Technical Claims Advocate

Posting Description

Technical Claims Advocate

Are you set to progress your career? Do you succeed in a lively and team-oriented environment? We are hiring!

Aon Re Africa seeks to hire a Technical Claims Advocate. This position offers a hybrid setup, allowing work from home or our Sandton head office.

The Claims Advocate is responsible for the accurate, timely, and professional administration of reinsurance claims across Facultative, South Africa Treaty, and Rest of Africa portfolios. This role requires full ownership of the claim handling process, including claim registration, reserve maintenance, notifying reinsurers, managing recoveries, cash calls, reinstatement premiums, following up on idle claims, claims sessioning, communication with partners, and evidence-based file management.

The role also assists Finance and Technical Accounts by making sure each material claim movement is accurately logged in approved systems. It is reconciled with supporting documents and ready for review during monthly governance, audit preparation, and aged balance correction when claims-related balances affect fiduciary exposure.

Aon is in the business of better decisions

At Aon, we shape decisions for the better to protect and enrich the lives of people around the world.

As an organization, we are united through trust as one engaged team, and we are passionate about helping our colleagues and clients succeed.

What the day will look like

Every day, you will collaborate with a world-class team to ensure flawless claims administration and enhance our clients' experience.

Claims Administration, System Field and File Ownership

• Register, process and maintain reinsurance claims accurately and timeously on the approved systems, with Grids/Inview treated as the authoritative operational record where applicable.
• Confirm the completeness and accuracy of claim documentation and promptly follow up with brokers, clients, reinsurers, and adjusters for any missing information.
• Maintain current electronic claim files with correspondence, calculations, approvals, bordereaux, settlement evidence, and supporting documentation kept in accordance with internal and regulatory requirements.
• Ensure that every material claim is clear from the system record, supporting documentation, correspondence trail, tracker commentary, and reporting output without depending on undocumented personal knowledge.

Reinsurer Alerts, Recoveries, and Cash Requests

• Prepare and send claim advice, bordereaux, and supporting documents to reinsurers or intermediaries following contract terms and established deadlines.
• Notify reinsurers of claims promptly and monitor acknowledgement, response, settlement and query status through to closure.
• Take initiative to follow up on pending claim recoveries and cash call collections from both local and international reinsurers.
• Track and reconcile claim recoveries received against expected recoveries, advancing delays, disputes or discrepancies where appropriate.
• Recover claims from reinsurers and support the timeous settlement of client claims.

Reserving, Reinstatements and Claims Sessioning

• Update and maintain claim reserves according to the relevant cover note, treaty wording, facultative placement, signed contract, and internal guidelines.
• Regularly assess reserve adequacy and secure necessary confirmations or adjustments to reserves from brokers, underwriters, clients, and reinsurers.
• Ensure reserve adjustments are recorded quickly and shared with Technical Accounts and Finance for precise financial reporting.
• Calculate reinstatement premiums where applicable and adjust reinstatement premiums when actual premiums for the covered period are received from clients.
• Allocate and distribute claims accurately among treaties, layers, lines of business, underwriting years, and facultative placements.
• Correctly apply deductibles, limits, co-insurance, aggregates, retentions and other contractual provisions in claims calculations.

Idle Claims, Aged Balances and Remediation Field

• Monitor idle, inactive, long outstanding or dormant claims and ensure each matter has a current status, accountable owner, clear next action and target resolution date.
• Take initiative to contact brokers, clients, reinsurers, and adjusters in order to move forward, settle, or close outstanding claims.
• Advance material, dormant, disputed or ageing matters early so that they do not become unmanaged fiduciary exposure.
• Link claim-related debtor, creditor, recovery or settlement issues to the applicable aged balance governance process or remediation tracker where they contribute to aged fiduciary exposure.
• Support the development of sustainable business-as-usual controls so that claims balances remain visible, owned, actioned and brought up in the ordinary course of governance.

