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Health

The Link Between Disability Experience and Economic Conditions in South Africa

Speakers: Karl Schriek and Paul Lewis
The purpose of this paper is to discuss whether there is a meaningful and measurable link between the claims incidence of South African disability business (group and individual, lump-sum and income) and the condition of the economy. The experience of most South African disability business in the past decade has been good. As a result of this, benefits have increased, risk management tools have been weakened, and risk and office rates have been reduced. However, it is not clear how much of this experience is due to the strong and sustained economic growth. Consequently, insurers are not in a good position to quantify when, and by how much, they should change their risk rates should the economic conditions weaken. This paper begins by looking at the theoretical link between disability experience and economic growth. It then presents the results of the analysis of South Africa disability experience over the past 15 years and attempts to quantify by how much disability experience will worsen should the economy suffer a major slowdown.
March 8, 2010