Some useful news from Evident, who have noted the uptake on AI for more complex lines;
The leading global insurers published details of 16 new AI use cases in April, with signs emerging that AI is beginning to be used for more complex commercial and specialty business lines.
The data comes from the Evident AI Use Case Tracker for Insurance, the most comprehensive database of AI deployments across the industry, monitoring 30 leading insurers. In the latest analysis – corresponding to April – Aegon, AIG, Allianz, Allstate, Aviva, AXA, Intact Financial, MetLife, Munich Re, Nationwide and Zurich all reported new AI functions and applications. The use cases are split among agentic AI, generative AI and traditional AI, the latter of which merely analyses and interprets data rather than creating new output.
AI beginning to impact commercial and specialty insurance
The new AI use cases point towards trends emerging in how insurers are expanding their use of the technology. While property & casualty and life saw most of the new applications – seven and three respectively – there are signs that applications in risk selection and pricing are moving from personal insurance into more complex applications in commercial and specialty.
Intact Financial is extending its AI pricing models, which are already deployed across more than 90% of its personal lines book, into use in commercial and specialty, where adoption has historically lagged due to greater underwriting complexity. Management expects benefits “at least equivalent to those seen in personal lines,” notable, given that even marginal gains in pricing accuracy compound significantly in an industry where claims account for 60-80% of premium income.
Meeting AI-mediated customers halfway
A second key trend in this digest points to insurers actively preparing for AI-mediated distribution, where customers, or AI agents acting on their behalf, search for and purchase insurance through LLMs.
Allstate announced that it is developing direct channel capabilities explicitly designed to interact with autonomous AI shopping agents, not just human consumers. Meanwhile, Aviva has launched a working quote engine inside ChatGPT and AXA has deployed tooling to monitor how it ranks when users query LLMs for insurance information.
Supporting AXA data suggests that currently, less than 1% of new business originates from LLMs, but the potential for disruption makes action necessary. The industry has been here before, when price comparison websites rewrote the rules of personal lines insurance distribution entirely. This follows Bank of America estimates earlier this year that $15 billion of insurance industry revenue is at risk from AI-driven disintermediation. The three use cases above suggest major insurers are already positioning accordingly, presenting potential challenges for brokers.
Christian Preece, Insurance Director at Evident, comments: “There are many unknowns related to AI-mediated distribution. Will potential policyholders be open to sharing the relevant personal data in these channels? Will businesses gain first-mover advantage due consumer exposure? Will insurers who adopt this distribution method early build enduring advantages by better optimising their products for LLMs? Nobody knows yet, which is precisely why major insurers are investing now rather than waiting to find out.”
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