“It’s like being in an exam that you didn’t study for.”
This is according to one of the very nervous finalists in the 2019 edition of The Insurance Apprentice, the reality show-style competition for young professionals working in short-term insurance, as they tried to prepare for their second task.
The Insurance Apprentice, now in its fifth season, is presented by FAnews. Hollard is a Gold sponsor of the series.
The entire #TIA2019 series is being filmed this week, at the Old Mutual headquarters in Sandton. We sat in on day 2 of filming, on 21 January, to see how things were going; suffice it to say that the first day had been tough on all eight finalists.
The finalists trooped into the boardroom to face the judging panel: Simon Colman aka Judge Dread, Kedi Maponyane, and guest judges Carla Jordan and Chris Potter of Emerald, the sponsor for the day.
(Making things doubly nerve-wracking was that Chris’ reputation preceded him. He had been such a tough judge last year, that Simon actually gave him his Judge Dread coffee mug …)
Simon kicked off with a recap of day 1 (which we won’t describe here, of course), in which he spoke about how “the person you choose to go isn’t always the one with the lowest score”.
Carla and Chris then went on to describe the day 2 task on reinsurance, underwriting and a foreign country – one in a part of the world that is unfamiliar to many.
“It’s just different. Your task today is different,” said Carla.
Kedi encouraged the finalists to “apply your minds, and more importantly, you need to focus on the task”.
The briefing ended with Simon reminding the group that in the past, someone had been let go after the second round. So it would be a distinct possibility this time, too, and they must “bring your A-game”.
