We have periodically conducted surveys etcN Underwriting for more than 15 years to understand the status of the function and the technology—or is not—help him develop further. In our latest report Underwriting rewrittenwe asked What percentage of time do underwriters spend on non-core tasks? This time, We saw some gradual improvement Year–above–Year compared to ours Survey 2021 but even more as a third from of an underwriter Time is spent Not part of the core Activities such as data collection or administrative activities.
But more than that, our 2024 survey overall expresses hope for the future that new automation and AI technologies could help transform the role of underwriting and actually reduce time spent on non-core tasks.
I’ve been around long enough to remember other waves of new ideas and technologies like knowledge management, the Internet of Things, and analytics. And while each has found its place across the insurance business and technology ecosystem, one could argue that none has truly completely transformed the underwriting function. But in all the time we’ve conducted our industry surveys over my 30-year career, I’ve personally never seen numbers like these:
Use automation and AI
According to the data above, the percentage of time underwriters spend on non-core tasks will decrease significantly more than gradually as AI and automation move forward. Across life, group, personal and commercial insurance, insurance executives believe AI and automation tools will significantly and relatively quickly transform underwriting.
Over the past three years, insurance companies have been experimenting with these technologies, including piloting data collection, data synthesis, and underwriting consulting. While not all of these pilots may have been successful, the general conclusion now seems to be that this time around there is justification for optimism when it comes to tackling the non-core part of the actuarial tasks. If you’re not already pursuing an AI-powered underwriting strategy, our survey suggests you’re probably already behind.
Here are some key data points from our recent Underwriting Executive Survey:
- 81% of underwriting executives surveyed believe AI and Gen-AI will create new roles “at a large scale” or “at a very large scale.”
- 65% of executives believe their workforce needs upskilling as AI becomes integral to creating new roles and complementing existing ones.
- 42% of executives believe they need to access external talent pools to realize the full potential of technology
Empowering the AI-led underwriter
Combined with modern automation tools and advanced data collection capabilities, AI is perhaps the most transformative force in modern underwriting, balancing both efficiency and complexity in controlled areas. It can enable natural language processing to interact with customers and brokers to address issues and understand requests so they can be routed to the right solution automations. Advanced decisioning elements and pattern recognition also enable a wider range of self-service requests to be processed without direct intervention. Additionally, AI is capable of orchestrating automations to provide complete self-service solutions.
To be clear: the role of underwriting will not disappear, but it will change as each carrier finds the best way to combine human and machine decision-making to improve both the speed and efficiency of underwriting results.
Your next steps as generational AI expands your workforce
In my view, to be successful on any AI journey, network operators need to think through three things:
- An AI-powered strategy that lays out a plan for leveraging these new tools within your existing environment. It must be based on a strong digital core. As AI technology evolves toward more powerful agents, underwriters could even further increase their productivity by splitting their workflows and delegating tasks to these AI agents.
- A talent strategy that redefines work and redesigns workflows to prepare management teams and underwriting organizations to take advantage of the new capabilities of these solutions. A skills-based approach will be critical, and at the same time, insurers must balance AI integration with process redesign and ensure responsible AI principles are consistently adhered to.
- A culture capable of exploring and experimenting while protecting core decisions. Insurers will likely need to take a bottom-up rather than top-down approach to AI adoption, taking advantage of employees’ willingness and willingness to experiment with AI.
If you’d like to learn more about Accenture’s Insurance Underwriting Executive Survey, take a look Underwriting rewritten or contact me directly.
