Zurich General Insurance Malaysia Berhad wins at Insurance Asia Awards 2026 for process automation

The KFK Recovery Automation combines OCR, rule-based validation, and keystroke automation for an end-to-end workflow.

Zurich General Insurance Malaysia Berhad took home the Process Automation Initiative of the Year - Malaysia accolade at the Insurance Asia Awards 2026 for its Knock‐for‐Knock (KFK) Recovery Automation initiative, which has reengineered a fragmented, labour‐intensive process into a scalable, digitally enabled recovery engine.

The KFK Recovery Automation intelligently reads recovery and payment data from multiple sources, including internal claims systems, a third-party industry platform, Excel bordereaux, and third‐party insurer payment evidence, and validates them against finance records. Then, it automatically initiates debit notes, updates recovery status, matches payments, and closes the claim across both systems. Structured exception logs are then generated for cases that fall outside predefined rules, ensuring transparency, auditability, and control.

The initiative combines optical character recognition technology, rule‐based validation and keystroke automation to deliver an integrated, end‐to‐end digital workflow. Moreover, the automation is embedded into daily operations, enabling consistent execution at scale and forming a core building block of Zurich Malaysia’s broader claims digital transformation roadmap.

KFK Recovery processing was previously fragmented across two separate, non-integrated platforms. This required recovery handlers to manually initiate debit notes, reconcile payments with Finance records, update file notes, and close claims in both systems.

Duplicate effort led to lengthy turnaround times, heavy dependence on spreadsheets, and increased risk of manual errors. As claim volumes grew, the process also became unsustainable, with significant resources consumed by high-volume recoveries.

The automation has addressed this issue by redesigning the entire end-to-end recovery workflow and integrating automation into day-to-day operations. As a result, the new solution has accelerated recovery turnaround times, reduced manual effort and spreadsheet dependency, improved data accuracy and audit readiness through standardized digital workflows, and enabled recovery handlers to focus on more complex and higher-value cases.

“By transforming a fragmented manual process into a scalable, data‐driven recovery operation, Zurich Malaysia has demonstrated how digital transformation can unlock real business value whilst strengthening operational resilience. This initiative serves as a replicable model for claims recovery automation across the insurance industry,” the company said.

The Insurance Asia Awards, the premier awards programme for the insurance sector in the Asia Pacific region, celebrates the industry’s trailblazers. It recognises companies that have achieved outstanding milestones, set new benchmarks, and transformed the insurance landscape through cutting-edge innovation.

The Insurance Asia Awards is presented by Insurance Asia Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2027 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's significant impact on its customers with exceptional products, services, and solutions in the insurance industry, you may reach Julie Anne Nuñez-Difuntorum at (+65) 3158 1386 ext 242 or [email protected].