Guardrisk Group Mauritius

GUARDRISK GROUP MAURITIUS

Safeguarding the future of businesses across the subcontinent

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Market

auritius is officially ranked the easiest place to do business in SubSaharan Africa.

According to the World Bank’s Doing Business 2019 study, the Indian Ocean island nation scores a competitive 79.58 out of 100, this total score covering aspects such as starting a company, registering property, paying taxes, acquiring credit, resolving insolvency, sourcing electricity and trading across borders.

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Guardrisk Group Mauritius, through its specialised offering of cell captive insurance and reinsurance services, is safeguarding the future of businesses across its home nation and further afield

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Writer: Tom Wadlow Project Manager: Sam Love

The ranking also means Mauritius is the 20th easiest place to do business in the world, something which fills Vikram Ramlochun, Managing Director of South African insurance group Guardrisk’s Mauritian business, with optimism.

“We are in one of the most dynamic and fastest-growing economies in Sub-Saharan Africa and the country’s business environment and investment climate has also made it one of the most business-friendly destinations in the region,” he says.

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“Furthermore, Mauritius has emerged as an important platform between Asia, the Middle East and Africa for investment into the African subcontinent. The financial services sector, including the insurance industry, is an important economic pillar of the Mauritian economy and the insurance industry’s contribution to GDP is about three percent.”

Indeed, important progress at a legislative level has added even more impetuous to the nation’s insurance

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industry, now recognised as a respected international finance centre.

As of June 2019, reinsurance business continues to be taxed at three percent, this having convinced the OECD about the country’s responsible approach to harmonising best tax practices between the local market and offshore market.

A Mauritian mainstay

Ramlochun is also optimistic about similar reform occurring in Guardrisk’s parent country South Africa –

however, his priorities squarely lie with taking the Mauritian business forwards.

In joining the firm in 2002, Ramlochun arrived at a company which had already been active in the country for four years, the division officially setting up in 1998 and specialising in cell captive insurance and reinsurance services, provided through three licenses (Guardrisk International Ltd PCC, Guardrisk Life International Ltd and Guardrisk Insurance Management Ltd) in those early days.

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LEADERSHIP FOCUS VIKRAM RAMLOCHUN Vikramsingh Ramlochun is a fully qualified accountant and a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in the United Kingdom.

Ramlochun’s career in the Mauritian global business sector spans more than 20 years, including his role as Managing Director of Guardrisk Group of Companies in Mauritius since 2011. He has extensive knowledge and experience in financial modelling, taxation, corporate governance, risk management and cell captive insurance, among other areas.

Further, Ramlochun serves as an Independent NonExecutive Director on the board of Cell Insurance Company in Zimbabwe which is a local insurance firm serving the Zimbabwean market.

“Guardrisk Companies in Mauritius are set up as global business companies and I took my chance of joining the team in 2002 as Finance Manager, as I was comfortable with the legislative and operational side of global business companies,” he recalls.

He is a member of the Mauritius Institute of Directors and also represents Guardrisk at the Insurers Association in Mauritius.

“I then grew to the position of Executive Director of Guardrisk Group in Mauritius in 2010 and Managing Director in 2011.”

MONITOR ADMINISTRATORS HOW CAN YOU BENEFIT FROM OUR CELL CAPTIVE? Why give away the upside of risk taking when you can reap the benefits thereof? At Monitor Administrators, we believe that you’re self-contained and we want to keep you in control, aligned to your risk appetite.

Simply put: Isolate your risk and enjoy the benefits.

How? Through our bespoke cell captive programme.

OFF-SHORE OPPORTUNITIES We offer a facility whereby any insurance product sold or insurance costs incurred, outside of South African borders, may be placed in our cell captive with Guardrisk Mauritius.

LICENSING Cell owners have access to the cell captive insurer’s unrestricted license, and can write a wide range of insurance classes.

TURNKEY SOLUTIONS Why try and reinvent the wheel. We will help you figure out what’s best for you and your business.

A–Z ADMINISTRATION We will provide a complete solution, from A – Z; from discussing possibilities, to putting structure and compliance in place and administering the cell captive on a day-to-day basis.

