• Life and pensions insurance revenue rose 7% in the six months to 30 June 2026, the core book that is most of the group barely moved in real terms
• The non-insurance cluster grew 32% and funeral services 43%, four to six times the core rate, yet non-insurance is only 9% of total income
• Zimbabwe supplied 74% of the revenue increase and Malawi 26%, against a Malawi arm that is roughly 8% of group revenue

Harare- Fidelity Life Assurance of Zimbabwe, one of the country’s largest life assurers, has recorded life and pensions insurance revenue growth of 7% for the half year ended 30 June 2026 according to the latest trading update, underpinned by a 43% increase in the funeral services division and 32% growth in the wider non-insurance cluster.

Zimbabwe operations accounted for 74% of the revenue increase while the Malawi arm contributed 26%, despite representing only about 8% of group revenue. Annual inflation was 4.7% over the period, implying real growth of about 2% in the core life book. The group’s 91% core grew at barely inflation, while the 9% peripheral businesses grew four to six times faster.

Diversification is working directionally, but the weight behind it is not there yet.

Life and pensions insurance revenue rose 7% against inflation of 4.7%, a real gain of roughly 2%. That marks a sharp slowdown from the 15% growth recorded by the same cluster in the first quarter, implying a marked deceleration through the second quarter. Life assurance is Fidelity’s founding business and its largest, comprising the whole-life plans, group pension schemes, endowments and annuities that have anchored the company since 1966. With this book making up 91% of group income, growth at barely the rate of inflation is the central fact of the result. No amount of growth from the 9% periphery can offset stagnation in the core.

The periphery, on its own, was genuinely impressive. Funeral services revenue grew 43% in the half, after 79% in the first quarter. The push came from an upgraded fleet, expanded offerings and refurbished branches. In Zimbabwe, funeral cover is close to recession-proof. It is sold on a bury-now-pay-later basis and reaches customers who have let life policies lapse. It is the clearest growth engine Fidelity has. The medical and actuarial units, grouped with funeral in the non-insurance cluster, also posted strong gains and took the whole cluster to 32% growth.

On rate alone, these are the businesses carrying the group.

Non-insurance accounted for 9% of total income in the period. A division growing 43% off that base can only move the group total modestly, while the core growing 7% off a 91% base dominates the outcome. For funeral and non-insurance momentum to change the group’s trajectory, the base will have to compound for several more years, and the core will have to do more than track inflation in the meantime.

The growth mix is pointing the right way, but the weight behind it is not there yet.

The geography tells the same logic. Zimbabwe accounted for 74% of the revenue increase and Malawi contributed 26%. That is against a Malawi arm, Vanguard Life Assurance, that is roughly 8% of group revenue. A unit that small delivering a quarter of the growth is punching well above its weight. In the first quarter Malawi had contributed 27% of insurance contract revenue outright. The regional diversification is real. It reduces exposure to a single fragile economy, and it is one of the few parts of the group growing materially faster than the Zimbabwean core.

That regional push extends beyond Malawi through the actuarial arm. ZAC Global Actuaries is expanding across Southern Africa, with offices in Botswana and Mozambique and partnerships in Malawi and Zambia. It is turning an in-house support function into a cross-border revenue line earned in harder currencies. For a Zimbabwean insurer collecting domestic premiums in a currency it is trying to stabilise, actuarial fees earned in pula, metical and kwacha diversify both product and currency at once. The strategy is coherent, and it is early.

The numbers also reflect a corporate reshaping. Fidelity completed an asset-separation exercise during the year and no longer reports asset management and financial services. The non-insurance cluster now covers funeral, medical and actuarial only. That makes the group a cleaner insurance-plus-services business, and it removes the investment-income cushion that asset management once provided. It also means the reported non-insurance growth is growth in operating services, not market-driven investment returns. That is a higher-quality source, even if it sits on a smaller base.

The macro backdrop was helpful and is turning more so. The half ran through a stable exchange rate near 26.77 to the dollar, single-digit inflation, and in June the Reserve Bank’s first policy-rate cut since the ZiG launch, from 35% to 30%. Lower rates ease the financing costs Fidelity itself flags as constraining credit, and they lift the equity and property valuations inside a life insurer’s investment book. An insurer with a large pension and life portfolio benefits from a falling-rate environment through its balance sheet, which is a tailwind the second half should carry that the first half largely did not.

The read on Fidelity is a well-executed diversification running ahead of a stalling core. Funeral, the regional units and the actuarial expansion are the right bets. They are growing at rates the core cannot match, and they are lowering dependence on a single product and a single economy. The unresolved question is time. At 9% of income, the fast-growing periphery cannot yet carry a group whose dominant life book is growing at the rate of inflation. The second half needs the core to reaccelerate from 7% for the diversification story to become a growth story, not merely a hedge.

In the short-term outlook, 30 to 90 days, four things matter. First is the core life and pensions growth rate, which slowed from 15% in the first quarter to 7% at the half. The diversification only matters if the core holds above inflation with the second being the non-insurance share of total income, currently 9%, as the measure of whether the fast-growing periphery is gaining enough weight to move the group.

Third, the Malawi and ZAC regional contribution, currently 26% of the revenue increase, and whether expansion into Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia converts to reported revenue, and lastly, the investment-book effect of the June rate cut, which should lift valuations and ease financing costs into the second half.

Equity Axis News