Assets managed by South Africa's long-term insurance industry are set to exceed R5 trillion for the first time in 2025.
Life insurers who are members of Association for Savings and Investments South Africa (ASISA) ended the year with R5.2 trillion In assets under management, this body represents most of the country's life insurance companies, asset managers and management companies in various sectors.
ASISA says this increase in assets under management was driven by strong stock market performance.
Recently released long-term insurance figures show that members managed 46.2 million risk and savings policies on behalf of policyholders at the end of December 2025. The number of policies in force increased 4% in the 12 months to 44.4 million at the end of December 2024.
Life Industry in Numbers: 2021 to 2025 – Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA)
Life insurers paid out claims and benefits of R626 billion in 2025 following tragic life events such as death or disability and significant life-stage changes such as retirement.
Stephen Groots interviews ASISA Life & Risk Board Committee member Gareth Friedlander.
Considering the total of 46.2 million policies covering risk and savings, one might be misled into thinking that this represents a large number of South Africa's 62 million-strong population.
The reality is that consumers are still underinsured, with many of the uninsured having multiple policies.
Although they don't have exact figures at the unit level, Friedlander says, they do know that 46.2 million is made up of a wide range of policies including long-term risk insurance, savings policies and many funeral policies, with many customers having multiple policies.
“That's a big number, but at the same time there's a huge insurance gap in South Africa of 61%… so from a population perspective people are significantly underinsured.”
Indeed the 2025 ASISA Life and Disability Insurance Gap Study published late last year showed that SA's 16.1 million formally employed income earners at the end of December 2024 collectively had adequate life and disability insurance cover, which could provide only 39% of the income needed by their families in the event of death or disability.
“It's so important that consumers try to close that insurance gap to give them some resiliency against these life-changing events because once you have a death, or illness, or disability in your family it becomes very difficult to try and adapt to these new circumstances… Insurance is the best way to do that, so you have to try to close that gap.”
Scroll to the audio player to hear more details from ASISA's Gareth Friedlander