PROFIT Our clients, with whom we partner within the cell captive space, have reaped substantial profit, which has contributed significantly to the bottom line of their businesses.

EFFICIENCY Through our processes and IT structures, streamlined over the last 15 years, we are able to offer efficiencies in both cost and time savings.

TAILOR MADE SOLUTIONS We will structure each product within our cell captive so that it’s a unique offering to you.

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Through our partnership with Guardrisk Mauritius, Monitor Administrators offers bespoke international cell captive insurance solutions across the African continent.

Geared with state of the art IT system platforms and highly skilled and dedicated staff, we are market leaders in volume based financial insurance engineering.

Our personalised approach and decades of experience, translates into insurance solutions of distinction.

We’re the people who smooth the flow of business between broker and insurer, so you don’t have to.

Contact us to discuss your unique African insurance experience.

HEAD OFFICE 45 Old Main Road, Kloof, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Te: +27 (0) 31 818-0000 monitor@monitorsa.co.za www.monitorsa.co.za Monitor Administrators (Pty) Limited is a licenced Financial Services Provider, FSP Number 17824

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In October 2016, the Guardrisk Group in Mauritius acquired another external insurance license in Mauritius making it a fully-fledged group with capabilities to write reinsurance, short term insurance, long term insurance, and also providing insurance management services.

“Guardrisk Group in Mauritius has grown from strength to strength with an annual gross written premium of $191 million as of June 2018,” explains Ramlochun. “According to known statistics, Guardrisk Group is the biggest cell captive insurer/reinsurer group in the country.

“Furthermore, all Guardrisk companies in Mauritius are Global Business Category 1 companies and regulated by the Financial Services Commission. Our clients are mostly from African countries and Guardrisk has the authority to write business in multiple hard currencies and can issue policies for all classes of risk permitted under the Insurance Act 2005.”

Crucially, Guardrisk International Ltd PCC and Guardrisk Insurance Company Mauritius Ltd PCC operate

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as protected cell companies and are governed by the provisions of the Protected Cell Companies Act 1999, where each cell is legally ringfenced against the performance of other cells, thereby giving maximum protection to cell owners.

This prompts Ramlochun to outline some of the key benefits associated with cell captive insurance.

“Self-insurance is the very essence of cell captive and organisations who manage their risk seriously are getting increasingly interested in this concept of insurance,” he says. “Cell captive insurance gives an organisation the possibility and opportunity to open another income stream out of proper and responsible management of risks.

“Guardrisk provides this platform in Mauritius where risks situated anywhere in the world can be reinsured or insured within a cell, and the cell owner gets an insurance vehicle without the need to set up an insurance company. The cell owner shall have rights to the underwriting results of the cell’s business and may request dividend out of the cell.”

STANDARD BANK MAUTITIUS

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tandard Bank Mauritius is a fully owned subsidiary of Standard Bank Group, the largest bank in Africa in terms of assets, valued at $123 billion at the end of 2018. In operation for over 155 years, Standard Bank has established a vast continental network that includes 20 African nations and operates an expanding presence across key emerging markets.

Through its partnership with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world’s largest bank by assets, Standard Bank is positioned to support trade and deal flows between Africa, China and emerging markets.

Benefitting from the Group’s vast network across the African continent, Standard Bank Mauritius enables its stakeholders to have access to on-theground market intelligence and use the strong local relationships which are essential to running a successful business in Africa. Adding to that, the Bank also benefits from Mauritius’s reputation for the ease of doing business. The country is ranked first in Sub-Saharan Africa in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index and enjoys a Baa1 and stable credit rating from Moody’s, combined with no exchange controls, good governance as well as political and economic stability. These are prime reasons why investors use the Mauritian jurisdiction as a financial conduit.

The partnership of Standard Bank Mauritius with Guardrisk dates to 2010. The relationship has been mainly to support its cash management requirements and has been growing over the years. Leveraging on the Group’s extensive understanding and knowledge of the continent, the Bank has been able to accompany Guardrisk in its expansion across Africa.

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Moving with the times

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Becoming a go-to for this form of insurance has stood Guardrisk apart in the Mauritian market for the past two decades, the Managing Director pointing to several other assets which also help the company to differentiate in what is a vibrant industry.

