Operational Efficiency: 52,000 Hours Recovered
Recovering 52,000 hours and unlocking $11.5M in financial impact through Celonis Process Intelligence across Life Insurance Operations.
Project Overview
Industry
Healthcare
Capability
Process Intelligence
Business Challenge
Hidden Operational Inefficiency
CHALLENGE
A complex new business journey. No data-backed visibility. Inefficiencies that couldn't be quantified, let alone fixed.
SOLUTION
Real data. Real process flows. IQZ used Celonis to surface what manual discovery missed and turn it into a clear, evidence-backed roadmap for action.
52,000
Claims processed in one week
$3.5M
Cash flow unlocked — measured directly from the data.
$8M
Revenue leakage that had gone undetected now quantified and recovered
$11.5M+
Total financial impact from one PI engagement
Client — A Leading Life Insurance Carrier
An established life insurance carrier managing a high-volume new business operation, our client's Life Operations division handles thousands of policy applications across verification, underwriting, and issuance workflows — a complex, multi-step journey where delays and inefficiencies carry direct financial consequences. Committed to operational excellence and digital transformation, they partnered with IQZ to bring the same analytical rigor to their processes that they apply to their products.
The Challenge
The Life Operations team managed a complex new business journey spanning multiple source systems and teams — including verification, underwriting, and policy issuance — with no reliable, data-backed view of how work actually flowed. Traditional process discovery relied on SME interviews, which captured only a small sample of cases and missed the real-world variations, exceptions, and bottlenecks that drove delays. Without visibility into where deficiencies were arising, where cancellations were slipping through, and where manual effort was concentrated, the organization had no way to act with confidence or at scale.
Manual Process Discovery Limitations
Process discovery relied entirely on SME interviews, capturing only a fraction of real cases and missing the exceptions, rework, and variations that drove the most significant operational costs.
Deficiency Resolution Delays
Long resolution times for deficiency cases were a primary bottleneck in policy issuance, creating downstream delays and increasing the risk of cancellations and revenue loss.
Revenue Leakage from Lost Opportunities
Cancellations, rejections, and unresolved deficiency cases were silently eroding revenue. Without visibility into these patterns, the business had no mechanism to recover lost opportunities or prevent recurrence.
Fragmented Multi-System Data Landscape
Work flowed across multiple source systems and teams with no unified view. Reconnecting these data streams into a coherent process map required a platform capable of stitching together disparate operational data at scale.
No Foundation for Automation or Continuous Improvement
Without a reliable digital footprint of operations, identifying high-value automation candidates was guesswork. There was no mechanism to measure automation impact or monitor bot performance post-deployment.
Our Solution
IQZ deployed Celonis Process Intelligence to reconstruct the Life Operations new business journey using real, raw data — not assumptions. By connecting multiple source systems and surfacing actual process flows through PI graphs, IQZ delivered the visibility the team needed to identify bottlenecks, quantify their financial impact, and act on facts. The result was a phased engagement that moved from discovery to tangible outcomes: recovered hours, unlocked cash flow, and a foundation for continuous improvement.
Architecture: Technology Stack
↓Data Flows Bottom→Up↑
Explore Layers
Hover over any layer to see how each stage processes and transforms claims data in real-time.
Data-Backed Process Reconstruction
IQZ used Celonis Process Intelligence to reconstruct the Life Operations new business journey entirely from raw operational data
Financial Impact Quantification
IQZ translated every process inefficiency into precise financial impact — turning operational findings into an executive investment case.
Automation Opportunity Identification
Precision automation strategy with a prioritized, evidence-based roadmap and measurable ROI built in.
Optimization Strategy
Automated process discovery across multiple source systems
PI graph analysis for bottleneck detection and variant identification
Financial impact modeling per inefficiency and automation candidate
Continuous automation monitoring via Celonis Action Flows
Results
IQZ’s Celonis Process Intelligence engagement with Life Operations delivered $11.5M+ in quantified financial impact, recovered 52,000 hours of manual effort, and produced a prioritized roadmap for automation and continuous improvement. By reconstructing the new business journey from real operational data — across multiple systems and teams — IQZ gave the organization the visibility, evidence, and direction needed to transform how it works.
Hours Recovered
52,000 hours of manual effort recovered through targeted automation of high-volume, low-value activities identified via Celonis Process Intelligence — freeing capacity to handle greater volumes without additional staffing.
Productivity impact
Reduction in Average Throughput Time
0
Implementation excellence achieved
Earlier Deficiency Detection
Deficiencies identified earlier in the new business journey, reducing resolution time and accelerating policy issuance.
