INTRODUCTION

To my mind, compliance with the FAIS Act is simple: - Do everything possible to ensure that one provides the best possible service to one’s client (the ultimate purpose of the Act) and record every aspect of one’s service delivery and the client’s response. This is the essence of compliance with the FAIS Act. I certainly do not want to imply that compliance with the regulatory and / or administrative requirements of the ACT is any less important however, these are a given and one should not be in the Industry if one neglects this aspect, plain and simple! It could cost one one’s license!

However, what worries me from my experience as a compliance officer is the apparent lack of what I would like to call an “integrated compliance strategy” where there is a multiple of service providers involved in a single transaction. For the purpose of this article however, I will be focusing on the short-term insurance industry.

THE PURPOSE OF THE TRAINING.
The purpose of this training session is firstly to explain how the Short-term Insurance industry is structured and to identify the different role-players; secondly to explain the day-to-day operation of each role-player referred to as the operational profile, and thirdly it will try to indicate compliance application, monitoring and supervision for each of the different role-players in terms of their operational profile.

THE CONCEPT OF INSURANCE.
Simply put insurance or also called assurance, is to provide for an unforeseen future occurrence that may be detrimental to a person or entity. In this sense both long-term and short-term insurance is identical but there are significant differences in the way that each type works in practice.

Also interesting are types of insurance that do not really fall strictly within one of the two categories like medical aid schemes, credit insurance, shortfall insurance and other types of warranties or guarantees. It is important to take note of these as they are also regulated under the different Insurance Acts and the FAIS Act.