How Principal cut claims intake from days to hours

New claims arrived from nine insurers as emails, PDFs, photos and faxes, each insurer in its own format. Six intake coordinators read every one, re-keyed it into the claims system, chased missing documents and assigned an adjuster by hand.

On a normal week that took two days per claim. In storm season the backlog grew, and the insurers’ contracts called for first contact within 24 hours. An off-the-shelf scanning tool had already been tried; it needed a fixed template for every format, broke on each new one, and the team stopped trusting it.

We spent the first week sitting with the adjusters and coordinators before writing any code, logging every claim that came in: fourteen document types, nine formats, and where the hours actually went. Most of it was re-keying and chasing paperwork.

Then we built around Principal’s existing claims system rather than replacing it. Documents are read and filed automatically, anything the system isn’t sure of goes to a coordinator to confirm, and each milestone ran beside the old process on live claims before the team switched over.

Through the next storm season, every claim reached an adjuster inside the insurers’ 24-hour window, and Principal’s largest client renewed its contract. The intake coordinators now spend their day on the claims that need a person: the review queue and the calls.

Principal has since taken on two more insurers without adding to the intake team. A new insurer’s formats go in within days, not as a new project.