To ensure operational excellence across the Steadfast Underwriting group, Katrin and her team work continuously to optimise the customer experience and employee engagement, while balancing cost control with business growth.
However, the complexities of ongoing regulatory change and inflexible legacy software systems were making it incredibly difficult to maintain this balance. At a certain point, Katrin realised it was time to innovate their approach and she began exploring the potential of RPA. Initially, she was sceptical. “When we first found out about robotics, it actually felt too good to be true,” she explains.
One Steadfast agency specialises in motor vehicle insurance for high-end luxury cars. Underwriters have to find the average values for these vehicles, based on make, model and year. While this is a relatively simple process in the greater underwriting lifecycle, it typically requires five minutes per vehicle. Reducing that timeframe to a few seconds can save a considerable amount of time and money in the long run.
When Katrin watched the demo, she was amazed at the RPA bot’s speed. “We had to ask to slow down the recording of the bot’s actions, because it is so fast that you can blink and miss it. The five minute process was reduced to a two-second process. That was hugely impressive.”
Since introducing their policy renewal bot, the agency has been able to process a much higher volume of renewals without increasing headcount. To achieve the same output, they would have had to hire an extra two or three people.
Rather than just picking one process to optimise and automate, and focusing all your energy on that, rather equip your organisation to build a repository of processes for continuous improvement. This is how you scale automation and transformation through your enterprise.
Beyond the time and cost saving, Katrin is thrilled with the solution’s positive impact on both the employee and customer experience. “Now, no-one can imagine life without the bot working alongside them. The thought actually scares them! It’s really interesting because, before, staff were scared that the bot might take away their job. Now, they are scared of the bot being taken away from them.”
