Major Causes of Mining Losses in The Last Half Decade
Mining is the backbone of most of Africa’s economies.
From an insurance and risk perspective, there are a number of risks associated with different types of mining operations – either surface or underground. These include gaseous build up, explosions, natural and mine-induced seismic activities as well as risks associated with underground mining.
Maksure Risk Solutions has over the last half a decade spent much of its time assisting large corporates estimate and structure risk mitigating and insurance solutions to manage material damage and business interruption claims. Maksure Risk Solutions’ approach places a strong emphasis on prevention using a risk-based inspection methodology. But when the preventative measures fail, the insurance policy is the final mitigation tool (and safety net) to a major financial loss.
The major causes of mining losses from our analysis over the last 5 years are:
- Conveyor Systems failure due to friction;
- Breakdown of crushing equipment;
- Fires in underground workshops where there tends to be a large accumulation of equipment/machinery;
- Substations (fire) and pumping equipment (breakdown resulting in flooding);
- In geographical regions with seismic activity, earthquake losses are topical.
The business interruption loss potential is usually huge and contributes significantly to the amount of the insured loss. It is critical that miners engage the service of experienced insurance and reinsurance brokers such as Maksure Risk Solutions in structuring their insurance covers and establishment of their Maximum Possible Loss.
For more information regarding our structured risk solutions, contact our Head: Engineering & Mining, Mr Stephen Makwembere at +27 11 805 0086 or email info@maksure.co.za.
About Maksure Risk Solutions
Maksure Risk Solutions is an Afro-Global independent specialist insurance and reinsurance broker with business footprint in Africa, Asia, East & Western Europe, South America and the Caribbean. We provide innovative and tailor-made risk solutions in Insurance and Reinsurance as well as Risk Financing and Actuarial Consulting geared towards capital management and strengthening our client’s balance sheet. Maksure is also one of the major players in Captive Management (Establishment & Management) in South Africa, Mauritius, Bermuda and various other jurisdictions. We have access into the Lloyds of London with a deep understanding of African markets. Our global nature ensures that our clients access quality capacity as well as some of the world’s latest thinking and solutions.
