Marsh rebrand strengthens risk advice in South Africa
By Kris van der Bijl
MARSH retired the Marsh McLennan brand on 14 January 2026, rebranding its broking arm to Marsh Risk.
“What will change is our connectedness as a firm,” says Harry Doyne-Ditmas, Managing Director and Specialty Growth Leader at Marsh Africa, in an interview with Cape Business News.
“It doesn’t affect the day-to-day engagement that we have with clients, but it does allow us to deliver our services more holistically and with an industry lens.”
Under the new brand, after the transition period, Marsh Risk and Mercer will each go to market under Marsh. Marsh Risk continues to focus on broking and risk advisory, Guy Carpenter will become Marsh Re and Oliver Wyman who provide strategic consulting will go to market as Oliver Wyman, a Marsh business, while the operating unit Oliver Wyman Group will become Marsh Management Consulting.
What the Marsh rebrand changes for South African clients
For Western Cape businesses, Doyne-Ditmas says the first practical difference is a more integrated approach to managing risk.
Rather than treating its consulting, risk management and insurance broking businesses as separate services, Marsh is organising its teams around industries so clients receive appropriate strategic advice, risk analysis and insurance solutions through a single engagement.
He argues that delivering an integrated consulting approach alongside risk management and insurance broking will deliver greater impact and ultimately drive down costs.
“Transactional relationships with risk advisers have historically been the status quo,” he says. “But that consulting-type engagement is getting more momentum as the complexities of risks confronting businesses are working themselves through.”
Fertiliser supply risk for Western Cape exporters
Doyne-Ditmas notes that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, in addition to disrupting energy supply globally, has disrupted 30% of the world’s phosphate, a mineral key to fertiliser.
This impacts the supply and pricing of key commodities for the agricultural sector.
“A grower who is unable to secure enough fertiliser or misses a fertiliser application will see yields fall short of what the operation needs, unless it is able to adapt its strategy to deal with the supply constraints and higher input costs,” says Doyne-Ditmas.
Doyne-Ditmas mentions that through taking an industry approach to the agricultural sector, Marsh is able to better pool its global knowledge to deliver solutions to support specific challenges, whether these be related to climate, changes in global regulation or interruption in supply chain.
Marsh’s insurance offerings include political risk insurance to protect companies against actions by foreign governments and trade disruption insurance to protect exporters against losses arising from regulatory changes.
Marsh also offers parametric insurance, noting that this is “a growing form of insurance that provides producers with pre-agreed payouts for index linked events [i.e. rainfall], with the amount of payout being determined by the trigger event [rainfall] meeting certain pre-agreed thresholds.”
The settlement of the loss is independent from the actual calculated financial loss to the producer, which can often take time and resources to fully understand. As such, the simplicity, transparency and fast payout of a parametric solution can be a real advantage over conventional products.
“The greatest thing these challenges in the Middle East have shown us,” Doyne-Ditmas notes, “is just how interconnected the world now is. One commodity can impact several globally.”
Marine cargo insurance gaps on the Cape route
Marsh’s marine practice works with many soft commodity exporters in the Western Cape. According to Doyne-Ditmas, the most common weakness is that cargo is insured for less than its full value.
“It is important that the client insures their cargo for the full delivered cost including any duties and shipping costs,” he says.
Policies written on invoice value leave exporters recovering less than the total cost of moving the goods. Freight costs on the Cape route have risen, which widens the shortfall.
Other common gaps include temporary storage cover and a poor understanding of policy exclusions.
Marsh negotiates policy wordings covering blocking and trapping, packing, concealed damage and difference in conditions for imports.
Where project cargo is involved, insurers typically require a pre-shipment survey covering the route, together with the stowage and securing of the cargo.
Marine risks remain elevated
Cargo insurance rates have changed little over the past 12 months, with a client’s claims history remaining the primary driver of premiums.
The underlying risks, however, have evolved.
Doyne-Ditmas identifies fires on board vessels as a major concern for insurers, particularly those vessels carrying lithium-ion batteries and vehicles fitted with them.
He also points to rougher sea conditions and the rerouting of vessels around the Cape of Good Hope as factors contributing to containers being lost overboard.
