FAnews launches The Insurance Apprentice

FAnews announced the official launch of The Insurance Apprentice yesterday at The Insurance Conference 2014.

The Insurance Apprentice series is set to hit the screens in 2015 with six young industry representatives battling to be crowned the champion. The Insurance Apprentice series will consist of six online videos covering a range of different insurance tasks which the representatives will complete.

Enhancing the talent pipeline

The South African insurance industry’s reputation is built on the skills and expertise of its workforce. Therefore, harnessing existing talent and bringing in new blood is essential. This online video series will help encourage young people to stay in the industry and ensure it continues to play a key role in the fabric of people’s everyday lives.

The concept of The Insurance Apprentice is all about human capital development, portraying the industry as an exciting one and giving young people a chance to learn and develop.

This is an opportunity for FAnews to be part of skills development in a very unique way, and establish the brand as being proactive and involved on more levels than educating – which is our core role in the industry.

This initiative, brought to you by FAnews, has sponsors who support this initiative whole heartedly. To date, Inseta has officially confirmed their support and we are looking forward to giving you more details on the rest of the sponsors.

Identifying skills gaps

Success in the insurance industry is based not only on what we can do today, but also on our ability to meet the needs of tomorrow. Developing the skills of industry employees assures us of meeting the exciting challenges the insurance industry provides.

The reality is that only companies which attract, develop and maintain the highest skilled talent will show significant growth in the future.

Few people understand the incredible opportunity for success and prosperity that exists in the insurance industry. While it is important to understand, people skills and the ability to communicate are just as important, if not more so in this industry.

The skilled employee of the future will have to understand concepts across multiple disciplines. They must be equipped with the ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes.

In this unique video series which will be hosted at the FNB Conference Centre, viewers will be able to watch and follow the journey to the crowning of The Insurance Apprentice winner. Young industry talent will be given the chance to showcase their skills through a variety of tasks within the market such as underwriting, broking and claims management in order to test their industry knowledge, resourcefulness and determination, that will ultimately be judged by an expert panel, which will include the industry’s very own ‘Donald Trump’.

The series will be aired early 2015 via the FAnews and The Insurance Apprentice websites, and the winner will become the first South African Insurance Apprentice, who will walk away with a fantastic prize of a trip to Lloyds of London, sponsored by Lloyds of London.

Who we are looking for

To enter one of the most exciting programmes in the industry you have to be younger than 35 years, preferably a holder of a COP qualification and you need to have at least four years of experience in the short-term insurance industry. Companies can identify employees who they have earmarked as talented, skilled and ready to grow, or individuals can enter on their own.

If this applies to you, visit www.TheInsuranceApprentice.co.za to get the entry form which you can print, complete and send to apply@theinsuranceapprentice.co.za. Please ensure that you read the requirements, rules and regulations.

The six apprentices will then be selected from the group of entrants by a panel of industry experts.

Editor’s Thoughts:
A new innovation-driven mindset about skills development in South Africa will be imperative for our future, however this will only be effective if the industry can successfully produce the new generation skills sets which are compatible with the insurance environment. Please comment below, interact with us on Twitter at @fanews_online or email me your thoughts myra@fanews.co.za.