FROM THE
CEO ’ S DESK
Much has happened since I penned some opening thoughts for the previous edition of The Professional .
April traditionally marks the time in the year when PPS announces its financial results . These results are of course the outcome of a huge team effort – everybody has a role to play , and the CEO and CFO are only the messengers . Some years we have an easier message to convey , and in others , it is more difficult .
The message was especially easy last year , as PPS reported the best total profit additions to our members ’ Profit-Share Accounts in its history due to good performance in 2019 . Around the time of conveying these good numbers in the second quarter last year , we were bracing ourselves for very poor numbers in 2020 after a significant retraction in financial markets and not knowing what to expect from the COVID-19 pandemic . Our worst-case actuarial models pointed to significant operational losses .
Well , in the end , the results came in much better than originally expected . To put it in perspective , the operating profit of the big-five life insurers in South Africa was around R22 billion in 2019 . And in 2020 ? Negative . ( That is on a normalised basis .)
That is a bloodbath , but very understandable in a pandemic . Given this backdrop , we were very grateful that we could distribute more than R2 billion to our members in the form of Profit-Share . It once again showed the strength of our mutual model and the benefit of our relentless focus on the professional market segment . The breakdown of the claims that PPS paid has seldom been more interesting than in 2020 – see this for yourself on page 16 .
We are by no means through the pandemic yet . This year our claims staff remain under huge strain . They had to deal with the significant uptick in claims as a result of the second and third waves of the pandemic . 2021 is still a very tough year as far as life and sickness claims are concerned .
And then , as we have communicated to members , PPS fell victim to a malicious cyberattack in the first part of the year . As we had always
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