Building Insurance Teams from Scratch to Support Rapid Expansion

Situation

This leading business process outsourcer delivers critical claims management technology services for major insurance providers in Australia—supporting self-insurance and workers’ compensation programs that help injured employees return to the workplace. Having the right talent in place is critical to the organization’s success, given the critical importance of timely delivery and customer satisfaction in this sensitive space.

As the company expanded its insurance client base, they sought a recruitment partner who could build and scale professional teams from scratch with exceptional speed. Their goal was ambitious: hire 300 specialized roles within six months for two of the company’s major client projects. The challenge was compounded by a crucial constraint—there was no leadership in place to define team structures or provide hiring direction.

They looked to PeopleScout to build complete operational teams from the ground up, starting with leadership, in time for critical go-live dates that could not be delayed.

Solution

We designed and deployed an experienced insurance recruitment team built for rapid delivery and for scale.

Our approach always starts with insight. We conducted comprehensive market intelligence to ensure our strategy was built for success before opening a single requisition. We completed extensive market mapping to understand the competitive landscape, analyzed competitor talent strengths and built extensive talent pools across all relevant levels. Our pools spanned the full organizational spectrum: from claims case managers to leadership positions, medical management specialists, business professionals (lawyers, paralegals, independent medical advisors) and business operations roles (compliance, reporting, performance improvement, learning and development, actuaries, payroll and administrative support).

We engaged candidates proactively throughout the market mapping phase, building awareness of upcoming opportunities and establishing relationships before job openings were posted. This approach reduced time-to-hire dramatically while managing sourcing costs effectively, ensuring we had active, interested talent pools ready the moment positions were approved.

Leadership-First Recruitment Strategy

With no leadership team in place to provide initial direction, we implemented agile recruitment management through bi-weekly scrums with client project managers. These sessions provided forums to review resourcing plans, assess candidate pipelines, analyze conversion rates and monitor progress against critical milestones.

Our strategic sequencing was deliberate: we prioritized the recruitment of a leadership team for both client accounts, quickly following with deputies and senior managers, before pivoting to fill out the broader teams. This ensured that the new leadership team could define team structures and participate in hiring the right talent to fill subsequent open positions.

Integrated Workforce Planning

We conducted comprehensive workforce planning for both of the company’s client projects, anticipating future hiring needs beyond the initial 300 roles and building talent pipelines to minimize gaps as the business scaled.

Following the initial go-live, we transitioned seamlessly to a source-and-screen model, efficiently backfilling vacancies in partnership with the client’s internal business partner team to ensure sustained operational continuity.

Key Success Factors

• Insight-Driven Strategy: Comprehensive mapping of competitor landscape and talent strengths 
• Proactive Talent Pools: Building engaged candidate pipelines before requisitions opened 
• Agile Project Management: Bi-weekly scrums providing transparency and enabling rapid course correction 
• Leadership-First Sequencing: Building from the top down to establish team structure and culture 
• Multi-Level Expertise: Specialized recruitment across claims, medical, legal and operations functions 
• Integrated Workforce Planning: Anticipating future needs and building sustainable talent pipelines 
• Seamless Transition: Moving from the build phase to ongoing support without disruption

Results

We delivered all 300 hires on time and on budget for both major client accounts. Time-to-fill across the program ranged from 20 to 40 days depending on role complexity—exceptional speed for specialized insurance positions that typically require extensive technical knowledge and regulatory compliance awareness.

Most critically, the organization was able to launch two major client accounts with established leadership and fully staffed teams from day one. Claims management services continued without disruption, and customer satisfaction remained high as the team grew. Future-ready talent pipelines now support ongoing hiring needs as their insurance practice continues to expand.

The impact extended beyond the numbers. Through detailed reporting and consistent feedback loops, we built trust and transparency with project stakeholders, while adapting to varied requirements, preferences and policies across business units—delivering at speed without compromising quality.

What began as an urgent talent need became a strategic partnership, proving that with the right combination of market intelligence, agile project management and specialized recruitment expertise, even the most complex team builds can be executed flawlessly under pressure.