Santam is making headway in settling business interruption claims originating from the Covid-19 pandemic, outgoing CEO Lizé Lambrechts said yesterday following the release of the group’s half-year results to end of June 2021.

‘A lot of progress has been made,’ she reportedly told Moneyweb, adding that large amounts are involved and some of the claims are complex.

According to Lambrechts, as at the end of August 2021, Santam had paid approximately R700m in policyholder claims in addition to the R1bn paid in interim relief to end August 2020.

The biggest outstanding issue is Santam’s appeal against the Ma-Afrika judgment with respect to the length of the indemnity period for business interruption.

The appeal was heard by the SCA on 27 August and a decision is expected within weeks.

Ryan Woolley, CEO of Insurance Claims Africa (ICA), seems to agree that there is progress on this particular matter, although maybe not the progress that Santam would like to see as ICA is in the ring for Ma-Afrika, observes the Moneyweb report.

‘We had a good day in court on the 27th and we will get the outcome soon. Without trying to predict the outcome, comments seem to favour our position that the case has been made overly complex,’ says Woolley.

ICA is southern Africa’s largest independent insurance claims expert working only for the insured party, formulating and negotiating the settlement of some the largest insurance claims in the country.

It is currently representing more than 700 claimants related to Covid-19 business interruption insurance claims against most of SA’s major short-term insurers.

Full Moneyweb report