Insurance sector takes to AI for wide range of tasks

LAS VEGAS — Commercial insurers and others in the sector are deploying artificial intelligence to meet various challenges, from process automation to ingesting data for underwriting, according to a panel of industry experts who spoke Wednesday at the annual InsurtechConnect conference.

The progress they are making, however, must be tempered by keeping human beings in the loop for all operations and not ceding too much autonomy to the technology, they said.

Mojgan Lefebvre, Boston-based chief technology & operations officer for Travelers Cos. Inc., said the insurance sector has been using artificial intelligence “for years,” but that use has recently increased dramatically, including in underwriting.

“What’s happened over the past couple of years … the exponential nature of it is just incredible. We’ve been using it in predictive analytics, pricing and all of that, and now it has found its way into customer service and underwriting,” Ms. Lefebvre said.

AI can perform routine, repetitive tasks like document searches and image processing much faster than humans and is being used to help ingest information during the underwriting process. The focus is on “automating anything that’s routine so that we can let our underwriters focus on their expertise,” Ms. Lefebvre said.

“It means the world of possibilities for insurance changes. … It is an exciting time,” Gary Hoberman, New York-based CEO and founder of technology company Unqork Inc., said of the myriad possibilities for AI to improve efficiencies in insurance.

Byron Clymer, Kansas City, Missouri-based chief information officer for Lockton Cos. LLC, agreed that while AI can be a powerful tool to import data for underwriting purposes, “you have to have a human ensure that what you’re bringing in is 100% what was put in that contract. …  It’s a legal document.”

“Words matter,” Mr. Clymer said. “The difference between a translated “and” or “an” can mean that something is covered or it’s not covered, so we still have the human in the loop to validate that what was brought in is accurate.”

Chuck Wallace, San Francisco-based CEO and co-founder of commercial auto insurer High Definition Vehicle Insurance, said artificial intelligence is particularly useful in integrating the mountain of telematics data generated through HDVI’s truck insurance activities together with additional documentation the insurer receives from policyholders.

“We ingest millions and millions of miles of data every day in real time” and receive other information through submissions to HDVI in documents, Mr. Wallace said. “When you can marry those together, then you have a really, really powerful data set” that can be fed into an underwriting dashboard.