Technical Accounts, Finance, and Reporting Assistance

• Support Technical Accounts and Finance by handling claim-related entries, reconciliations, allocations, and providing supporting documentation.
• Ensure that paid claims, outstanding claims, reserves, recoveries, cash calls and reinstatement movements are correctly represented in the technical accounts.
• Support month-end and year-end processes by providing claims reports, reconciliations, commentary and backing documentation as required.
• Work with Finance to resolve mismatches, debtor age analysis items, recoveries, reconciling items and outstanding balances relating to claims.
• Prepare regular and ad hoc claims, reserve, recovery and statistics reports for management, brokers, clients and reinsurers using agreed formats.
• Track and emphasize trends, delays, risks and problem areas in claims, reserves, recoveries, idle files and settlement behavior.

Client, Broker and Reinsurer Interaction

• Build and maintain professional working relationships with clients, brokers, reinsurers, adjusters, and internal collaborators.
• Respond promptly, clearly and professionally to claims queries and ensure that communication is transparent, complete and evidence based.
• Communicate with brokers about cash calls, recoveries, reinsurer responses, client inquiries, and settlement issues.
• Recognize potential challenges early and offer proactive help to brokers, clients, and reinsurers to handle claims inquiries effectively and courteously.
• Support client or reinsurer meetings, internal reviews and audit requests by providing accurate claim status, commentary and supporting documents.

Continuous Improvement, Controls and Projects

• Ensure all claim activities align with internal policies, reinsurance contracts, regulatory requirements, data protection standards and approved claims processes.
• Contribute to the ongoing improvement of claims processes, controls, service levels, reporting quality and system usage.
• Support the implementation of new clients, treaties, systems, reports or processes from a claims' perspective.
• Engage in claims audits, operational assessments, remediation monitoring, special projects, and other occasional work assignments.
• Support business development indirectly by strengthening client confidence through reliable claims' administration, proactive recovery approach, and high-quality collaborator engagement.

Skills and experience that will lead to success

Qualifications

• Grade 12 (matric)
• An appropriate NQF level 4 FAIS / short-term insurance qualification.
• Regulatory Exam (RE5) – advantageous, or willingness to obtain within an agreed timeframe.
• Preferably a relevant bachelor’s degree in Finance, Law or Insurance and Risk Management.

Knowledge

• Strong understanding of reinsurance claims, reinsurance contracts, and the reinsurance market.
• Knowledge of treaty and facultative placements, claim bordereaux, cash calls, recoveries, reserves, and reinstatement premiums.
• Fundamental accounting knowledge and the capability to grasp how claims movements impact debtors, creditors, recoveries, reconciliations, and financial reporting.
• Working understanding of system field, data integrity, audit evidence and governance requirements in a fiduciary environment.
• Experience across various business areas, preferably including bonds or guarantees and engineering risks like CAR, EAR, and machinery breakdown.

Skills and Attributes

• Strong analytical, technical and problem-solving ability.
• High attention to detail and a disciplined approach to documentation, follow-up and evidence retention.
• Clear written and verbal communication skills with the ability to manage clients, brokers, reinsurers, and internal collaborators professionally.
• Ability to influence outcomes, bring up issues constructively and drive closure of outstanding matters.
• Strong numeracy, reconciliation awareness and comfort working with claim values, shares, limits, deductibles, currencies and recoveries.
• Proficiency in digital tools, including solid skills in Microsoft Word and Excel, and readiness to engage with authorized claims, finance, and reporting platforms.
• Accountability, ownership and sound judgement, with a willingness to test AI-supported outputs and system reports rather than relying on them without review.

Experience

• 3–5 years’ experience in a claims' administration, claims technician or technical claims' role within short-term insurance, reinsurance, broking, insurer or reinsurer environments.
• Experience managing reinsurance treaty and facultative claims, including claim registration, documentation review, reinsurer notification, reserve updates, recoveries and settlement follow-up.
• Experience with claims sessioning, including distribution across treaties, layers, lines of business, underwriting years, and facultative placements.
• Experience in interacting with clients, brokers, and reinsurers, including handling queries, cash calls, claim notifications, bordereaux, and monitoring recoveries.
• Experience assisting with audits, operational reviews, management reporting, or reconciliations will be advantageous.

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