Actuarial Manager: Operational Efficiencies

What will you do?

Department: Actuarial: Operational Efficiencies
Reporting to: Actuarial General Manager: Special Projects
Location: MiWay Head Office (Hybrid)

Role Purpose
This role exists to lead and deliver high-impact actuarial initiatives focused on improving operational efficiency across key parts of the business, particularly in Claims, Telematics, and Procurement. The successful candidate will oversee an actuarial team and drive technical and strategic initiatives from conception through implementation, working closely with operational departments, legal, and external providers.
This position offers an opportunity to blend strong actuarial, technical, operational, and strategic thinking to generate tangible business value.

Key Responsibilities

Team Management and Development

• Manage and provide mentorship, guidance, and technical oversight to a team of actuarial analysts and data specialists.
• Foster accountability, consistency, and continuous delivery within the team.
• Promote a culture of ownership, innovation, and business impact.
• Manage stakeholders across multiple departments to ensure delivery momentum on complex, cross-functional projects.

Operational Efficiency and Claims Initiatives

Lead projects focused on cost optimisation and operational enhancements, such as:

• Procurement effectiveness tracking and analytics.
• Improve and streamline internal operational processes.

Telematics and SVR (Stolen Vehicle Recovery) Oversight

Drive and monitor value delivery in the telematics space, including:

• Managing relationships with fixed device tracking and SVR providers,
• Optimising lead generation, recovery performance, and guarantee recoveries,
• Building and maintaining robust data environments and SLAs.

Operational Reporting and Analytics

• Develop advanced reporting and monitoring tools to track KPIs, capacity, and performance.
• Automate management dashboards and tools for departments like Claims, Client Servicing, and Procurement.
• Build operational models for staffing, budgeting, and strategic planning.

Innovation and Strategic Enablement

• Design and implement models and tools to enhance operational efficiency and surface actionable insights, including provider scorecards and internal web-based applications.
• Lead and scale machine learning and predictive modeling initiatives focused on delivering tangible business value.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to scope, prototype, and deploy innovative actuarial solutions.

Pricing Relevance and Technical Leadership

• Apply deep technical understanding of short-term insurance pricing, including GLMs and non-linear modeling techniques.
• Collaborate with the Pricing team by reviewing and advising on model builds and enhancements, ensuring alignment with operational and strategic priorities.
• Ensure that solutions and initiatives within Operational Efficiencies take pricing structures and risk differentiation into account.
• Use your pricing knowledge to help bridge gaps between technical models and real-world business application, particularly in areas like claims cost management, procurement strategy, and telematics-based value extraction.

Contracting, Legal and SLA Management

• Engage with Legal to draft, amend, and apply SLAs, ensuring contractual terms are practical, enforceable, and aligned with operational realities.
• Manage performance conversations with external providers and ensure alignment to KPIs and contractual obligations.

Key Skills and Attributes

• Strong understanding of the short-term insurance value chain end-to-end, with a particular focus on Claims and Pricing.
• Extensive experience in GLMs, statistical modeling, and machine learning.
• Strong ability to prioritise projects based on business value, with the confidence to push back on low-impact initiatives and focus the team’s efforts on high-value opportunities.
• Proven ability to identify business problems, design pragmatic technical solutions, and implement them.
• Excellent SQL (SQL Server, Oracle) and R/R Shiny skills, with the ability to create automated and robust solutions.
• High attention to detail, with the ability to connect seemingly unrelated operational dots to create innovative solutions.
• Strong stakeholder management across business, legal, and external providers.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, able to communicate with both executives and operational teams.
• Sound understanding of actuarial and operational best practices in short-term insurance.
• Self-motivated, dependable, and delivery-focused.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Actuarial Science (minimum requirement).

Experience

• Nearly or newly qualified actuary preferred.
• Minimum of 5–7 years of actuarial experience in short-term insurance.
• Prior experience in managing actuarial professionals is essential.
• Strong exposure to both technical modelling and business implementation essential.
• Proven record of delivering cross-functional or operational improvement initiatives.

Software and Technical Tools

• SQL (SQL Server and/or Oracle) – required
• R and R Shiny – required
• Python – advantageous
• Web-based reporting and dashboarding tools – advantageous
• Familiarity with deployment or implementation coordination with IT/development teams – advantageous

Knowledge and Skills

Personal Attributes

Core Competencies

Build a successful career with us

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.

Turnaround time

The shortlisting process will only start once the application due date has been reached. The time taken to complete this process will depend on how far you progress and the availability of managers. 

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