Claims transformation projects always start with the best of intentions. Every team wants to reduce their turnaround time, make the process easier for claimants and examiners alike, automate more, and duplicate entry less. Those are all worthwhile outcomes.
In our recent claimversation, Christina Sciarotta, VP of Delivery at Benekiva, discussed how achieving these goals depends on more than just exciting new technology. It depends on asking the right questions before implementation ever begins. Christina shared lessons from more than two decades of software implementations, explaining why the same challenges continue to appear across industries and why claims transformation is no exception.
Technology continues to evolve and artificial intelligence, automation, and modern development practices evolve and change how software is built every single day. Yet, Christina believes the biggest implementation challenges have remained remarkably consistent over the last few decades. Projects still struggle because of:
"The fundamentals haven't changed," Christina explained. "It's still about understanding what you're trying to accomplish and making sure everyone understands how the business actually works."
Requirements gathering often starts with documenting standard business processes. Christina recommends implementation teams go deeper. Many of the biggest opportunities and risks are hidden inside the daily work people have simply become accustomed to doing, whether it’s manual interest calculation, a customer service workaround, or a piece of correspondence that someone edits hundreds of times each month.
Those details may seem small, but together they often determine whether a transformation project delivers meaningful value. As Christina explained, many of the biggest pain points aren't obvious because they've become part of everyday operations.
One of the most common implementation challenges is about getting the right people involved at the right time. The people who purchase software aren't always the people using it every day, and the subject matter experts across claims, customer service, accounting, reporting, and other departments all have their own responsibilities. It can be hard to pull them from their “day jobs” for the implementation.
This pull on time makes an implementation team’s communication essential. Rather than asking every stakeholder to commit large amounts of time, Christina recommends clearly defining when each group is needed, why their input matters, and how their expertise contributes to the overall project to ensure you pull the right people in at the right time, but with the least amount of time required from busy teams.
Many implementation projects naturally focus on the most common workflows.
Christina argues the opposite. "The 20 percent is dangerous," she said.
Claims rarely follow a perfectly standard path. Policies with multiple beneficiaries, riders, multiple divorces, complex beneficiary relationships, and other exceptions may represent a smaller percentage of claims, but they often create the greatest operational complexity. Understanding those scenarios early helps prevent expensive redesign later in the project.
Reporting is frequently treated as the final phase of an implementation. Every report depends on data being captured correctly throughout the entire workflow, and so teams often wait until the end after everything else is built to finalize reporting. However, if a required data point isn't collected or clearly defined, it becomes much harder to recreate later.
"A report isn't just a report," she explained.
It supports finance, compliance, customer service, executive reporting, or operational decision making. That means reporting requirements must be part of discovery, not an afterthought.
Every implementation conversation eventually turns to timelines. Vendors today tout software projects that can be completed in weeks or months. It can be hard to decipher the best path to balance speed and quality. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice either.
Christina believes speed is important and is possible when paired with thoughtful preparation. Investing additional time during discovery, requirements, stakeholder alignment, and testing may feel slower at the beginning. In practice, it often prevents costly delays, rework, and unexpected issues later in the project.
As she summarized during the conversation: "An ounce of preparation is worth a pound of cure."
Claims transformation isn't just about implementing new technology. It's about understanding the people, processes, data, and business outcomes that technology is meant to support.
Watch our full conversation with Christina Sciarrotta to learn practical strategies for reducing implementation risk, improving stakeholder alignment, and building stronger claims transformation projects from day one.
