Baloise Quadruples STP with AI & Automation

Driving significant improvement in document processing efficiency and straight-through processing (STP) rate with Liberty IDP

Delivering Straight-through Processing (STP)

The challenge

Baloise Group is a European insurance company founded in 1863, which now employs 8,000 people across its operations in Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg. Baloise offer a complete service package via their smart finance and insurance solutions.

In 2020, Baloise’s Belgian Operational Support team which is based in Antwerp, had challenges with their document processing workflows. With an automation rate of approximately 15%, there was extensive manual processing of around 11,000 documents (emails and paper mail combined) arriving daily. Even minor inefficiencies in the process multiplied into significant operational bottlenecks and this affected internal workflows and customer response times.

Delivering Straight-through Processing (STP)

In 2020, Baloise implemented Liberty IDP to automate the processing of all inbound communications. The original system was designed to classify incoming documents (both emails and scanned paper mail) and extract key information, such as policy or claim numbers. It created appropriate tasks in Baloise’s systems and routed these to the correct departments to take action.

“Liberty IDP has transformed how we handle document processing at Baloise. The journey from 15% to 65% automation wasn’t just about technology – it required a true understanding of our processes to guide the AI to work smarter. The impact is that we’ve achieved significant cost efficiencies, created a more responsive service for our customers and greater flexibility within our team.”

Caroline Raes

Teamleader Operational Support Transversaal, Baloise Group

The solution

“What impressed me most was how the Liberty IDP team invested time to understand our unique challenges rather than just implementing a standard solution. I’m convinced we haven’t reached our ceiling yet, there’s still potential to push our STP rate even higher.”

Caroline Raes

Teamleader Operational Support Transversaal, Baloise Group

The result

  • Significant reduction of manual workload by automating 65% of document processing
  • Cost savings from automation
  • Quicker document routing to appropriate departments, cutting response times for customers
  • Accuracy as the false positive rate dropped to 2.5%, matching the reliability of human processors
  • Enhanced employee experience with broader skill sets and greater flexibility, moving beyond siloed specialisations to manage diverse tasks
  • Improved customer experience benefitting from faster service which is more consistent and more seamless
  • Scalability handling high-volume, enterprise-level operations.
Continuous improvement mindset

The team are learning that the power of AI alone isn’t enough: The most dramatic improvements came when combining AI with human expertise and process knowledge.

Baloise continues to see potential for further improvement in their document processing, believing they can push their automation rate up to 75% by further refining their processes and utilising the Liberty IDP implementation. The ultimate goal is end-to-end automation, enabling AI to fully resolve simple customer queries automatically, instead of routing to a person and waiting to be processed. So, for example, if a broker sends an email on Saturday night, they might get an immediate response, without waiting for staff to arrive on Monday morning.

Impact

Quadrupled STP

from 15% to 65%

11,000 Documents

processed daily

Workforce Flexibility

increased automation creating capacity to develop more versatile teams

Boost your operational efficiency

Achieve higher automation rates, reduce manual workload and enhance customer response times

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