A Program Built on the Idea That Anyone Can Innovate
If you browse Liberty Mutual Insurance’s social media accounts, you’ll see numerous photos of a proud Rashmi Gehani, the winner of the 2025 Liberty Innovation Challenge.
What Does Liberty Mutual Insurance Do?
Liberty Mutual Insurance is a property and casualty insurance provider.
In 2025, Gehani entered the Liberty Innovation Challenge. Rooted in the notion that good ideas can come from anywhere, the Liberty Innovation Challenge is an annual initiative that empowers employees across the company to share ideas based on a challenge question related to Liberty Mutual’s business goals. Selected finalists pitch live to executives and colleagues, then their ideas may be selected to be prototyped at Liberty Mutual’s Ignite Hackathon, where hundreds of technology employees from across the company come together in a three-day coding event.
For Gehani, a senior core quality improvement specialist for complex casualty, winning the 2025 Liberty Innovation Challenge was a major personal and professional achievement. It also represents the strength of Liberty Mutual’s supportive, innovative culture, where employees are encouraged to question existing processes, explore new ideas and contribute beyond their day-to-day roles.
How the Liberty Innovation Challenge Empowers Employees to Make an Impact
In 2024, Gehani submitted an idea to the Liberty Innovation Challenge. Her concept didn’t advance beyond the initial review stage, an early, competitive round designed to surface ideas with the strongest potential to solve business opportunities. So when 2025 rolled around, she was reluctant to try again.
But Liberty Mutual’s culture encourages employees to treat innovation as an ongoing process, not a one-time event. Employees are empowered to revisit and refine ideas over time, build new skills, seek feedback and experiment along the way. Gehani decided to try again, motivated by a real opportunity she couldn’t ignore.
“What pushed me through was not a sudden burst of confidence,” Gehani said. “It was something simpler: experience. I had spent years handling claims. I knew that if a tool like what I was imagining had existed then, I would have wanted it immediately.”
In her role, Gehani partners with claims leaders across multiple regions to identify root causes, improve process consistency and strengthen claim quality outcomes. She leads improvement initiatives from assessment through implementation, managing project plans, milestones, risks and stakeholder alignment.
Gehani’s winning idea was an AI-powered tool designed to help her claims team process complex information more effectively, improving efficiency while keeping the focus on human, expert decision-making.
AI didn’t just power Gehani’s solution; it also played a role in how she prepared to present it. She used the technology to simulate a skeptical judge, refine her messaging and distill her pitch into clear, memorable points. At the same time, she balanced that experimentation with real-world input from colleagues, ensuring her idea was both technically sound and practically relevant.
“The mix of experimentation and real feedback made my idea sturdier and is likely what resulted in it being the winning idea,” Gehani said.
How Liberty Mutual Insurance Supports Employee Career Growth
Following the 2025 Liberty Innovation Challenge, employees from across the organization began reaching out to Gehani, impressed by the impact of her solution.
“Almost immediately, people started reaching out,” Gehani said. “Multiple people told me, ‘I wish this existed today. It would save me so much time.’”
At the same time she won the challenge, Gehani took on a four-month rotational role in the Innovation Experience Program, an internal employee development and rotational program hosted by Solaria Labs, Liberty’s enterprise innovation incubator.
The rotation expanded Gehani’s understanding of how AI can be applied, gaining hands-on experience developing and refining ideas in a more experimental setting, including working on LibertyGPT-related initiatives.
What Is LibertyGPT?
LibertyGPT is the company’s Generative AI tool that Liberty Mutual employees can use to summarize information, support analysis and streamline workflows.
“I saw firsthand that innovation isn’t one path but rather a network of trails,” Gehani said. “Some are clearly marked, and some are intentionally not. The work is learning how to navigate both or even just marking the trail to make it easier for the next person to try.”
How the Liberty Innovation Challenge Unlocks Real-World Solutions
Many solutions submitted to the Liberty Innovation Challenge have found their way to implementation. For example, during the 2024 Liberty Innovation Challenge, Solutions Architect Tyler Grant identified an opportunity to integrate generative AI into user workflows, while also building a reusable framework to leverage across the company. His idea was later implemented at the organization. “I feel extremely fortunate to have leaders that promote and incentivize innovation,” Grant said in an interview with Built In last year. “They embrace failures with a growth mindset, which empowers employees to challenge the status quo and take calculated risks.”
How the Liberty Innovation Challenge Reflects Liberty Mutual Insurance’s Culture
Gehani’s experience participating in the 2025 Liberty Innovation Challenge transformed her career in ways she couldn’t have imagined.
Since winning the competition, she has spoken at other Liberty Mutual events and led initiatives through LEAAP + Allies, one of Liberty Mutual’s seven employee resource groups open to all.
Her experience in the challenge also deepened her connections across the organization. After being named a finalist, Gehani reached out to the previous year’s winner, Sabrina Demetrius, which led to an ongoing mentorship and friendship.
“Now we meet monthly to support each other, whether it’s [related to] career opportunities or whatever we’re building at work,” Gehani said.
Moments like these reflect the broader culture at Liberty Mutual, one that encourages innovation while also fostering lasting networks, mentorship and continued growth.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Liberty Innovation Challenge?
The Liberty Innovation Challenge is an annual companywide initiative at Liberty Mutual Insurance that empowers employees across all departments to submit ideas based on a specific challenge question aligned with the company's business goals. Selected finalists pitch their concepts live to colleagues and executives. Winning and featured ideas are often prototyped at Liberty Mutual’s Ignite Hackathon—a three-day coding event involving hundreds of technology employees—and many solutions ultimately move into full enterprise implementation.
What is LibertyGPT?
LibertyGPT is Liberty Mutual Insurance's proprietary internal generative AI tool. Employees across the organization utilize LibertyGPT to summarize complex information, support data analysis and streamline everyday business workflows.
How does Liberty Mutual Insurance support employee innovation?
Liberty Mutual Insurance supports employee innovation through a combination of structured programs, executive mentorship, collaborative events and a growth-minded culture. For instance, the Liberty Innovation Challenge is open to all employees regardless of role, giving individual contributors the opportunity to solve real business opportunities and pitch ideas directly to leadership.
Additionally, team members can take part in the Innovation Experience Program through the company's innovation incubator, Solaria Labs. This four-month rotational program provides hands-on experience developing experimental technologies and generative AI applications.
