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Delivering faster claims outcomes, strengthening operational control, and transforming client experience at scale.
NPS IMPROVED TO
69 from 8.8
OVER 4 YEARS
75%
OF FUNERAL CLAIMS PAID WITHIN 30 MIN
70.7 FTE
EQUIVALENT CAPACITY ABSORBED WITH NO INCREASE IN HEADCOUNT
46%
REDUCTION IN OVERTIME COSTS
61M RANDS
SAVED THROUGH DATA-LED INSOURCING INITIATIVES
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND CAPABILITY STRENGTHENED
“ActiveOps has helped Nedbank Insurance to merge three businesses that were previously managed separately. Today, the management team has the same business planning capability and there is a science behind management decisions.”
Angela Vernes
Head of Operations, Nedbank Insurance
Stories from Nedbank Insurance
Hear from leaders, operations managers, and frontline employees across Nedbank Insurance on how greater operational clarity improved claims performance, empowered teams, and strengthened client trust.
The challenge
Strengthening Insurance operations to deliver strategic and client outcomes
Nedbank Insurance has been a long-standing customer of ActiveOps. As Nedbank Insurance business grew and evolved, leadership recognized an opportunity to strengthen how operations supported both strategic priorities and day-to-day execution. In 2021, Life Insurance, Short-Term Insurance, and Brokerage operations were unified into a single structure to create a more client-focused and resilient Insurance business.
The ambition was not only to improve efficiency. It was to ensure that operational decisions consistently drove the right outcomes for clients, employees, and the wider Nedbank Group.
The operating environment was complex. Claims, policy servicing, underwriting, broker support, and contact centre teams were nationally dispersed and working across multiple systems. Volumes fluctuated, particularly in sensitive journeys such as funeral, death, and retrenchment claims. Hybrid working arrangements were becoming embedded. At the same time, leadership needed to absorb growth responsibly, reduce overtime dependency, and identify where automation and insourcing could create sustainable capacity.
Operational data was fragmented and often retrospective. Leaders could review historic performance, but they could not always see where work was accumulating, how capacity was aligned to priority client journeys, or whether daily decisions were supporting longer term objectives.
To succeed, Nedbank Insurance needed a way to connect day-to-day operational decisions with strategic outcomes. Leaders needed trusted data that could answer critical questions:
Key strategic questions included:
- How can we clearly connect operational performance to client experience outcomes?
- Where are the bottlenecks that consume the most effort and delay service?
- Are we balancing productivity with employee wellbeing and sustainable workloads?
- How confident are we in our capacity, utilization, and workforce planning decisions?
- Which processes are best suited for automation and insourcing?
- How do we embed continuous improvement and deliver measurable value to the business?
Creating this clarity across Insurance operations became central to improving turnaround times, strengthening client experience, and maintaining cost discipline.
“You can’t make decisions without understanding what problem you’re actually trying to solve. And you can only know that if you’ve got data. So ActiveOps data is critical to what we do.”
Ntokozo Ndumo
Process Team Leader, Nedbank Insurance
The Solution – ActiveOps
Nedbank Insurance partnered with ActiveOps to establish a consistent, data-led operating discipline across Insurance operations. Through ActiveOps Decision Intelligence and the Active Operations Management (AOM) methodology, leaders gained the clarity required to manage capacity, productivity, and performance across claims, policy servicing, underwriting, broker support, and contact centre teams in real time.
ActiveOps delivered a single, trusted operational view across the organization, enabling the business to move beyond delayed or fragmented reporting and instead make confident, data-driven decisions. Managers could clearly see where work was flowing well, where bottlenecks existed, and where effort was not translating into client value. This visibility enabled informed decisions at every level, from frontline managers to senior executives. The Decision Intelligence from
ActiveOps became a core enabler of operational excellence, supporting effective planning, prioritization, and alignment between operational execution and strategic goals.
“Our KPIs are very much geared to ensuring that we deliver great customer service to our end customer and that we really support that customer journey. What ActiveOps has allowed us to do is to plan. We plan to deliver certain milestones, which enhances the customer experience.”
Brevynn Coetzee
Procurement Manager, Nedbank Insurance
To sustain and scale capability, Nedbank Insurance established a Centre of Excellence. The COE maintains data integrity, embeds AOM practices, supports employee development, and drives continuous improvement across teams.
Supporting Nedbank Insurance’s Data Transformation and Operational Excellence Journey
With ActiveOps, Nedbank Insurance strengthened its ability to understand how work was performed across the business. By combining performance data with effort and capacity insight, teams were able to identify which processes mattered most and where improvement would have the greatest impact.
