Safety First as Insurance Firm Safety National Adopts Planful for FP&A

Why It Matters

Automating complex insurance FP&A reduces error risk, cuts labor costs, and enables faster, data‑driven decision‑making across the organization.

Key Takeaways

• Replaced fragile Excel models with Planful’s dynamic platform
• Saved 660 hours annually, targeting over 1,000 hours
• Enabled real‑time, single source of truth reporting
• Empowered business units to self‑service budgeting
• Planned AI‑driven analytics despite data constraints

Pulse Analysis

The specialty insurance sector has long wrestled with cumbersome financial planning processes. Companies like Safety National, a Tokio Marine subsidiary, traditionally depended on sprawling Excel workbooks that combined underwriting, reserving, and re‑insurance calculations across dozens of tabs. While Excel offers flexibility, it also introduces version‑control nightmares, security risks, and a heavy manual workload—especially when monthly packages must be distributed to dozens of departments. In a highly regulated environment, any discrepancy can trigger compliance alerts, making the need for a robust, auditable FP&A system increasingly urgent.

Planful’s cloud‑based FP&A platform addressed those pain points by centralizing data and offering the Spotlight feature, which lets users pull live figures into Excel, PowerPoint, or Word without copy‑paste errors. Safety National’s four‑person FP&A team reported a 660‑hour annual reduction in manual tasks, a figure projected to exceed 1,000 hours as models are reused. The single source of truth eliminated inconsistencies, accelerated report generation, and freed analysts to focus on strategic analysis rather than data wrangling. Moreover, business units gained self‑service budgeting capabilities, fostering cross‑department collaboration and strengthening internal controls.

Looking ahead, Safety National plans to layer advanced analytics onto the platform. Predict Signals, Planful’s AI‑driven anomaly detection, will eventually leverage three years of historical data to flag budgeting outliers, while integration with Power BI will surface interactive visualizations for senior leadership. The insurer also aims to connect Planful with its policy and claims administration systems, creating an end‑to‑end data pipeline that supports IFRS reporting and broader enterprise initiatives. By expanding automation and AI capabilities, the firm expects not only further time savings but also deeper insight into risk exposure, pricing trends, and capital allocation—critical advantages in a competitive insurance market.