Assupol: Best Life Assurer South Africa 2015

Know your client, keep in touch, and refrain from bells and whistles. Insurance is a fairly straightforward business, or so it should ideally be: collect premiums and offer prompt succour should disaster strike. There is elegance in simplicity and South Africa’s Assupol understands this better than most.

The company offers insurance coverage to people who may not possess large reserves of ready cash with which to absorb setbacks. Assupol realises that it is precisely for this reason the company’s services are sought. Keeping both lines of communication and pay-out times short, the company fully processes claims within 48-hours of receipt.

However, and perhaps more importantly, Assupol also offers instant relief. Clients may use any mobile phone – not just smart ones – to report a claim and can expect an advance payment to cover initial expenses within the hour.

With its peerless agility, Assupol has become the trendsetter in South Africa’s highly competitive insurance market. Though significantly smaller than the behemoths that dominate the insurance industry, Assupol manages to spearhead customer-centric innovations that its competitors are only now waking up to. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Assupol has secured a degree of adulation that borders on the enviable.

Its success in procuring business from a previously underserved demographic is due to teamwork and a focus on the customers’ needs. With a 24/7 on-call phone facility, Assupol allows its customers easy access to a broad range of services aimed at offering close support and counselling in times of need.

In business since 1913, Assupol has grown from a provider of services to government employees – Serving Those Who Serve – to become a leading South African insurance company catering to the general public. Though Assupol remains focused on the provision of premier insurance services to people of more modest means, the company has recently made significant inroads into the middle- and high-income groups where its agility and excellence are appreciated as well.

In all fairness, the CFI.co judging panel cannot resist offering recognition to a company such as Assupol that shakes up an entire industry by inventing a better wheel. Setting out to offer a vastly improved experience to its clients, Assupol streamlined processes and eliminated bottlenecks, coming up with insurance products that satisfy needs in a straightforward manner. Moreover, it did so without recourse to those infamous tiny letters that leave clients bewildered, if not dazed and confused. The judges are pleased indeed to offer Assupol the 2015 Best Life Assurer South Africa Award.