These include a strong suite of intellectual property, detailed knowhow, dedication, in-house operational systems, a financially strong parent group as backers and sound risk management principles, while a new licensing development has also given Guardrisk an extra edge.

“We recently converted one of our short-term external insurance licenses into a professional reinsurer licence,” Ramlochun says.

“This is also a personal achievement as there is no regulatory framework dealing with conversion of a live short-term external insurance license into a professional reinsurer license in Mauritius – we had to work very closely with the regulator to ensure this was done in the most efficient and responsible manner and to the benefit of policyholders.

“Prior to this, we were writing reinsurance business into our shortterm insurance license through a derogation we obtained from the Financial Services Commission which had some conditions attached to it. Now we have a proper spread of licenses and we operate without any restrictions or limitations, and we see this as an opportunity to grow the business to the next level.”

Such an advancement falls into line with our parent Guardrisk Group’s vision to double up the business by 2022, growth in the Mauritian division seen as an important facilitator of this bold ambition.

The future will also involve adoption of new technologies, insurtech being a hot topic for Ramlochun and the company.

“I have been following this

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discussion in Africa for some time and I believe there are lots of opportunities out there in the distribution channels that are yet to be tapped in Africa,” the MD comments. “Having said that I also think the insurance industry and the regulatory framework in South Africa are sophisticated enough to support the insurtech principle.”

For Ramlochun, this tech-based strand of insurance will eventually leapfrog traditional models in the same way mobile has taken over from fixed-lined connectivity and bricks and mortar banking, a shift which Guardrisk is well-positioned to exploit.

“Our business model perfectly suits and supports the insurtech principle in the sense that our cells have the possibility of using external service providers to price their products, sell their products, administer claims payments and premium collections, among other things,” he continues.

“Guardrisk, in fact, embraced this concept a long time ago and has been successfully operating in this field.”

And it is this ability to change with the times that will stand both the company and the country’s insurance sector in good stead for years to come.

Asked how important a developed insurance sector is to business and individuals both in Mauritius and the subcontinent, Ramlochun’s concluding remarks focus on what he believes the industry needs to do in order to maximise its undoubted potential.

“Looking ahead to the future of both the sector and the company, he says: “The world is a dynamic place where changes are continuous.

Businesses need to adapt to survive and these situations bring along opportunities and threats which need to be controlled and mitigated, if not eliminated.

“The insurance industry is walking the same path and new products are being devised, and regulatory frameworks are being strengthened and extended to capture growing

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arsh’s proud association with Guardrisk Mauritius is pivotal in assisting our clients’ needs to align their strategy execution and risk management processes.

We stand ready to assist you to define your risk appetite, risk tolerance, and risk targets to help you understand how much risk you are willing to take and to show how you can better plan to balance your risks and opportunities before designing and executing a risk strategy that will give you the competitive advantage in today’s complex risk universe.

www.marsh.com business scenarios and protect policyholders,” Ramlochum continues confidently.

“Insurance companies in Mauritius now need to have a well-established and embedded risk management framework in place. Insurers need to report to the Financial Services Commission on all the deliverables required by the insurance risk management framework rules.

“Therefore, it is crucial that the industry keeps pace and is prepared for the dynamism of the changing world, and continues to provide protection of policyholders and businesses in the best possible way.”

Guardrisk Group Mauritius Tel: +230 454 0030 Ramlochunv@guardrisk.co.za www.guardrisk.co.za

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Marsh is proud of our relationship with Guardrisk in Mauritius.

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We help clients quantify and manage risk to survive and thrive whilst unlocking new opportunities for growth across the African continent.

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MARSH AFRICA A global leader in insurance broking and innovative risk management solutions www.marsh.com | An authorised financial services provider | FSP: 8414

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Africa Outlook_Guardrisk Mauritius_010819 Thursday, August 01, 2019 8:18:35 AM

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Suite 204, Level 2, Tower A, Cybercity, Ebene, Mauritius Tel: +230 454 0030, +230 5252 1008 (M) Ramlochunv@guardrisk.co.za www.guardrisk.co.za

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