Insurance Specialist at Absa South Africa

Job Description

Overall Job Purpose:

• Provide specialist underwriting expertise, support and guidance to address operational issues in the business
• Continuously identify and give input on ways to improve operations in the business
• Compliance and Risk Management: Fulfil all activities in adherence to relevant control and compliance requirements, and quality standards
• Administration: Ensure the effective fulfilment of all required administrative duties, including tracking and reporting
• Work closely with the Head of Corporate Insurance and senior managers in the team to administer Group Corporate Insurance policies
• Building and embedding a suitable framework for the administration of Group insurance policies and claims management across Africa, US, UK and Prague.
• Ensure effective purchase strategy and execution for annual Group corporate insurance renewals.
• Be involved in the placement and claims administration to ensure timely recoveries.
• Development of the risk governance framework, policies and procedures within Absa for Insurance Risk.

Key Accountabilities;

Accountability; Stakeholder Management (30%)

• Establish effective working relationship/information flow with key stakeholders, across the insurance industry and within the various Businesses and Functions
• Leverage established relationships with key stakeholders for effective claims resolution
• Continuously identifying opportunities to improve process efficiency within the team
• Act as an initial point of entry for queries from stakeholders and attend to queries in an effective and timely manner.
• Take personal accountability for resolving issues and queries in a professional and timely manner
• Contribute to the building of an insurance risk culture within the business
• Responsible for efficient and effective workflow in own portfolio, proactively seeking to maximise productivity and continually acting upon opportunities for process and system improvements

Accountability; Insurance Risk  Management (30%)

• Implement appropriate and robust claims management framework
• Accountable for the annual review of the Group Insurance policies and standards              
• Design, develop and maintain insurance process flow documents in line with Group policy requirements.
• Full accountability of any projects related matters pertaining to the Group Corporate Insurance function
• Conduct research on the best insurance purchasing methodologies and practice
• Develop, draft and communicate relevant insurance guidance documents and facilitate training of the process with business when claim are logged
• Enhance systems to facilitate the annual stress and scenario testing of all risk types.
• Manage compliance of all local insurance regulations.
• Keep abreast of insurance regulations in countries where the bank has presence and ensure that the Group complies with the relevant regulation      
• Proactively manage an effective control environment
• Assist and facilitate internal and conformance audits
• Maintain and log of including audit issue/findings and proactively prepare the internal audit closure document for review by management prior to submission.
•  Establish good relationships with the broader Group risk and corporate functions to ensure that the Group’s risks are disclosed to underwriters
• Collate data and perform Key Risk Scenarios for Insurance Risk
• Drive a culture of proactive compliance in the function and tracking the team’s deliverables against priorities set.

Accountability: Reporting (40%)

• Own and support the Head of Corporate Insurance in terms of all governance and reporting related matters of the function.
• Liaising and collaborating with various stakeholders to ensure that the Governance and Reporting matters are fully addressed
• Represent the Corporate Insurance function to various Finance and Risk committees
• Collaborate with Group Corporate Insurance committee members to determine relevant discussion topics and escalation to various committees
• Prepare and distribute meeting materials, including agendas, reports, presentations and supporting documents in a timely manner before meetings as set out in the terms of reference.
• Ensure the accuracy of information provided to committee members
• Assist the Head of the function and senior managers in elevating the function’s profile to various stakeholders within the bank
• Prepare, collate appropriate, accurate and reliable MI to assist in the effective management of Group Corporate Insurance portfolio
• Maintain management risk templates and reporting tool formats for the team
• Track and report on claims resolution
• Prepare and maintain a specific Insurance Risk dashboard monthly.

Education and Experience Required;

• B (Hons) Degree in Insurance & Risk Management, Risk, Accounting,  Financial Management or Banking
• Minimum of eight to ten (8-10) years’ experience as an Insurance or Risk Management professional, Risk Manager, Claims or Insurance Manager
• Minimum of 8-10 years’ experience in the Insurance Industry
• An Associate or Fellowship of the Insurance Institute of South Africa will be advantageous

Knowledge & Skills- below serves as examples;

• Detailed understanding of insurance markets and business processes, environment, contract terms, waivers, releases, risk controls and checks and ability to act with assistance in relation to overseas equivalents.
• Knowledge of financial institutions and their key risk exposures.
• Good technical understanding of key insurance concepts and their application
• Awareness of Basel III or IV and its implications for operational risk/insurance mitigation.
• Detailed knowledge of the main classes of corporate insurances including underwriting criteria, and insurance policy structures, definitions, policy wordings and exclusion.
• Relationship management skills both in relation to key internal stakeholders, brokers and insurers.
• Good interpersonal skills, able to gain agreement of internal customers to program requirements and risk controls.
• Good negotiating skills in insurance contracts.
• High standard of communication skills, oral and written.
• Proven investigative and analytical skills including problem solving and innovation.
• Good ability to absorb information from wide range of sources internal or external to the group and evaluate and use it in Absa risk context

Additional Requirements - below serves as examples;

• Graduate level calibre with proven experience within a business environment.
• Proven competency in use of MS Office applications, specifically Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Education;

• Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)