Top

Streamlining Benefit Application Process For PBGC Improves Customer Experience

The ZAI team collaborated with members of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) Customer Care Branch to streamline the benefit application process and mitigate delays in getting beneficiaries enrolled for receipt of payments.

ZAI evaluated the current benefit application process and determined that benefit applications were not reviewed for completeness and accuracy until after they had been processed in the PBGC benefit system during initial intake. ZAI also determined that the average time to process a benefit application was 60 days, and processing frequently exceeded 90 days. As a result, the Agency was receiving substandard customer service ratings.

ZAI recommended an approach to restructure the process to review benefit applications and identify issues / incompleteness at the point of entry. This change enabled PBGC to immediately notify the participant of the missing or required information. As a result, only reviewed and completed applications were submitted to create the benefit payment.

The streamlined approach allowed new participants to be placed in a payment status within 11 days. Before the process was restructured, this process took anywhere from 60 to 90 days.