Client

Echo Re was founded in 2008 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of the German DEVK Group. Its treaty reinsurance portfolio covers all P&C and a broad range of specialty lines of business from cedents in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Challenge

Echo Re’s claims operations relied on manual processes and SharePoint, lacking workflow automation, audit trails, and integration with core systems. This led to inefficiencies, delayed approvals and limited financial transparency.

Solution

risktec partnered with Echo Re to design and implement Claims Workbench (CWB) - a cloud-based, centralized claims management platform built from scratch using an agile approach. Key features include:

• Cloud Migration: transition from on-prem to Microsoft Azure for scalability, robustness and security.
• Workflow Automation: structured claims creation, claim movements and approval processes with audit trails.
• API Integration: real-time data exchange with SICS and ADEPT for improved accuracy and transparency.
• Straight Through Processing: complete, risk-based no-touch processing of ADEPT messages based on pre-defined thresholds and auto-approvers.
• User-Centric Design: intuitive interface consolidating documents, approvals, and booking figures, as well as a clear overview of responsibilities and status.

Impact

• Efficiency Gains: at least a 0.5 FTE efficiency gain, with the expectation of even greater improvements in the future with growth and further e-messaging impact.
• Improved Governance: comprehensive auditability and compliance tracking.
• Enhanced User Experience: faster turnaround times and streamlined navigation.
• Scalable Foundation: ready for future enhancements, including AI-driven document classification and advanced analytics.
• More flexibility: the customization of the Searching function offers great flexibility and the gain in efficiency and quality comparing to the previous solutions is very significant.
• Work organization: due to the custom dashboards and report, the organization of the work is facilitated and allows the team to better distribute the work and allows a process ownership and accountability.
• Better Reporting & Analytics: higher-quality claim data supports decision-making.

Lessons Learned

• Early stakeholder engagement is critical
• Precisely identifying requirements, defining the tool’s structure, and establishing sound processes are key to success
• Data migration requires rigorous planning
• Integration complexity should not be underestimated
• User adoption depends on collaboration and support
• Cloud migration adds strategic value

Conclusion

The implementation of CWB marked a significant step in modernizing claims operations and aligning technology with business priorities. By replacing manual processes with automated workflows, integrating core systems, and migrating infrastructure to Azure Cloud, the solution delivered measurable efficiency gains, improved governance, and enhanced user experience. No-touch processing of ADEPT messages is something only few reinsurers achieved at this time.

As a result, the handling of claims processes is faster, more efficient and the data quality has improved significantly. Furthermore, due to the new capabilities of this tool and the higher-quality claim data provided, the decision-making process is quicker and more accurate.

Looking ahead, the next phase focuses on leveraging AI capabilities to further optimize operations, such as extracting key figures from contracts, automatic linking to SICS, classifying document types, and enabling advanced search and analysis across documents and emails. Continuous UX enhancements will ensure the platform remains intuitive and adaptable to evolving business needs. These advancements will position Echo Re for even greater scalability, data-driven decision-making, and operational excellence in the reinsurance sector.