Risk Management in the Zimbabwean Short-Term Insurance Industry

Chapter 1 sets out the background to enterprise- wide risk management (EWRM). Chapter 2 examines literature on EWRM and Chapter 3 assesses key theoretical approaches to EWRM. Chapter 4 sets out the research design while Chapter 5 presents and discusses the results of an empirical investigation which explores the views of 16 Chief Executive Officers drawn from 16 Zimbabwean short- term insurance companies. Research evidence shows that whilst risk awareness seems good in most Zimbabwean short-term insurance companies, a significantly lower number take adequate measures to reduce risks to their lowest practical levels. It might be suggested that the Zimbabwean short-term insurance industry has limited capabilities to consistently identify, measure and manage risk exposures across the company and thereby limit exposures. Execution of EWRM is sporadic and losses have not been limited in accordance with predetermined risk tolerance guidelines. Therefore, the Zimbabwean short-term insurance industry might be viewed as having weak EWRM. Therefore this research provides a wide range of recommendations to address the identified weaknesses.

John Mungure is the CEO of Heritage Insurance Group Limited. With an insurance and risk management career spanning over 17 years,he holds a BA (Hons) in Financial Services,MSc in Risk Management , Fellowship Diplomas of the Insurance Institute of South Africa (FIISA) and the Institute of Risk Management (FIRM) of the United Kingdom.