Having just returned from the IIGi 2026 trip to China, I think the biggest takeaway for me is: you don’t know what you don’t know until you get out there and see it for yourself.
It is very easy in insurance to become focused on our own market, our own challenges and the way we have always done things. Then you travel halfway around the world and suddenly realise there is a much bigger insurance world out there, looking at risk, technology, clients and solutions through a very different lens.
Our programme took us through both Shanghai and Beijing, with visits including Deloitte China, Howden Re China, Vitality Asia, PingAn P&C, Swiss Re Beijing, Marsh China and Aon Cofco, together with a visit to the Xiaomi Factory as well as the Great Wall.
What made the trip valuable was the exposure.
Exposure to another market. Different conversations. Different businesses. Different approaches.
For me, that matters enormously. Our clients are dealing with increasingly complex risks and they expect us to bring more than a policy and a renewal presentation to the table.
We need to keep looking beyond what is familiar and asking: What are other markets doing? What can we learn? What can we challenge? And what can we bring back and apply in our own environment?
Not every idea from another market will fit South Africa, nor should it. But getting outside our normal environment forces us to question our assumptions.
Sometimes the most valuable part of a trip like this is not coming home with all the answers. It is coming home asking better questions.
The mix of visits was important because insurance does not operate in isolation.
Understanding how other industries, technologies and markets are evolving helps us think differently about the risks our clients are going to face.
Yes, there are flights, coaches, hotel lobbies, business attire and the occasional moment where comfortable walking shoes become the most valuable item on the risk register, but underneath all of that is something genuinely important: we broaden our perspective.
I have to mention the delegates on the trip. What a group.
A trip like this is obviously about the places you go and the people you meet, but it’s also about the people you experience it with. Everyone brought something different to the table, whether it was a different view, a good question, a proper debate or just a good laugh after a long day.
We spent a lot of time together, and somehow still managed to like each other by the end of it, which I think says a lot.
The people genuinely made the trip what it was, and I came home having learnt just as much from the conversations within our group as I did from some of the meetings.
We build relationships outside our immediate market. We expose ourselves to different insurance environments. We listen. We challenge our own thinking.
Hopefully, we come home a little less certain that our way is the only way, and a lot more curious about what else is possible.
Our job is ultimately to understand risk before it becomes a problem, anticipate where our clients are going and find solutions before everyone else is scrambling for them. You cannot do that particularly well if your entire view of the insurance world comes from one market.
So yes, China was an incredible experience, but more importantly, it was a reminder that seeing how the rest of the insurance world thinks makes us better at navigating our own.
I would call that good risk management.
Deputy President & Head: Stakeholder – Insurance Institute of Gauteng
Divisional Executive Mining – GIB
