Celebrating six years of InsureTalk

InsureTalk61 was hosted by CN&CO founder Carel Nolte. He said April marked two milestones: his own 52nd birthday and the sixth anniversary of the InsureTalk series.

Carel drew on the amethyst – the gemstone associated with a sixth anniversary – as a fitting symbol: “not flashy, not loud, but quietly valuable. The kind of thing that only really makes sense once you’ve been around for a while.”

The theme for the session was Six Years Strong: Connecting the Future of Insurance, with Global Choices as event partner, itself celebrating 25 years in business. Carel paid tribute to its founder, Wimpie van der Merwe, describing the company as “the trusted emergency backbone of South Africa’s insurance industry”. He invoked six degrees of separation as a reminder that “whether brokers or insurers, underwriters, UMAs, claims or ignition suppliers, we really are all connected in this industry.”

Tandiwe Cimela, newly appointed executive at Elite Risk Acceptances, opened with a personal reflection on navigating simultaneous change – returning from maternity leave, completing a handover with retiring leader Tarina Vlok, and stepping into an executive role within weeks.

“Succession in itself is planned. It’s deliberate, it’s intentional,” she said, paying tribute to Tarina as “a formidable leader who understood that succession has to be done with intent, continuously over time, over years.”

Continuity

Anchoring her thinking in the King IV principles, she pointed out that “leadership is not about continuity of people, but about continuity of purpose, of value, of decisions.”

Looking outward, she drew a direct parallel between Elite’s succession journey and the broader challenge of global uncertainty – geopolitical turbulence, claims inflation and rapid AI adoption.

She added that the business’s investments in pricing optimisation and data capability had already delivered record performance in 2024 and 2025.

Her closing message was one of considered optimism: “The differentiator is to anticipate those changes, make appropriate plans according to what might be in your control, what’s not in your control.”

The running thread, she said, was “the courage always to embrace change.”

Next up was Kebafentse Mogoshi of Agisanang Insurance Administrators, who illustrated the insurance gap facing South Africa through the story of a boy from a rural area who encounters insurance for the very first time when buying his first car.

“He knows nothing about insurance, he knows nothing about financial products, he’s never been exposed to them,” he said.

He described the prevailing public sentiment – that insurance is a “grudge payment” – as fuelling what he called “the garage payment syndrome”: the feeling that paying premiums is a gamble rather than a protection. His proposed antidote was an agile leadership culture – drawing on Bruce Lee’s “be water, my friend” – enabling decentralised decision-making, faster product iteration and cross-functional collaboration.

Micro-insurance

Keba focused particularly on micro-insurance as a vehicle for change, noting that funeral cover’s penetration of 40 to 48% was leading the way, and arguing the model could be extended to homes and livelihoods.

“In such communities, word of mouth matters more than anything,” he said. “If there is mistrust, then everything will be out of the window.”

Looking further ahead, he envisaged micro-insurance as the foundation for “family insurance education and a positive insurance experience” – and ultimately a means of reducing state dependency for generations to come.

Lizelle van der Merwe, CEO of the Financial Intermediaries Association of Southern Africa, followed Keba in the hot seat. Lizelle reflected on the recent WFII Annual World Council meeting in Cape Town, which drew intermediary association leaders from across the globe. A highlight was Discovery CEO Hylton Kallner sharing how the business builds services that “don’t just insure people, they actively drive better behaviour, better wellness, and better outcomes in society.”

AI, protection gaps and governance

Three themes dominated the global conversations: the impact of AI on regulators and intermediaries; closing protection gaps; and the rising pressure for organisational governance and resilience.

“South Africa was not playing catch-up in the room,” she said. “Our sector was seen as progressive, resilient, and genuinely instructive to our international peers.”

Closer to home, the CoFI Bill and employment equity targets remained priority concerns, with Lizelle unequivocal on the latter: “An advisory business simply cannot be measured against the same yardstick as a bank or an insurer, and we will not stop making that case.”

