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The case study focuses on a large global insurer that sought to enhance its internal financial controls to mitigate risks, drive innovation, and instill confidence in decision-making. The client faced significant challenges due to its extensive geographic footprint across the UK, mainland Europe, and North America, which required a consistent approach to control testing amidst varying jurisdictional requirements. The complexity of their operations included hundreds of models across various divisions, such as general insurance, life insurance, and annuities. To address these challenges, EY conducted a comprehensive review of the insurer's internal controls framework. This involved testing 1,000 financial controls and over 800 end-user computing (EUC) controls, as well as evaluating more than 200 financial models to ensure their functionality. The team leveraged their experience with internal control testing for global insurance firms, including US Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) projects, to standardize the client's approach and enhance the quality of their control framework. They identified areas for improvement and developed a remediation program focused on mitigating key risks associated with end-user controls. A significant innovation introduced was the implementation of robotic process automation (RPA) to streamline the insurer's data management processes. This automation reduced the time spent on manual uploads, saving hundreds of hours and allowing teams to focus on more value-added tasks. Additionally, EY designed and built an interactive dashboard that provided the finance team with real-time access to monitor testing progress and outputs for all financial and end-user controls. This dashboard enabled instant review of hundreds of data points, facilitating better risk management and informed decision-making by senior finance leaders. As a result of these enhancements, the insurer now operates with a financial control framework that aligns closely with the standards expected of US firms, significantly improving their control understanding and accountability. The efficiency of control testing has increased, and historic control failures have been identified and addressed, leading to better overall business operations. The improvements are expected to reduce financial restatements and lower audit fees, positioning the insurer favorably in anticipation of a potential UK SOX framework. EY continues to collaborate with the insurer to further enhance its control frameworks and support its journey towards robust internal controls, which are increasingly vital in the evolving regulatory landscape.

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