Process analysts and the Centre of Excellence used Decision Intelligence to focus on key processes, distinguish between value-adding and low-impact activities, and guide process optimization and automation initiatives. Standard times were established across core tasks using the Standard Optimizer, creating a consistent and fair view of effort aligned to best practice.
Automation initiatives were guided by data rather than assumption. Bot performance was measured alongside human effort, enabling the business to introduce effective automation, decommission underutilized bots, and maintain the right balance between technology and human interaction.
“Activeops has been my reliable partner in assisting us to achieve efficiencies and effectiveness. Being able to look at data, come up with solutions, such as automation solutions, bringing in new capabilities that enabled us to support the business, create the capacity that they need to be able to streamline and reduce as much waste as possible. That is what I am most proud of.”
Ntokozo Ndumo
Process Team Leader, Nedbank Insurance
Elevating client experience
A key priority of the transformation was improving outcomes for clients across critical journeys. By defining task-level KPIs and SLAs, Nedbank Insurance ensured that every client interaction contributed to overall satisfaction.
Decision Intelligence enabled teams to identify delays, rebalance workloads, and improve turnaround times where it mattered most. One of the most impactful examples was funeral claims, where speed and sensitivity are essential. By deeply understanding the end-to-end journey and focusing improvement efforts on the highest-impact activities, the business significantly reduced settlement times.
Today, 75% of funeral claims are paid within 30 minutes, far exceeding the original 12-hour SLA, helping clients receive timely support during emotionally difficult moments.
Empowering employees and strengthening culture
The transformation extended beyond process and performance to people. The visibility helped leaders manage workloads more sustainably, reduce overtime, and support hybrid working practices.
The business invested in continuous learning and capability development, supported by data that enabled fair performance measurement and informed workforce planning. This helped foster a culture of accountability, engagement, and innovation across teams.
Pay-for-Productivity pilot
To continue to support employee empowerment and engagement, Nedbank Insurance introduced a pilot Pay-for-Productivity initiative, underpinned by trusted effort and performance data from ActiveOps. The pilot has already demonstrated positive outcomes, including improved accountability, clearer performance expectations, and more informed workforce planning.
“The team understands that it is a platform to manage burnout as well and it ensures that we deliver what we say we’re going to deliver.”
Brevynn Coetzee
Procurement Manager, Nedbank Insurance
The Results
By embedding operational data into everyday decision-making, ActiveOps became integral to Nedbank Insurance’s transformation journey. It provided the structure and confidence required to manage performance deliberately, significantly improve client journeys, adapt as conditions evolved, and sustain results at scale.
The results were measurable:
- Client experience significantly improved, with Net Promoter Score increasing from 8.8 to 69 over four years
- Turnaround times improved across critical journeys, including funeral claims reduced from 48 hours to 24 hours to 12 hours SLAs over 4 years period, and 75 percent paid within 30 minutes
- Death and retrenchment claims turnaround reduced from 10 days to 7 days
- Policy servicing reduced from four days to same day
- Increased business volumes equivalent to 70.7 FTE managed without increasing workforce size
- Insourcing initiatives delivered R61 million in cost savings
- Overtime reduced by 46 percent, improving costs and supporting improved employee wellbeing
- Stronger workforce planning, utilization, and fair performance measurement enabled through standardized effort data
- Employee engagement and capability strengthened, as demonstrated in the improved employee survey results
“ActiveOps has helped Nedbank Insurance unlock competitive advantage.” said Candice Van Rheede, Manager – Centre of Excellence at Nedbank Insurance.
These results established a strong foundation for ongoing transformation and set the stage for continued innovation in operational management, workforce empowerment, and client service excellence.
Looking ahead
Nedbank Insurance will continue to deepen its use of Decision Intelligence across operations, strengthening automation, workforce planning, and capability development. With a strong operational foundation in place, the business is well positioned to support future growth and evolving client needs.
ActiveOps remains a strategic partner and capability in this journey, supporting Nedbank Insurance as it continues to connect operational execution with long-term outcomes, empower employees, and consistently elevate the client experience.
The Centre of Excellence remains central to this journey, supporting continuous improvement and the evolution of initiatives such as Pay-for-Productivity.
About Nedbank Insurance
Nedbank Insurance (NI) offers a comprehensive range of product solutions both on and off license, covering four broad product categories, namely Credit Life, Simple Risk, Investments and Non-Life. This ensures that clients, ranging from individuals and their families to large corporations, can enjoy tailored solutions that provide them with everyday.
The strength of the Nedbank strategy is to create a great client experience and grow market share in key value-creating areas enabled by Technology, People and Brand delivered through process/operational excellence.
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