td>147.5 to 155.5<\/td><\/tr>
EPS<\/td>132.9<\/td>11% to 17%<\/td>147.5 to 155.5<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n
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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OUTsurance’s core South African operations are expected to see a strong rise in normalised earnings, while other parts of the group struggle. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":799513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[9653],"class_list":["post-852419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-outsurance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852419"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852437,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852419\/revisions\/852437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}