InsureTalk celebrates its first birthday

InsureTalk 11 took place on 15 April 2021, a year after the first instalment was held. Thousands of insurance professionals from around the world have tuned in to editions 1 to 10, with many racking up their entire CPD hours allocation for the year purely by attending InsureTalk.

“At 2.5 hours per session, and with 10 sessions a year, logging your required CPD hours for the year is easy with InsureTalk,” says CN&CO Events’ Llewellyn du Plessis.

CN&CO started InsureTalk in 2020 in response to the Covid lockdown and the resultant switch to virtual communication.

“The response has been fantastic,” says Llewellyn. “Each instalment brings new insights and sparks new conversations, which is what the InsureTalk franchise is all about.

“We’ve also been able to provide sponsors access to a large audience of highly engaged insurance professionals, with up to 1 400 delegates in attendance at any particular session.”

InsureTalk 11

More than 1 000 people tuned in to InsureTalk 11.

The ever-glamorous Nonnie Mhlungu of SHA acted as MC once again. The first speaker she introduced was her SHA team mate Alicia Narainsamy, who spoke on broking in a digital world

“With every new insurance trend there’s a strong call for brokers to quickly change their businesses to remain relevant,” she said.

Alicia spoke of an SHA digital survey of 944 participants; 52% indicated they would be happy to carry on engaging virtually; 77% of businesses said they will continue to work from home post lockdown.

There is huge revenue and growth opportunity by going digital, she said. Make the small changes. Technology should be the enabler, rather than the platform. Use digital pillars to support your business.

She spoke of the innovation pipeline, SHA’s digital “Pocket Underwriter” quoting system, turnaround times, the SMME market, the online working environment and reminder that this is still a people-oriented business.

Thokozile Mahlangu of IISA spoke on the upcoming African Insurance Exchange. The content, she said, will be targeted at all members of the industry, from intermediary advisor underwriter compliance officer.

She spoke on a number of topics under the headings of leadership and regulatory issues, two of the many topics that will be covered at the conference.

AIE 2021 takes place on 2 and 3 August live at Sun City, virtually in Durban and Cape Town. There will also be a live stream option for those who would prefer to attend from their own homes/premises. You can register to attend here.

Simon Campbell-Young of Digimune’s presentation was entitled “Protecting your Digital Identity”. He outlined what we’re seeing as the new threat landscape, which is called digital risk: what it is, where these risks are coming from and how to protect yourself in this space.

The threat extends beyond our computers and mobile devices, emails, etc, which he referred to as “business yesterday”. Today we have to beware of the digital residue of extended exposure via social media, online forums, blogs, reviews, deep & dark web, dating apps, marketplaces and more.

It’s far easier for cybercriminals to come into the organisation via its website or staff social media platforms and engagement, he said, than trying to break through a firewall.

He spoke of the measures that can be taken to monitor and mitigate the risks associated with exposure via a company’s digital landscape.

Simon’s talk was followed by a raft of fabulous birthday wishes from people across the insurance industry. Check out the video below:

Elsa Jordaan, executive head of claims and legal at CIB, gave a fascinating and unique talk on the prevailing trends in liability exposure, specifically around domestic animals.

Interestingly, claims arising out of dog attacks are on the rise. In the US there are 4-5 million attacks a year, with a number of them leading to fatalities.

Elsa unpacked some dog breed and South African stats, and went into some details about the workings of liability in the country. She also discussed a number of South African legal cases and their outcomes.

South African law imputes direct liability for the action of your animals, she said. Pet liability laws have, in fact, been in effect since about 450 BC. It’s about as old as the 10 commandments. The first case in South Africa was in 1927.

R Michael Anderson is the author of the bestselling book Leading in the Next Normal.

He talked about all the challenges we face dealing with change — how to inspire people, employee wellbeing, burn-out and other pressing issues — and laid out his 12 principles that help leaders to address these issues.

He shared his own personal leadership story, growing from a technical introvert to leading, motivating, inspiring and communicating with people in his own and others’ businesses.

“I realised I had to grow as a leader, not as a manager,” he said — and ended up as a leadership advisor and coach.

Here are Michael’s 12 principles —

Principle 1: You can’t sprint a marathon
Principle 2: Leadership is personal now
Principle 3: Care about the person and they’ll care about their job
Principle 4: Earn the right to have real conversations
Principle 5: You don’t find out about mental health issues until it’s too late
Principle 6: Run tight meetings. Period.
Principle 7: Empowered accountability leads to a strong culture
Principle 8: Everyone wants to be a great team member; it’s your job to let them
Principle 9: Focus on results and outcomes, not on time or processes
Principle 10: Highlight, promote and even manufacture positivity
Principle 11: Unwavering pragmatic optimism fuels the rest of the strategy
Principle 12: Your culture, agility, and people are your long-term competitive advantages

Michael’s talk was followed by a Q&A between Michael and SHA’s Simon Colman (pictured above), during which they discussed the pros and cons of the WFH environment, the traits of introverts v. extroverts, maintaining culture, connections and relationships with your team and being intentional, among other things.

You can watch the entire InsureTalk 11 below: