The problem
French-language service capacity was the insurer's binding constraint: Montreal's bilingual insurance labour market is competitive and expensive, and offshore French from North Africa and Mauritius had been assessed as the wrong register for Quebec. The insurer needed genuine Quebec-appropriate French at a sustainable cost.
What we did
- Staffed the French desk in Puerto Plata, drawing on the north coast's French-language exposure
- Developed a Quebec French register module jointly with the insurer's Montreal training team
- Ran the desk on the insurer's clock without night differentials
- Calibrated fortnightly with Montreal quality against the same rubric as the internal French team
Results
Claims intake cycle time fell from 9.4 days to 3.1 days, French-language service level rose from 74% to 93%, and fully loaded cost per FTE fell 54% against Montreal, partly reinvested in expanding French capacity. In a blind listening test, the insurer's Montreal staff ranked the Puerto Plata samples first and were surprised to learn their origin.
Metrics
Before and after
- Claims intake cycle time-67%
- Before9.4 daysAfter3.1 days
- French-language service level+19 pts
- Before74%After93%
- French-language CSAT+11 pts
- Before81%After92%
- First-notice-of-loss completeness+36 pts
- Before58%After94%
- Fully loaded cost per FTE
- Montreal baseline → -54% (-54%)
These metrics are shown as text only, because the client did not provide a comparable starting figure.
Bars compare the starting position with the measured result. Each row is scaled separately because the units are not the same.
Figures relate to the period stated and were provided by the client. They depend on that client's starting point, so they are not a forecast for another operation.
We ran a blind listening test with our Montreal staff. They ranked the Puerto Plata samples first and were genuinely surprised when we told them where the calls came from. That test decided the tender.
What stayed in place
The Quebec French register module is a shared asset now used in the insurer's own onboarding, and the single-pass claims intake design has been adopted across the insurer's English-language operation.