Client

A leading global reinsurance company asked the MBE Consulting team to review their actuarial operations. Our analysis and recommendations were initially implemented for the client’s statutory quarterly valuation process. 

Challenge

The actuarial team faced significant challenges with process consistency and efficiency negatively impacting both the quality and timeliness of their deliverables. The management team shared their vision and their three main objectives with us which were to:

  • improve accuracy of numbers to reduce rework;
  • reduce process lead time; and
  • implement process resilience

Approach

Exploration

We began the project by examining how they are performing across the six enablers we measure within our Actuarial Performance Management Assessment.

The results of the APM Assessment showed that the client was underperforming across two APM enablers: Process and Performance Management. The two major issues identified through the Assessment showed that:

  • processes were not properly documented and
  • operational (individual and team) performance was not actively monitored.

Workshops 

As part of the long-term plan to transform their processes the client asked us to run a pilot of our recommendations and improvements for their quarterly statutory valuation process. We conducted workshops with the valuation team to better understand the process from their viewpoint, including how it was being executed, the system and tools used, current workarounds and challenges.

Stage One – Current State Workshops

The purpose of these workshops was to gain a full understanding of the current process being used by the team. This open-style forum allowed us to identify where and why the reworks were happening during the process, where hand-offs were taking place, and which process steps led to bottlenecks.

Stage Two – Future State Workshops

We reiterated the three key management objectives. This established a positive and engaged approach with the team. As a result we identified 26 improvement opportunities.

Results

  • The workshops clearly identified issues and plan of action
  • Both management and team engaged and united in their conviction to embed a change in how they operated 
  • A future plan of action was set out to roll out across more processes

Next steps 

The pilot led to the client engaging us to apply the same approach across all of their processes.To achieve their ultimate goal of an automated future state, we recommended an evolutionary phased approach to iteratively shift team capacity, from running the process to improvement activities gradually increasing the time available for actuarial analysis.

Testimonial

“Working with MBE Consulting has been an eye-opening experience. The workshops definitely facilitated valuable discussions on our current processes. This exercise has helped us identify and prioritise areas of inefficiences. We are looking forward to working with MBE to embed how we operate in the future.“

Head of Actuarial