Santam has completed the migration of its core insurance platform to the cloud, becoming the first insurer in Africa to move its full policy and claims administration system off on-premises infrastructure.
The transition, which has taken more than two years to complete, centres on the insurer’s Guidewire platform – the system that underpins policy management, premium calculation, claims processing, and billing across the business.
The move marks a significant step in Santam’s broader digital transformation, as insurers shift away from legacy systems towards more flexible and scalable technology environments.
Santam’s chief information officer, Sam Nkosi, said the decision was driven by the long-term constraints of traditional infrastructure.
“On-premises infrastructure naturally becomes more expensive, less flexible, and harder to scale over time. Cloud environments, by contrast, provide significantly higher resilience and recovery capabilities, while innovation cycles are much faster, providing a stronger foundation for digital, data, and AI-driven capabilities.”
Santam first implemented Guidewire in 2012 as part of a move away from highly customised legacy systems. The aim was to standardise core operations, improve flexibility, and reduce long-term technology risk.
Guidewire is the platform used to create and manage insurance policies, calculate premiums, process claims, and manage renewals, endorsements, cancellations, billing, and invoices across both policies and claims.
The migration involved moving Santam’s full Guidewire production environment onto the Guidewire Cloud Platform, including the transfer of large policy and claims databases, reconfiguring integrations with downstream systems, and implementing cloud-based security, monitoring, and recovery processes.
Operational shift
Running the platform in the cloud changes how Santam’s teams operate.
“Our teams now spend far less time managing hardware and infrastructure, and more time focusing on business improvements and customer value,” Nkosi said.
“Updates, maintenance, and scaling are handled in a far more automated and predictable way, removing the need for costly, cumbersome, and business-impacting upgrades, and allowing teams to collaborate more closely and respond faster to change.”
Customer impact
Although the migration is largely a back-end change, Santam expects it to improve service delivery over time.
“For customers, this change is not about a new interface, but about better outcomes,” Nkosi said.
“Policyholders can expect more reliable systems with fewer disruptions, faster processing of policies, changes, and claims, quicker rollout of digital features, and improved consistency across channels such as brokers, call centres, and online platforms.”
A key driver of the move is improved system resilience.
“Instead of relying on a single physical location, systems now run across multiple availability zones, with automated backups, built-in recovery processes, and failover mechanisms,” Nkosi said. “This significantly reduces the risk of downtime and allows Santam to recover faster from unexpected events without impacting clients.”
The migration is positioned as part of Santam’s long-term strategy to modernise its operations.
“This investment signals that Santam is focused on long-term resilience and customer experience, not just short-term efficiency,” Nkosi said. “It reflects our intent to serve customers better in an increasingly digital, always-on world, while remaining a stable and trusted insurer.”
