End-to-end workflow redesign is key to AI adoption: Swiss Re's Baacke

Swiss Re Corporate Solutions’ Tina Baacke explains why AI adoption depends on redesigning workflows, improving data and preserving human judgement.

Key points:
Redesign before automating
Scale what proves value
Data quality is critical

“Start with the business problem, not the technology.” That is the advice from Tina Baacke, head Germany & Austria at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions to companies looking to turn artificial intelligence from an experiment into something that changes how their business works.

“AI needs to solve a real pain point and create measurable value – whether that is better client service, improved decision-making, greater consistency or higher productivity,” Baacke, told FERMA Forum Today.

As insurers move beyond isolated AI tools, Baacke argues the bigger opportunity lies not in automating individual tasks, but in redesigning whole processes around the outcome the business is trying to achieve.

“I think the key is not just adding more innovative tools, but looking at an entire business process and asking how it could work differently,” she said. “That means redesigning workflows end-to-end rather than automating isolated tasks within an existing process.”

Swiss Re is applying that thinking to selected underwriting, claims and operational workflows. International programmes provide a particularly complex example, with a single global programme potentially involving multiple countries, local policies, regulatory requirements, handovers and stakeholders.

Redesign the entire workflow

Historically, that complexity has meant significant manual work and back-and-forth. Swiss Re is now redesigning the lifecycle as one connected, data-driven process, from onboarding through local policy issuance and servicing.

Automated Local Policies are one part of that work, combining data-driven rules, automation and AI-enabled workflows to reduce manual handovers.

“This is exactly what we mean by end-to-end transformation,” Baacke said. “AI is not sitting alongside the process; it is a key part of the process itself.”

The ambition is tangible. Swiss Re Corporate Solutions wants to reduce local policy issuance from around 25 days to within five days, against what Baacke said is an industry average of about 45 days. She stressed that five days is a target, not a guaranteed service level.

“You cannot achieve that simply by making individual existing steps faster,” she said. “You have to rethink the entire process – where information enters, how it flows between teams and markets, where decisions are made and which activities really require human intervention.”

“The ultimate test is whether clients and brokers feel the difference: faster and more transparent service, greater consistency and more time with our experts."

A key step is turning relevant information into structured, reusable data so straightforward activities can move with less manual handling.

“Technology alone is not enough,” Baacke added. “Process redesign, data quality, adoption and the operating model all have to come together.”

Faster, clearer, consistent

The business case ultimately rests on whether clients and brokers notice the difference.

Swiss Re Corporate Solutions’ aim is to make International Programmes easier to navigate through faster service, greater transparency and more consistent execution across markets. Instead of clients or brokers chasing updates, the ambition is to provide greater visibility through the programme lifecycle.

“The ultimate test is whether clients and brokers feel the difference: faster and more transparent service, greater consistency and more time with our experts on the issues where human judgement really matters.”

That last point is central to Swiss Re’s approach. Automation is most useful, Baacke said, in repetitive, rules-based and information-heavy work, freeing specialists to spend more time on complex cases, local market nuances, client interaction and problem-solving.

“Human expertise remains at the centre of the process,” she said. “Commercial insurance is fundamentally a people’s business built around expertise and relationships; individual risks, clients or markets can’t always be reduced to a standardised transaction.”

Human judgement stays

That balance between automation and expertise remains critical, particularly where local regulation and individual market conditions require deep knowledge.

“Our approach is therefore augmentation rather than replacement,” Baacke said. “AI supports experts in making better-informed and more consistent decisions, while accountability remains with our people.”

But deciding where AI can add value is only part of the challenge. Baacke said insurers also need the foundations to make it work at scale. “AI only delivers sustainable value when it is supported by reliable data, integrated technology and robust governance and controls.”

How AI is introduced into the business matters just as much. “Adoption is just as important as the technology itself,” she said. “If AI is bolted onto an existing process without changing how people work, you risk creating exactly that additional layer of complexity.”

That also means being selective about which applications move beyond experimentation.

“We need to remain disciplined about measuring business impact and scaling what works, rather than pursuing AI simply because the technology is available now,” she emphasised.

Baacke expects the industry to keep moving away from individual AI tools towards AI embedded directly into core insurance workflows.

“The real differentiator will therefore not simply be who has access to AI, but who can successfully combine technology, data, process redesign and human expertise to create tangible business and client value.”

Tina Baacke is the head of Germany & Austria at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions. 

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