Congo fighting drove spike in insurance costs, squeezing miners, insurer says

Reuters | February 3, 2026 | 7:30 am Regulatory Issues Africa Cobalt Copper

M23 troops. Credit: Al Jazeera English, Wikimedia Commons, under licence CC BY-SA 2.0.

Political violence insurance premiums in Democratic Republic of Congo jumped as much as tenfold last year due to unrest in the east, boosting insurers but lifting costs for copper-cobalt miners, insurance executives told Reuters.

Rwandan-backed AFC/M23 rebels overran eastern Congo’s Goma town in January 2025, part of an advance that saw the group seize more territory than ever before.

The violence forced widespread business closures, left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Congo’s No. 2 insurer, SFA, gets a quarter of its business from mining and insures about half of the country’s operators.

Valery Safarian, adviser to the board of SFA Congo, said political violence premiums “spiked five to ten times after the events” before easing back this year as calm returned and market capacity improved.

The shock doubled SFA’s political violence portfolio from around $3 million to $6 million in a year, he said.

SFA general manager Xavier Denys said demand surged “almost overnight” as companies rushed to renew or secure fresh cover.

Congolese women turn to mining for survival after rebel attacks

Vast mineral reserves

Congo supplies more than 70% of the world’s cobalt and holds some of the richest copper, lithium, coltan and gold reserves.

Major operators include China’s CMOC, Glencore, Eurasian Resources and Chemaf.

Safarian said mines avoided direct hits from the offensive, with retail and industrial clients suffering most of the damage.

Industrial risks – property damage, pit collapse, machinery breakdown and tailings dam failures – remained the biggest exposures, Denys said.

As rates surged, new reinsurers entered the market, adding capacity and pulling premiums back towards pre-crisis levels in January, he added.

Since Congo liberalized its insurance market in 2018, non-life premiums have risen fivefold, from $67 million to about $350 million in 2025, Denys said.

SFA’s turnover rose from $73 million in 2024 to more than $81 million in 2025.

With local technical capacity deepening, SFA plans to expand into neighbouring markets.

“Our goal is to turn DRC into a regional hub, exporting expertise beyond our borders,” Safarian said.

(By Maxwell Akalaare Adombila; Editing by Mark Potter)