When people think of artificial intelligence and how it applies to the business world, many consider ways AI can automate day-to-day administrative tasks like notetaking, fact-checking and summarizing action items from meetings. Indeed, when asked how they use, or think they will use, AI in their jobs, many of this year’s Business Insurance Break Out Award honorees profiled here said they are using AI in this way. Others report specific use cases in the insurance and risk management sector.
Several honorees said they are incorporating AI into the underwriting process. AI can reduce the time underwriters spend manually inputting information to just three minutes. According to one winner: “It is going to change my life and my underwriters’ lives.” As underwriters seek more detailed data to better understand the risks and exposures their capacity backs, several honorees said AI can provide key insights on the risk profiles of businesses, identify risk characteristics, and inform underwriting decisions on how best to support policyholders. As it sifts through data at speed, AI can even pinpoint the risk transfer and retention options that best fit an organization — another game-changer for underwriters and brokers.
The potential benefits of AI extend beyond making the underwriting process more efficient. Several honorees suggested that AI could bring some stability to pricing. In the hard market of the past six years, underwriters have been faced with a deluge of data and piles of submissions, leading in some cases to backlogs and delayed completion of renewals. While pricing has started to improve for buyers and market conditions have eased in many lines, it’s encouraging to hear that with AI’s ability to harvest data at a much faster rate, insurers will be better able to assess and price risk, and to model for changes in the evolving risk environment.
AI is also automating the claims process. At least one honoree said it is improving the industry’s predictive analytics capabilities, providing claims staff with decision support tools so the right staff resources can be assigned to certain claims at the right time. This should reduce errors, help flag claims that may warrant further investigation, and prioritize those that need to be followed up. This can assist staff by freeing them to interact with customers, hopefully delivering better claims experiences.
However, the green light for AI comes with some caveats. Several honorees expressed caution, noting data privacy concerns, the need to be selective in the AI platforms and products used, and the need to vet the inputs and outputs of generative AI systems to guard against bias and so-called “hallucinations” where false or misleading information is presented as true. Relationships — at the heart of the insurance business — should remain at the forefront, they said.
If responses from this year’s cohort of Break Out Award winners in the industry hold, AI will play a growing role alongside brokers, insurers and risk managers. Human interactions and connections will continue to blossom, and the ability to attract talent to the industry will, in part, depend on offering career opportunities that evolve with AI. Striking this balance, insurance buyers, too, should benefit from a much-improved experience.
