I had the opportunity to attend the 5th Annual Insurance Nexus Insurance AI and Analytics USA conference held in Chicago last week. I chaired the Underwriting Track, where a number of presenters told stories of their journeys through the AI and analytics space at their respective companies. Andy Breen of Argo Group who heads up their digital team in New York City talked about AI’s impact on underwriting and underwriters while Todd Rissel of e2Value, Inc. covered predictive analytics in the underwriting process. Mike Gulla of Hippo Insurance presented on AI and predictive learning while Alicia Marsiglia and Chris Schenk of Hiscox USA talked about what the future of underwriting could look like.
We later assembled into a panel which I moderated with questions from a very engaged audience. This eclectic group of panelists fielded questions ranging from, “You spoke about significant changes that AI can cause in insurance companies, so how do you prepare for cultural changes so people can prepare for as opposed to resisting or fearing it?” to, “By pricing for the specific insured better with AI/ML algorithms, do you expect that favorable risks will pay significantly less premium and vice versa?” as well as, “Which emerging technologies do you think have the greatest potential for success and why in underwriting for homeowners or other personal lines?” among many other great ones.
Outside of the plenary presentations, the conference also organized other portions of the conference in Claims and Customer tracks where AI and analytics constituted the main topics. Other interesting presentations included Jerry Gupta of SwissRe on the topic of driving business-wide digital transformation and MetLife’s Paul Travers covering how AI can be more data-centric and predictive, impacting more than actuarial processes and pricing.
If there was any insurance nexus among the conference participants to take away, there was a collective sense in the room that while the impact of AI on the insurance industry is still in its early maturity phase, the opportunity is plentiful.
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