February 16, 2024

Investment, tech and reinsurance top the agenda at InsureTalk39

CN&CO’s every-popular InsureTalk conference launched into 2024 on Thursday 15 February with edition number 39. Ami Underwriting Managers CEO Christelle Colman did a superb job, once again, as MC. The theme was “Insurance in 2024” and the event was headline sponsored by EasyProtect, a product that falls within the EasyEquities stable.

Claire Smith, CEO of humane investing platform Beyond Investing, was first in the hot seat. Her topic was “Avoiding impending climate and biodiversity risks by adopting an animal-friendly investment philosophy”. 

“Our portfolios seek to exclude as far as is possible and practicable exposure to all forms of exploitation and cruetly to animals for food, clothing or any other purpose,” she said. “And if that line sounds a little bit familiar, it’s because it effectively mimics the definition of veganism – which is not always easy in our current society where animal usage is so endemic.”

The Vegan Society also promotes the use of animal-free alternatives, which is something that Beyond Investing has in its investing programmes in the venture capital area.

“Our aim is to encourage investment in an animal-free economy, which ultimately benefits humans as well,” said Claire, adding that trillions of animals are harmed every year around the world by commercial activity on farms and in testing labs. 

Claire pointed out the negative impact of animal exploitation on several of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, before proceeding to outline how an investor can incorporate protection of animals in their investing:

Claire unpacked various animal exploitation screening policies as they pertain to:

  • Animal-derived products, animal farming and other exploitation activities
  • Animal testing
  • Animals in sport and entertainment
  • Genetic modification

She also highlighted a number of deselection criteria relevant to humane and environmentally conscious living, including energy production, negative environmental impacts and social responsibility. 

Beyond Investing offers an ETF that is based on the US vegan climate index.

“Our performance has been strong,” said Claire. “Overall, since inception in 2018, we have outperformed the market by some 18%.”

Claire concluded by touching on a few other investment strategies that focus on a transition away from the use of animals, as well as plastics.

Mbulelo Mpofana, product manager for EasyProtect and EasyCredit at EasyEquities, spoke on the topic “Beyond death benefits: how life insurance can help grow and protect wealth”. He spoke about the development of the EasyEquities online investment platform over the past 10 years, including the introduction of EasyProtect. 

“When people talk about protecting assets, I think most of us would definitely think of security guards and walls, but a lot of people on this platform in particular will also think of insurance,” he said. “Insurance is a key financial product to protect your assets, whether they are physical or financial – including your well-being and health, your abillity to generate an income and also preserve the value of your assets.

“That’s where our interest comes in. People come to our platform to generate wealth and it’s important to help them protect those assets.”

After extensive client engagement (more than 40 000 people participated in the research). Mbulelo shared some stats about life insurance and investment coverage in South Africa, courtesy FSCA and Genasys,

“All these stats together show that we really need to focus on helping people grow their assets and wealth, while at the same time closing this protection gap,” he said. “This is why we started looking at life insurance at EasyEquities.”

The Easy researchers identified a gap in the market where EasyEquities clients’ life insurance needs were not being catered to. Relying heavily on the latest tech in a number of areas, EasyEquities developed a life insurance offering that meets the evolving requirements of the typical EasyEquities investor over time. 

As an investor’s assets increase, their need for life cover decreases. EasyProtect tracks this dynamic and reduces the investor’s life insurance premiums as their needs change. The difference between the old and new premiums is then made available to them to reinvest, thereby growing their wealth even further. 

IISA CEO Thokozile Mahlangu gave her traditional update on what’s happening in the industry. She spoke about AIE2024 (you can register here, if you haven’t already), which this year will bring back the farewell party… on the beach! She went on to share some info on the conference speaker line-up and topics.

Thokozile encouraged attendees to visit www.iisa.co.za to find out more about the association’s webinar series and the member activation programme for 2024. Anyone who would like the IISA to come and do member activations at their premises is welcome to contact tumisang@iisa.co.za.