She closed by honouring the FIA’s 75-year heritage, pledging to carry it into 2026 with “enormous pride.”

Following Lizelle, Rianet Whitehead, editor of FAnews, identified the central tension in the non-life space: affordability pressure driving cover reductions and policy cancellations, “and that’s the tension, because at the exact same time, risk is increasing.”

The client conversation, she argued, was shifting “from ‘what does my policy cover?’, to ‘what can actually go wrong in my world and how do I survive it?’”

She highlighted a grassroots movement rallying around the idea of why use a broker – “one of those things that could genuinely shift perceptions in the market.”

Mentorship

She also updated attendees on The Insurance Apprentice Season 12, airing on E Extra from 2 May, and floated an early-stage companion format pairing TIA alumni with industry legends, which she referred to as “experience meets fresh thinking; past meets future.”

Her closing thought tied it all together: “Insurance is no longer just about cover. It’s about understanding risk, preventing the loss, communicating value, and staying relevant in a changing world.”

Carel then paused to reflect warmly on six years of InsureTalk, recalling how he and Llewellyn had conceived the idea “in the height of COVID, where we didn’t know what was going to happen, as a way to keep the insurance community connected and sharing.”

He paid affectionate tribute to CN&CO Events head Llewellyn du Plessis, describing him as “at times a complete drama queen slash control freak, all because he wants it to be perfect and someone so passionate about the brand that he hasn’t missed one episode, ever.”

He acknowledged the emcees who had carried the series, from Simon and Christelle Colman to a new wave of guest hosts that would begin with the next session, reflecting the diversity of the industry.

A short video followed that paid tribute to the success of InsureTalk over the past six years.

After the video, Carel and Llewellyn took to the stage together to reflect on the journey.

“I don’t think we take enough time to acknowledge how far we’ve come,” said Carel, noting that the industry’s spirit of collaboration (“we can compete and compete strongly, but we do so in the spirit of collaboration”) was what had made InsureTalk possible.

The two shared a laugh recalling the very first entertainer, Leah, who had performed by plugging her iPad next to her laptop with no equipment whatsoever.

“That shows you that with InsureTalk, we just started out of nothing,” said Llewellyn. Carel drew the parallel: “This is an industry known for its bravery and its innovation.”

Cape Town insurance conference

Llewellyn also confirmed that CN&CO would be launching an insurance conference in Cape Town later in the year – “Joburg and other regions sometimes get the big events, and I think it’s time we bring something completely different to Cape Town.”

Cynthia Stimpel of CourageHub closed the session with a powerful account of moral courage.

“I didn’t start out to be a whistleblower,” she said. “The thought was that I’m just doing my job – and through doing my job, I ended up being a whistleblower.”

As group treasurer at SAA, she refused to ratify a board resolution directing a multi-billion-rand debt consolidation towards the Free State Development Corporation – an entity with no mandate to fund a state-owned entity.

“I’m not signing this,” she said, escalating through every available channel and eventually giving evidence at the Zondo Commission at enormous personal cost.

She placed her story within a broader landscape of courageous individuals whose interventions had yielded tangible results: R20 billion recouped to date through post-Zondo work, with another R10 billion in the pipeline.

She invited the audience to imagine a South Africa where those funds had instead gone towards quality education, functional hospitals and safe roads: “Is it possible?” she asked. “Yes, I believe it is possible.”

Her closing call to action was clear – whistleblowing must become a professional norm, supported by trust funds, pro bono legal services and genuine reintegration pathways.

“We need to be the change that we want to see in the world,” she concluded, urging every leader in the room to uphold personal values and “leave a positive legacy for our family and for our children.”

And so the 61^st edition of InsureTalk came to a close. Big thanks to our event partner for the session, Global Choices.

InsureTalk62 will take place on 21 May from 10am to 1pm. Book your spot here.

And if you’d like to watch the recording of InsureTalk61, clink on the video link below: