The Holy Grail of objective valuation of assets and liabilities promised over recent decades remains lost for many operating in geographies without complete, deep and liquid markets. The maturity of financial and insurance markets varies across Africa, but most have limited activity in secondary markets for key investment instruments. This hampers the ability of insurers to set a reliable economic valuation basis.
The Actuarial Society of South Africa’s (ASSA) Africa Committee requested a survey of practices and available information used in setting economic bases across Africa outside of South Africa. Milliman partnered with the ASSA Africa Committee to perform such a survey, and analyse the results.
Our presentation, based on a formal report done for the ASSA Africa Committee, will  provide the results of the survey. We cover the principles and approaches applied by life insurers in setting their economic valuation bases. It shows the common approaches to the challenges, but also highlights where the challenges are tackled differently or where the perceptions of available information diverge.
Analysis and findings will be presented on a country level, to protect the anonymity of our survey respondents.