The IISA’s flagship Youth Accelerator Programme introduced in 2023 develops technical skills in order to create a pool of skilled professionals who will be able, at the end of the programme, to be market ready with an NQF5 qualification. The aforementioned Tumisang will be able to provide more info. 

Thokozile closed by inviting non-members to join the IISA to take advantage of all the professional benefits that membership offers. 

Up next was Rianet Whitehead, editor of FA News and mother to all the Insurance Apprentices, who focused on the February edition of FA News (which you can read here) and the latest season of The Insurance Apprentice, which will soon be available in weekly instalments. 

She shared some of the high level predictions made by industry leaders around the main factors set to impact the insurance industry during 2024, including hardening markets, increased costs of claims fulfilment, potential social unrest around the upcoming elections, the NHI Bill, climate-related claims, AI and governance. 

The 10th season of The Insurance Apprentice will start on 7 March 2024. Episodes will be released every Thursday at 7pm. Be sure to watch each episode as it airs to take advantage of the live involvement elements. The finale will be broadcast live on 18 April from the Hollard campus in Johannesburg, with Survivor SA’s Nico Panagio as host.

This month’s entertainment came from Ntokozo “Kozo” Zwane, a musical performer from Joburg who is now based in Cape Town. Kozo performed some sultry ballads on his guitar, providing a delightful bit of calm in an otherwise busy schedule.


Sanlam Fintech‘s Jannik Richter spoke on the topic “Ubiquitous language and its role in building insurance enterprise software”. His key points focused on:

  • The importance of a common language for seamless collaboration
  • Establishing a common language for your business
  • The advantages of modelling domaines around the business
  • Using AI to improve engineering efficiency
  • Event storming and the role it plays in understanding your business events
  • The concept of invariants as part of business rule implementation
  • The misconception of the “microservice” ecosystem
  • Building highly decoupled systems with domain-driven design at heart

“It’s extremely important to develop a common language that we can all understand,” he said. “In our personal and professional lives, we need to be careful about the words that we use. This is especially important when it comes to the product design and development in our businesses.”

For example, what word do you use? Client? Customer? Policyholder? Party?

“When everyone is using different language, it becomes very difficult to know what’s going on,” said Jannik.

Here are some of the ways things can go wrong:

In the rest of his talk, Jannik unpacked each of his points using real-life examples and accessible (surprisingly non-technical) language to explain each one. 

Ultimately, Jannik concluded that forming a collective, ubiquitous language that everyone understands, across the business, leads to improved collaboration, enhanced respect and greater project success. 

Iain Macindoe, CEO of reinsurance broker Resilea, wrapped up the first InsureTalk session for 2024 with his presentation entitled “Trends and subsequent challenges of the global and local reinsurance landscape”. He took delegates on a journey through the past, through the present and into the future. 

He spoke about the major losses suffered by the local industry as a result of Covid-19, the KZN looting and floods, and several other large-loss events. 

“Reinsurers have found themselves in quite a difficult position,” he said. “Their results have not been good. 

“On top of that we are in the grips of increased global inflation. Those countries that were used to incredibly low investment returns in the past are now witnessing unprecedented levels. Global reinsurance shareholders are looking at South Africa and saying ‘We would be getting a better return just putting our money into fixed deposits”. So that’s what’s building up.”

This has impacted the local market in terms of price, structure and terms & conditions. 

Iain’s talk highlighted the main issues that we have faced, that we are facing, and that we could be facing in the future. Here are the details at high level:




He touched on points around data analytics and risk management, before sharing a bit of wisdom – that the future belongs to companies who embrace F(IR)2S:

  • Flexibility
  • Innovation
  • Intellect
  • Risk Management
  • Relationships
  • Service

And so our first InsureTalk for 2024 came to a close. A reminder to visit www.insuretalk.co.za to register for your CPD hours. Certificates will be mailed to you in due course. 

Be sure to join us on 14 March for InsureTalk40. You can register here for the next few months’ sessions. 

If you would like to watch the full InsureTalk39 session, cilck on the video below. Be sure to let Llewellyn know once you have watched so that he can get your CPD sorted for you.