Looking Past the Mirage of Perfection: What I’ve Learned About Change Management and Capability Building in Reinsurance
When I sit down with chief operating officers and claims leaders, the conversation often drifts toward the dreaded P-word. Yes, an elusive pursuit of perfection, represented by ideas of flawless system migrations, error-free datasets, fully autonomous processing pipelines…
There are only so many things I can say to ambitious leaders about this, and I always feel like a real party pooper when I say it: perfection is a mirage. Oh, and it isn’t achieved via tech.
The goal of operational excellence is not to eliminate every minor friction point, but rather to build a resilient organisation that is able to produce accurate data within its operating systems. And the inconvenient truth is that data doesn’t enter itself. Systems don't configure themselves, and, indeed, workflows don't self-optimise. At its core, operational resilience is a human achievement. So to work on it, you’ve got to look at your culture.
The current state of things
Okay, so I think most leaders who have tried any level of modernisation within their company will be familiar with this scenario. When a new operational tool or automated system is introduced, the claims team pushes back. Hard. It’s frustrating, it leaves everyone on different pages, yet it’s still the most common hurdle I’ve witnessed with clients I’ve worked with.
But let’s look at this through a human-centric lens. In a highly specialised, risk-averse B2B reinsurance ecosystem, that resistance is rarely about being difficult. Claims specialists carry an immense burden of contractual fidelity and regulatory compliance. They are not stupid. They know that a single systemic glitch or an unverified automated field can leak millions of dollars or breach a treaty. Thus, when they resist opaque tools or disruptive workflows, they aren't fighting innovation. They just know better than to dive headfirst into a system they aren’t familiar with.
Capability building is your friend here
I’m not being ambiguous by using the term ‘capability building’ instead of training here. I’ve done this on purpose because I believe there is a crucial difference. In order to successfully manage change and culture, we have to dismantle this traditional corporate understanding of software training. Dropping adjusters into a three-day classroom session, clicking through a sandbox environment, and handing them a user manual does not create adoption. It just doesn’t work that way.
Thus, the focus must shift from one-off training to continuous productivity enablement. System rollouts cannot be treated as IT projects with a fixed completion date. True enablement requires embedding tech-literacy directly into the daily operational culture, teaching adjusters how to critically audit and manage digital tools rather than blindly trusting them.
Power to the adjuster!
This brings us to the operational reality we are seeing across the market. Historically, scaling a reinsurance claims department meant a linear, headcount-heavy calculation. So, if claims volume grew, you hired more people to process the paper. Simple. Today, leading reinsurers are entirely decoupling headcount from volume. We’re talking maximising output metrics and cognitive space per adjuster through intentionally implemented tech, such as AI co-pilots.
What’s more, global reinsurers are moving past the experimental phase and putting this into production. For example, Swiss Re’s deployment of its ClaimsGenAI platform has been running a few years now, and is still going strong on liberating handlers from manual document sorting, allowing human experts to retain absolute control over the high-value stuff.
Sometimes, you’ve got to look back to move forward
Having spent years advising on reinsurance tech implementations, I can absolutely confirm there have been, and needed to be, some big changes in approach. Businesses are realising, even amidst the AI and technology ‘boom’, that their people are really rather important.
Thus, to push through change resistance and build genuine capability, here is what I would do differently now:
I would weaponise resistance
When it comes to resistance, leaders usually panic and try to manage it. But resistance is not often something that is easily suppressed. And, you know what they say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! Or, have them join you. Yes, if you can identify the loudest, most cynical claims experts (which I bet you can) and embed them directly into the vendor selection and system design teams from Day 1, then you turn structural scepticism into rigorous quality assurance. If a system can win over your most defensive claims adjuster, the rest of the organisation will likely follow.
I would banish go-live deadlines in favour of capability milestones
The go-live approach prioritises the system over the user, resulting in platforms that are technically live but culturally rejected. Today, I would tie project funding and executive success metrics strictly to team capability milestones. I would also shift the budget away from upfront tech licensing and reinvest it heavily into ongoing, desk-side productivity enablement, tracking proficiency-lag rather than just deployment-time.
I would prioritise cultural readiness over technical features
I won’t blame any leader for believing that if a tool is objectively superior and makes an adjuster’s life easier, adoption should naturally follow. But I will tell them that they are wrong. This overlooks the psychological impact of automation, such as imposter syndrome or fear of irrelevance, amongst senior handlers. Instead, as a leader, I would explicitly redesign the career pathways and incentive structures of the claims team alongside the technology. If you ask people to adopt behaviours that increase data transparency and efficiency, you must reward them for their analytical judgment, not their processing speed.
Successfully steering a reinsurance organisation through technological change requires moving away from the idea that technology is, or can be, perfect in solving all your operational problems. Systems merely amplify the existing culture. If your culture is fractured or fearful, tech will simply accelerate that dysfunction.
If you’d like more information on change management or capability building, I’m your guy. Have a look at my further resources, or send me a message whenever. I’d be happy to discuss! 👇
Sources:
https://www.insurtechworld.org/post/102mpl4/8-a-practical-roadmap-for-ai-and-insurance-claims