SASRIA - South African Special Risks Insurance Association

SASRIA is an insurance association in South Africa - the South African Special Risks Insurance Association. It was inaugurated in 1976 with the aim of creating a body that could provide additional insurance options for the South African insurance market in general. During the time if its creation, there were specific types of risk that insurance companies were not prepared to underwrite, especially risks of a political nature, such as political riots. Companies became vulnerable to the risks associated with these sorts of event, and there were no insurance companies that covered damage or loss as a result of riots. Because of the potential scale and the inability of companies to protect themselves adequately against events of this nature, the risks have traditionally been difficult for insurance actuaries to quantify and hence offer cost-effective premiums against. Given the instability at the time, this was obviously a whole in the market that was open to be filled by a new player in the market that was not a traditional insurance company.

As times have changed, so has the role of SASRIA. The range of risks that are now covered is wider, and include non-political events, such as common riots and strikes. This came about as a result of the revocation of such cover by reinsurance companies in 1987. Specifically excluded from this cover is any form of eventuality resulting from actions of war.

SASRIA cover thus acts as supplementary cover to one's normal insurance cover. It effectively fills the gaps in risk management that a company identifies itself as being vulnerable to. This includes any event that is specifically excluded by insurance companies on the basis that it constitutes extraordinary risk and thus does not qualify for normal insurance. In order to take out SASRIA insurance, a client thus needs to first have some other form of normal insurance cover.

There are certain main categories of cover offered by SASRIA. There is insurance against material damage - an over-arching category including everything that is not covered by the normal insurance policy. Then there is engineering industry cover for contract work and construction plants. There is business interruption cover, and motor vehicle cover, which includes marine and transit insurance. SASRIA doesn't only offer specific insurance packages, but also provides cover that can be arranged to meet the needs of specific businesses, according to their individual risk profiles.