Suncorp Group around five years ago kicked off a project to overhaul its insurance claims assessment process, implementing a digital application-like form that allowed a customer to make a claim online.

While the process had a decent uptake from customers, Suncorp Digital Service executive manager Vlad Vereshchagin told IBM Think in Sydney on Wednesday that consultants still had to call the customers once they had submitted a claim, mostly to determine liability.

"That task could only be done by humans, our consultants ... because firstly, there was a need to understand circumstances of the claim or event or accident, exactly how it unfolded; and the second reason is that the decision about liability is binding, it has financial consequences ... it’s irreversible, we cannot go back if we’ve made a mistake," he explained.

"All that blocked our automation endeavours and we couldn’t really progress beyond that step."