Continuous Improvement Foundation
Process Intelligence framework established for ongoing bottleneck detection, automation monitoring, and cross-functional benchmarking.
52,000 Hours Recovered
Automation of manual activities identified through Celonis PI analysis recovered 52,000 hours of operational capacity — enabling the Life Operations team to handle higher volumes without adding headcount.
$3.5M Free Cash Flow Unlocked
$3.5M in free cash flow was recovered by reducing processing and verification turnaround times and detecting deficiencies earlier in the new business lifecycle — improvements quantified directly from process data.
$8M Revenue Leakage Avoided
Hidden revenue loss from cancellations, rejections, and unresolved deficiency cases was surfaced and quantified through PI analysis, enabling targeted interventions that recovered approximately $8M in at-risk revenue.
Faster Policy Issuance
Earlier deficiency detection and streamlined verification workflows accelerated the end-to-end policy issuance timeline, improving both customer experience and operational throughput.
Scalable Process Intelligence Platform
The Celonis PI deployment, automation frameworks, and monitoring dashboards established in this engagement form a reusable foundation for extending Process Intelligence across additional Life Operations workflows and beyond.
Technology Excellence
Why Process Intelligence Drives Measurable Execution Gains
Data-backed process reconstruction across multiple systems
Celonis Process Intelligence deployment and configuration
Bottleneck detection and deficiency root-cause analysis
Automation candidate identification with financial impact modeling
Continuous process monitoring and improvement framework
Celonis Execution Management System (EMS)
Celonis Execution Management System (EMS)
Life Operations source systems (verification, underwriting, policy issuance)
Celonis Action Flows for automation deployment and monitoring
PI graph dashboards for executive and operations reporting
Multi-system data extraction and process model unification layer
Industry Impact
Demonstrates that a single Process Intelligence engagement can deliver measurable financial returns, eliminate operational blind spots, and build the visibility infrastructure needed to scale Life Operations without adding headcount.
Process Intelligence Replaces Anecdotal Operations with Evidence
Proves that real-time PI graph visibility can surface bottlenecks in hours that previously required weeks of manual investigation — giving operations teams a data-backed foundation for the first time.
52,000 Hours Recovered Through Targeted Automation
Establishes that high-volume, low-value manual effort is eliminable at scale — replacing assumption-driven process knowledge with automation candidates identified through hard evidence.
Earlier Deficiency Detection Accelerates Policy Issuance
Demonstrates that PI-driven visibility into case stall points enables underwriting and verification teams to intervene earlier, handle greater volume, and operate with greater consistency — without additional headcount.
$11.5M in Quantified Financial Impact from One Engagement
Proves that Process Intelligence delivers precision-level financial accountability — $3.5M in free cash flow, $8M in avoided revenue leakage — and a scalable visibility infrastructure for sustained improvement.
Looking Forward
Predictive deficiency detection
End-to-end policy issuance automation
Cross-functional process benchmarking
Digital workforce expansion across Life Operations
Analytical insights for strategic capacity planning
Partner with IQZ Systems
IQZ doesn’t begin with assumptions — we begin with data. This engagement exemplifies our approach to Process Intelligence: using Celonis to reconstruct real workflows, quantify the true cost of inefficiency, and build a clear, prioritized path to improvement. We bring the technical depth to connect complex multi-system environments, the insurance operations knowledge to interpret what the data means, and the delivery discipline to turn findings into outcomes that move the business.
Celonis Process Intelligence Expertise
IQZ brings certified, hands-on Celonis expertise — from EMS configuration and data extraction through PI graph analysis and Action Flow deployment. Our team knows how to get from raw operational data to actionable process insight faster than any generic implementation partner.
Insurance Operations Domain Knowledge
We understand the end-to-end life insurance new business lifecycle — from application intake through underwriting, verification, and policy issuance. That domain depth means we ask the right questions, interpret PI findings in business context, and prioritize the improvements that matter most to operations leaders.
Financial Impact-Led Methodology
IQZ connects every process finding to a financial outcome. Rather than delivering a process map, we deliver a business case — quantifying the value of each bottleneck resolved, hour recovered, and automation deployed. This approach ensures executive alignment from discovery through delivery.
Operational Excellence at Scale
From deficiency detection to automation monitoring, IQZ engineers for sustained operational performance. Our engagements don’t end at go-live — we build the monitoring frameworks and continuous improvement discipline that keep results compounding over time.
Ready to find out where your operations are losing time and money?
IQZ combines Celonis Process Intelligence expertise with deep insurance operations knowledge to surface the inefficiencies costing your business the most — and build the roadmap to eliminate them.