There were a few surprises at this year’s Financial Intermediaries Association of Southern Africa (FIA) Awards Gala Dinner held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg last week.
This time, Santam did not feature in this year’s Short Term categories after winning most of the category awards since 2008. Sanlam was also a big winner in the investment category from 2010 until 2012 but this year they lost out to Allan Gray and Discovery.
The big winners
Hollard and Discovery scooped up most of the awards. Hollard took two of the three accolades in the short term insurer of the year category for Personal lines and Commercial. Etana Insurance scooped the third award in the Short-Term Insurer of the Year for Corporate for the second year running.
Discovery Limited bagged three awards through Discovery Life in the category for Long Term Insurer of the Year for Risk; Discovery Invest for Investment Products Recurring Premium and Discovery Health for Health Care. The country’s largest open medical scheme administrator won the award each year since its introduction.
Aquarius Underwriting Managers was the new winner in the Underwriting manager of the year category while Liberty Corporate took the title for the Employee Benefits category. Allan Gray took the honours for Investment Products Single Premium.
How the winners were chosen
Brian van Flymen, president of the FIA, said this year’s award winners were determined by an extensive survey of FIA members, conducted independently by Bluestream Research. Members were asked to rate product providers based on product quality, service quality and relationship quality.
“The main objective of the FIA benchmark survey is to determine and recognise South Africa’s top performing product providers, independently rated on intermediary satisfaction. The 15th FIA Awards is one of the most comprehensive total industry broker satisfaction benchmarks produced in South Africa. This year 7565 contracts were evaluated over a 10-week period,” said Pieter Aucamp, CEO of Bluestream Research.