Partnership between broker and insurer is key to good risk management

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This interview was originally aired on RSG Geldsake in Afrikaans. The transcript below has been translated into English.

TINUS DE JAGER: Specialist insurance and the fine planning around risk is something that a farmer can no longer negotiate. Old Mutual Insure has launched a campaign titled ‘Protect what built you’.

Our focus here is to chat about this, and we welcome Old Mutual’s regional manager for the central region, Latiefa Baadjies.

Latiefa, good afternoon. Welcome to the programme. Your new campaign’s slogan is ‘Protect what built you’ or perhaps ‘protect what brought you to where you are now’.

If we look in particular at the agricultural sector, which has built businesses often over generations, what does this concept mean for you in practice? What is the message you want farmers – and other clients – to take from this?

LATIEFA BAADJIES: For us it really is about how we protect the agricultural community, so it’s more than just a slogan. ‘Protect what built you’ is almost at the heart of agriculture.

For many, a farm is not just about the soil or a business. It is something that affects their whole lives – their families, their future.

And they want to insure everything that they built up, or ensure that they have a future at the end of the day.

So those everyday moments, or every morning when we wake up, and with faith you hope that what you did today will reap rewards tomorrow.

But it also concerns responsibility – to protect what has been built up by farmers and in agriculture over the years; to protect it so that it can live on and be there for generations to come.

So the advertising campaign really looks at what you have to protect or what we want to protect and what the farmers or agriculture have built up. Those go hand-in-hand.

TINUS DE JAGER: So it’s the soil, there are buildings, and there are of course the input costs, the crops – not to mention office contents, goods in transit. And then of course responsibility. The risks in the agriculture sector are varied. So why then is specialist insurance so important for your clients?

LATIEFA BAADJIES: Today, at the end of the day it is very important for our clients to have specialist insurance. We call it ‘agri’ or agricultural insurance.

This is not the ordinary policy, not normal coverage. Agriculture in its own way has its own form, has its own challenges; its own risks.

It’s therefore important to take out specialised insurance, because if a farmer or a business person does not seek a solution – and this is really often not understood; people who know the products and what they need, and you mentioned a couple; it can become very, very complex.

From infrastructure and equipment to disruption and everything [else] that can affect a whole operation must be taken into account.

So the appropriate insurance is not just about the cover. It is about protection, and that is what we look at. We look at what the farmer really needs, what agriculture really needs.

And if specialised cover is what they look for – because one solution does not suit everyone; it’s not the same as a personal line policy or personal cover – it is something they must really trust, and which ensures that in an uncertain world they are covered.

TINUS DE JAGER: At Old Mutual do you also emphasise the partnership or perhaps cooperation between the client, the broker and the insurer.

Is that how coverage grows with the business – especially for the smaller and medium-sized agricultural enterprises?

LATIEFA BAADJIES: Absolutely. We stress that, because a broker’s relationship with a client is very personal.

The client’s history goes with the broker and has a tendency to point a broker in a direction where adjustments can be made to the client’s coverage as they wish.

But because the broker is so well informed about the client and their history, it’s very important for them that the relationship is about more than just advice; it also affects how a client chooses cover, and when they need it and when they don’t need it.

Insurers, at the end of the day, do what the client says to a broker, and that communication is not normally directly with an insurer, but between brokers personally. It is very personal.

We emphasise that because we generally find it so important in insurance in general.

TINUS DE JAGER: Farming is also about more than just production; it’s about food security for the whole country, also to a degree economic stability. What role – outside the payment of claims, of course – can and must insurers play in the sustainability of South Africa’s agricultural industry?

LATIEFA BAADJIES: Insurers really play a critical role. It’s more than just coverage. They are a true partner and listen to what a client needs to be aware of regarding what happens externally.

If you take just into account how climate change influences agriculture – we have to stay abreast of how we can insure against particular risks and those we want to insure.

We have to build relevant products for clients, right?

As an insurer you generally bring certain economic stability for clients in general, because you know, over and above claims, [when] you have cover, you have certainty that the farm can still exist, that you can do business in the future and ensure that they have confidence and can create products and invest in growth for continuity and protection from anything that could happen.

TINUS DE JAGER: Thank you very much, Latiefa. That was Latiefa Baadjies, regional manager for the central region at Old Mutual.

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