Group UW Governance Assurance Manager

This exciting opportunity is available within Group Underwriting Office – Underwriting Governance at Alice Lane, Sandton. This is a Group-level role in the Group Underwriting office, operating across Santam Group.

To ensure that all Commercial and Personal Lines business is underwritten and placed by internal and external users across the Group fully complies with the relevant underwriting mandates, policies, procedures, and regulatory requirements.

This role provides underwriting governance oversight within the underwriting environment, safeguarding adherence to statutory and internal standards. The incumbent plays a critical role in ensuring underwriting integrity, mitigating risk exposure, and driving alignment between business operations, legal frameworks, and compliance expectations across the Group.

We’re all about building strong, lasting relationships with our employees. We know that you have hopes for your future – your career, your personal development and of achieving great things. We pride ourselves in helping our employees to realise their worth. Through its five business clusters – Sanlam Fintech, Sanlam Life and Savings, Sanlam Investment Group, Sanlam Allianz, Santam, as well as MiWay and the Group Office – the group provides many opportunities for growth and development.

• Underwriting Compliance Oversight:
  Ensure full compliance with underwriting standards, mandates, and procedures across all business units.
• Governance and Policy Implementation:
  Apply and interpret Group governance, underwriting, and compliance frameworks in line with regulatory and internal policy standards.
• Monitoring and Reporting:
  Provide structured reports on underwriting compliance, governance findings, and corrective actions to relevant management forums.
• Administration:
  Balancing administrative, analytical, and governance support functions under tight deadlines.
• Portfolio and Risk Assessment:
  Evaluate risk suitability and underwriting soundness of portfolios and individual cases to ensure alignment with risk appetite and compliance thresholds.
• Data Analytics and Systems:
  Translating complex governance and data insights into clear, actionable outputs for varied audiences.
• Ensuring data integrity and consistency across multiple systems and sources. Driving adoption of governance systems and processes across decentralised teams.
• Regulatory Alignment:
  Monitor adherence to relevant legislation, including the Insurance Act, STIA, FAIS, PPR, POPIA, and related prudential standards.
• Fraud Detection and Prevention:
  Identify potential fraudulent activities and, in conjunction with Group Business Integrity, implement preventative and remedial measures.
• Training and Knowledge Sharing:
  Identify and address training needs for internal and external stakeholders on underwriting standards, compliance updates, and governance changes.
• Stakeholder Management:
  Ability to build networks and good relations, relate to people across organisation levels and boundaries, build networks and profitable partnerships.
• Engage with business units, brokers, intermediaries, and governance partners to ensure consistent underwriting and compliance practices. Manage diverse stakeholder expectations across multiple Group entities with differing priorities.

• Degree / NQF 7 relevant to business or insurance.
• Relevant Compliance, Audit and or Risk Management qualification.

• Minimum 5 years technical underwriting experience with regards to non-life insurance business.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in compliance, audit or governance within a large insurance organisation, preferably involving underwriting oversight or risk management.
• Sound understanding of the Insurance Act, Short-Term Insurance Act, FAIS Act, FAIS General Code of Conduct, Policyholder Protection Rules (PPR) and Protection of Personal Information Act.
• In-depth understanding of underwriting governance principles and relevant non-life product knowledge and experience.

• Strong proficiency in underwriting systems and Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook).
• Excellent analytical, decision‑making,…