Use case | Pensions

Proof-of-life verification: from 15 minutes per form to under 2

A global pension administrator processing thousands of handwritten Certificate of Existence forms every month.

Snapshot

Designed to deliver

<2 minutes processing time per form, down from 15 minutes
<1% error rate on member data capture, down from 5–7%
60% reduction in administrative hours required for verification
€12 saved per certificate processed

The challenge

Thousands of handwritten forms/ One overwhelmed team

Certificate of Existence (proof-of-life) is one of the most sensitive processes in pension administration: pensioners must periodically confirm they are alive and entitled to payment, and the administrator must verify every response before money moves.

For this administrator, the process ran on paper and patience.

Thousands of handwritten forms arrived each month, each taking around 15 minutes of manual verification and data entry. The consequences stacked up across the operation:

Backlogs that delayed member payments, the worst possible outcome in a process that exists to protect pensioners
High cost as multiple staff dedicated entirely to verification and keying
5–7% error rates from handwriting misinterpretation and manual entry
Fraud exposure dues to the difficulty of verifying document authenticity at volume
Compliance gaps, limited audit trails and documentation for a process regulators care deeply about

The approach

Designed around the member, not just the back office

Discovery focused on both ends of the process. For the operations team, the goal was obvious: eliminate manual keying without losing human oversight where it matters. For members, many of them elderly and attached to paper, the goal was more subtle; verification had to get faster without becoming hostile to people who will never complete a purely digital journey.

The design brief that emerged was automate the processing of paper, rather than forcing the elimination of it. Members keep the channel they trust, and the administrator gets digital speed, accuracy and evidence.

The solution

AI-powered capture, human-grade judgement

Perigord implemented a single intelligent workflow that turns every returned certificate, paper or digital, into a verified record:

Handwriting the system can read: AI-powered OCR trained specifically on handwritten pension forms
Guided mobile capture: members, or the people who support them, photograph documents through a guided journey that ensures quality at the point of capture
Real-time validation: every form instantly cross-checked against the member database
Human review where it counts: discrepancies flagged for review rather than silently accepted
Paper and digital together: members who prefer post keep it, within the same verified, evidenced journey

A record regulators can inspect:

Every certificate is stored securely, with document handling aligned to financial-
services regulation, a built-in audit trail and a searchable digital archive in place of filing cabinets and spreadsheets. The human role shifted from keying every form to reviewing only the exceptions where judgement actually adds value

All member data is processed inside a secure, compliance-aligned environment, on EU-based AI models.

The outcome

Faster payments, fewer errors, and a process regulators can inspect

Processing time cut from 15 minutes to under 2 per certificate
Error rate reduced from 5–7% to below 1% on member data collation
60% reduction in administrative staff hours required for verification
€12 saved per certificate processed
Faster member payments as the backlog-driven delays that most affected pensioners were eliminated
A complete audit trail for every verification, on demand

The data lives within the company’s own environment

Member documents and personal data were processed within a secure, compliance-aligned environment with encrypted transfer, controlled access and full audit logging. No member data was shared with external, non-EU AI providers.

Insurance & pensions

How much is manual verification really costing you?

Talk to us and we’ll map your verification or consent journey and quantify what intelligent capture would save: per form, per member, per year.