Leading a life insurer through Covid-19

starting his career at Discovery back in 1999, Riaan van Reenen took the reins of the company’s life insurance division as CEO a year ago. Little did anyone back then know how the outbreak of a novel coronavirus in the city of Wuhan in China will spread across the planet and grind economies to a halt. Also unbeknownst back then was the death toll – which surged to almost 2m people at the time of writing from an infected population of 90m, according to Johns Hopkins University data – that would rattle life insurers. In SA, the infected population has climbed to more than 1.2m people whilst more than 34 000 have lost their lives, data from the national health department shows.

In SA, the infected population has climbed to more than 1.2m people whilst more than