It has been more than a year and a half since the start of this COVID-19 pandemic and industries across the world are still reeling from its effects. Insurers have played an important role paying out claims for business interruption, retrenchment, medical and death claims.

This article builds on that which we published in last year’s survey on stress and scenario testing in the insurance industry, based on our survey of a sample of insurers’ own risk and solvency assessment (ORSA) reports. In this article we focus on the enhancements made to insurers’ stress and scenario testing to better capture the increased complexity and uncertainty associated with the current pandemic. Our findings are based on a sample of South African insurers’ ORSA reports for the 2020 financial year.