Map critical workflows: Identify bottlenecks in underwriting, claims, and customer onboarding using value-stream analysis. For instance, 26% of insurers cite process redesign as a top efficiency lever. Prioritize quick wins: Especially in the beginning of any program, quick wins energizes project and user teams. When the organizations sees improvement happening quickly, it’s easier to achieve buy-in across the organization and garner support for ongoing projects. Which areas to target will vary by insurer, market and current organizational issues. Suggested target areas with immediate ROI: Automate claims triage Automate submission intake processing and testing (In good order, appetite and clearance testing) Leverage analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to review and stack rank submissions to prioritize underwriting appeal. Identify and implement digital technology that can speed processing, such as AI Vision to augment OCR processing of submitted PDFs. Identify transactions that can leverage straight-through processing such as commodity or clean underwriting submissions. Identify distribution management functionality that would improve agent/broker relationships Identify leakage points in both underwriting and claims. Identify new channels that would be more likely to delight third parties such as agentic processing. Stage 1 Diagnose High-Impact Friction Points PS ADVISORY: Closing the Friction Gap The initial step involves identifying and prioritizing the friction points that have the most significant impact on the combined ratio. Usually these points are well known by staff and are usually fairly easily identified, especially when an insurer is just starting to address friction within their organization, there is generally a pent up demand for improvement. What often is not known, is the impact across the organization. People will know how friction impacts their role but are unaware of the impact across the organization. This diagnosis process is often eye-opening, giving context to the impact across the insurer and fosters both collaboration and communication between internal groups. 6