Insurance Regulation
Insurance is a promise sold today and paid tomorrow. The regulator's job is to make sure it can be kept.
An insurer takes money now in exchange for a promise to pay if something goes wrong later. That promise is only as good as the insurer's financial strength and its conduct towards the people it serves. Some countries therefore regulate insurance twice. South Africa does it through the Prudential Authority and the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, the United Kingdom through the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority. Elsewhere one supervisor does both jobs: Kenya's Insurance Regulatory Authority supervises its market, and the European Union's Solvency II rules set capital and risk standards for insurers across its member states.
Insurance law and the rules beneath it, in South Africa the Insurance Act, shape the work of boards, senior managers and compliance functions: who is fit and proper to hold senior roles, how products are designed and sold, how claims are handled and complaints resolved. Intermediaries such as brokers carry their own duties, and in South Africa that includes binder holders. Treating customers fairly is a regulatory expectation, not a slogan.
This theme is about understanding how the regulators think, what they expect of those in the industry, and what good looks like at the point where customer and insurer meet.
Insurers' directors and senior managers, compliance officers, intermediaries and brokers, and claims and product teams.