Congratulations to Christopher Appanah from Bryte Insurance who was crowned the winner of the 2023 season.

It’s not an easy task finding the champion of the South African insurance industry. You have to sift through hundreds of applications to narrow the search down to a top 30 and that’s really where the real contest starts. This was the first year where we opted to film the elimination round. This meant getting our top thirty candidates into one room so they could battle it out for a coveted top ten spot. Our friends at Discovery Insure sponsored the event and provided a great backdrop for the tasks which resembled “The Amazing Race” with contestants dashing around the building, solving problems like Hercule Poirot on RedBull-infused Espresso. As the regular judges, Nox Dlamini and I don’t get to attend the elimination rounds normally, so I found it throughly entertaining when the episode aired at the end of March 2023. A highlight for me was the way Mpho “Sales” Machola choked during his presentation. His confidence and effervescent personality wasn’t enough to get him into the top ten but he did get a special mention at the grand finale last week. Check out this interview I did with him a few weeks ago. 

Once we’d picked the top ten, the competition kicked into high gear with some of the toughest tasks we’ve seen in the competition since its inception 9 years ago. Old Mutual Insure sponsored a beautiful studio once again, at their offices in Sandton in Johannesburg. This was to be our home for the next five tasks, all designed to rattle and challenge our young financial services hopefuls.

If you haven’t watched the season yet, check out the trailers in the links below, they’re just a few minutes each and will give you some idea of the challenges that were thrown at the finalists:

Episode 2 – Sponsored by SHA Risk Specialists – Alicia Narainsamy joined us and helped us build up the pressure as a very agitated board of directors grilled the contestants after a cyber attack. 
Episode 3 – Sponsored by SASRIA – Muzi Dladla joined our judging panel as we challenged the teams to come up with sustainable solutions for systemic risks.
Episode 4 – Sponsored by The Insurance Crime Bureau – Garth de Klerk sat with us at the judges’ table as we pressed the contestants to think about collaboration in the insurance market to tackle cross-carrier fraud.
Episode 5 – Sponsored by Marsh – Shivan Hutton brought some heat onto the contestants, challenging them with a climate change inspired task.
Episode 6 – Sponsored by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority – The remaining contestants had to really dig deep on this final task as corporate culture came under the spotlight. Farzana Badat joined us from the regulator on the judging panel.

It’s an immense honour to be asked back every year to be a judge in this competition. Someone asked me at the finale event how I can be so brutal and direct with the contestants. It’s not easy actually, my own personality is way more agreeable than “Judge Dread” (that’s what the contestants call me). I had to base this character on every horrible boss and upset client I’ve ever come across. I think that’s important to acknowledge because those were real people which means the contestants are quite likely to meet tough characters in real life. Those could be members of the press, colleagues or even clients. One can forget about getting a patient, pleasant and affable client in front of you if they’ve just been attacked by cyber criminals, and you’ve just told them they don’t have any cover.

When you’re watching the show at home it’s really easy to forget that there are cameras all around us but that really does heap another layer of angst onto the contestants. At first they are all a bit shaky and self conscious but then something miraculous happens with each challenge. This is perhaps the thing I love most about the competition. It’s all about witnessing the growth happening to individuals. In real life, such growth is often imperceptible, the tyranny of our inboxes and our busy-ness in our businesses means we can’t actually watch the development happen. This is my privilege as the head judge on The Insurance Apprentice.

To all the contestants that have the courage to enter each year, I tip my hat to you. And if you’re someone who hasn’t yet entered but are sitting on the fence – know that this is not an easy thing to do but it is absolutely worth it. If it doesn’t help you in your career (which would be a surprising and practically impossible outcome), you will grow as a person and will build special bonds with people that will last a lifetime. I hope to see you in front of my judges desk next year. Stop thinking about it. Just do it. 

Enter here now.