Introduction
A leading financial services provider in Africa, with operations spanning insurance, asset management, and investment solutions, had long established its reputation for reliability and customer-centric innovation. Traditionally dependent on manual workflows and legacy systems, the business began to feel the growing pressure to modernize as customer expectations evolved and digital disruption accelerated across the industry.
Manual processing of underwriting, claims, and policy-related tasks had become unsustainable. Fragmented systems, rising operational volumes, and limited visibility into service performance created inefficiencies that hindered both employee productivity and client experience. To remain competitive and resilient, the organization needed a smarter approach, one that could bring automation and intelligence into the heart of its operations, without compromising compliance or control.
The Challenge
The business was inundated with high volumes of client requests, mostly received via shared email inboxes. Each message, whether a claim, a quote request, or a policy change, had to be read, classified, and routed by a human agent. This approach caused delays, inconsistent service levels, and increased risk of human error.
Underwriting teams were overwhelmed with administrative tasks. Claims processing timelines stretched unnecessarily. Leadership lacked visibility into how well teams were performing against service-level agreements. The business needed to reimagine its operations with automation, structured workflows, and intelligent reporting to keep pace with modern expectations.
Why This Insurer Chose Mint Group
The client partnered with Mint Group to lead their transformation journey. Recognized as a top Microsoft Solutions Partner and part of Microsoft’s elite Inner Circle, Mint Group brought a proven track record of success in digital transformation across the financial services sector.
What set Mint apart was its deep expertise in the Microsoft ecosystem, including Azure, OpenAI integration, and secure automation frameworks. Just as important, Mint approached the challenge with a consultative mindset, working alongside internal teams to understand the pain points and co-design a solution that would meet business goals while fitting into existing workflows.
Positive references from other high-impact transformations, along with Mint’s emphasis on people-first design, helped establish trust and alignment early in the project.
The Solution
Mint Group implemented a customized AI Proof of Value (POV) solution designed to automate and streamline the end-to-end flow of communications within the insurance business. Built entirely on Microsoft Azure, the solution used Azure OpenAI, Logic Apps, Functions, Key Vault, SQL, and Blob Storage to intelligently process and route email-based requests.
Each incoming request was automatically classified and processed according to business rules. The system could trigger quote generation, validate claim documentation, or request missing data, all through structured and auditable workflows.
Integrated with Microsoft 365, the solution enabled staff to initiate common tasks through natural prompts inside Outlook and Teams, reducing the learning curve and promoting adoption. At the management level, Power BI dashboards delivered real-time insights into key metrics, such as quote-to-policy timelines and claims turnaround performance.
All functionality was built on scalable infrastructure, supporting future rollout across additional countries and business units.
Implementation Journey
Mint Group and the client collaborated from day one, beginning with process mapping and operational discovery sessions. The team prioritized high-impact use cases such as quote processing, claims classification, and document verification.
Initial development included AI-driven mailbox monitoring and quote automation. After proving success with these components, the implementation was expanded to include claim triage workflows, data validation, and policy generation processes.
Training was delivered to both business and IT users to ensure confident adoption, and feedback loops were integrated to continuously refine workflows and AI classification models. The project was deployed iteratively to allow for change management and stakeholder alignment, resulting in a smooth transition from manual to automated operations.
The Results
The transformation yielded significant results across key performance areas:
- Email classification time was reduced by 80 percent, allowing quicker routing and actioning of client requests.
- Quote-to-policy conversion times improved by 50 percent due to automated validation and reduced manual handoffs.
- AI classification models achieved more than 90 percent accuracy, increasing consistency and reducing rework.
- Leadership gained operational visibility with real-time Power BI reporting dashboards, enabling data-driven decision-making.
Clients experienced faster, more accurate service. Internal teams became more productive, empowered by automation that removed tedious manual work. The business as a whole became more agile, compliant, and ready to scale.
Client Perspective
Senior stakeholders commented that the new system helped their teams shift from reactive to proactive service delivery. One executive shared that the platform “allowed us to respond faster and more accurately to client needs while maintaining governance and control.”
Another senior manager described the collaboration with Mint Group as transformative, noting that “it wasn’t just about implementing AI, it was about redesigning how we operate.”
The IT leadership team praised the solution’s architecture for being secure, cloud-native, and aligned with internal compliance frameworks, making it easy to extend into new regions.
Looking Ahead
With a successful launch complete, the insurer and Mint Group are working together to roll out the solution in additional markets. Localization for languages, compliance, and operational nuances is already underway.
Future enhancements will focus on:
- Intelligent document retrieval using Azure AI Search.
- Broader automation of policy amendments and renewals.
- Deeper analytics for underwriting and claims trend forecasting.
Mint Group continues to serve as a trusted partner in this journey, helping the client unlock operational efficiency, regulatory resilience, and customer-centric innovation through intelligent automation.
Together, we are not just optimizing processes, we are creating tomorrow.
