VOICES OF
INSURTECH INSIGHTS

50,000 people grieved online when ChatGPT retired a model. Some had called it their boyfriend or girlfriend. Should that kind of loss be insurable? That’s the question driving this conversation about what Dominique calls the “fifth branch of insurance” - the lived experience. From selling insurance directly inside ChatGPT to becoming a “longevity as a service” provider rather than just a payout machine, this is a genuinely future-facing look at where life and health insurance is headed. Along the way: why systemic risks like California wildfires demand prevention over payout, why misinformation is now a top-tier global risk, and why parametric life insurance might finally close the friction gap between death and payment.

AI is meant to make insurance smarter. So why is 90% of AI investment delivering almost no return?

Ericson Chan, Group Chief Information & Digital Officer at Zurich, joins us to unpack why AI adoption is a leadership problem, not a technology one — and why the leaders who get it right are the ones willing to get their hands dirty. From the STAR framework for accountable AI to why jobs aren’t disappearing but workflows are, this is the conversation that didn’t make it onto the conference stage.

In 1997, Garry Kasparov lost to Deep Blue. It was headline news around the world. But what the headlines missed was what he did next. Instead of fighting the machine, he started thinking about how to work with it – and that shift changed everything. In this conversation, Kasparov brings three decades of human-vs-AI thinking to the insurance industry: why the leaders who rely too heavily on computers will lose, why those who ignore them will lose too, and why the only winning move is finding the right collaboration between human intuition and machine power.

50,000 people grieved online when ChatGPT retired a model. Some had called it their boyfriend or girlfriend. Should that kind of loss be insurable? That’s the question driving this conversation about what Dominique calls the “fifth branch of insurance” - the lived experience. From selling insurance directly inside ChatGPT to becoming a “longevity as a service” provider rather than just a payout machine, this is a genuinely future-facing look at where life and health insurance is headed. Along the way: why systemic risks like California wildfires demand prevention over payout, why misinformation is now a top-tier global risk, and why parametric life insurance might finally close the friction gap between death and payment.

50,000 people grieved online when ChatGPT retired a model. Some had called it their boyfriend or girlfriend. Should that kind of loss be insurable? That’s the question driving this conversation about what Dominique calls the “fifth branch of insurance” — the lived experience. From selling insurance directly inside ChatGPT to becoming a “longevity as a service” provider rather than just a payout machine, this is a genuinely future-facing look at where life and health insurance is headed. Along the way: why systemic risks like California wildfires demand prevention over payout, why misinformation is now a top-tier global risk, and why parametric life insurance might finally close the friction gap between death and payment.

Joe Brace, Operations Director at the LMA, explains why data standards - not AI - are the real foundation the market needs to get right, and why policy wordings still living in Word documents are a bigger risk than most people realize. He unpacks why 90% of firms investing in AI are seeing almost no return, and which use cases actually work: quality assurance, risk triage, and picking up sanctioned-country red flags before three weeks of lunches go to waste. From Marks & Spencer’s cyber resilience to the rise of gig-economy and quantum computing risk, this is a grounded look at what it takes to modernize one of the world’s oldest insurance markets.

Your insurance policy PDF is about to become a personalized video. Simon Smallcombe, Financial Services & Insurance Consulting Partner at Capco, breaks down where AI is genuinely transforming insurance - faster claims, hyper-personalized post-sale experiences, real cost optimization — and where the hype outpaces reality, including his blunt take on why an agentic AI won’t be selling insurance any time soon. From 10-15 day health claims turnarounds shrinking dramatically to WhatsApp videos that explain your coverage better than any policy document ever could, this is a grounded look at what’s actually changing and what will always need a human.

Germany bet on Russian gas. It cost them everything. Greg Hands, former UK government minister and now working across energy, retail, and logistics at EP Group, draws a direct line from geopolitics to risk management: diversify your partners, or pay for it later. From what chess can teach us about human adaptability in an age of AI, to why government struggles to regulate technology it barely understands, to the UK’s underrated position as an “energy island,” this is a wide-ranging conversation on risk, resilience, and what history keeps teaching us about putting all our eggs in one basket. The kind of closed-door conversation you’d want a seat at.

Ia Bater spent years building electronic trading systems at J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley before making the switch to insurance. She brings a capital markets lens to an industry she says keeps insisting it’s “different” - when really, it isn’t. In this conversation, she breaks down why insurance has no data standards while capital markets solved that problem years ago, why policy issuance can take 30 days when it should take two, and why the real risk in an AI-driven world isn’t the technology - it’s the widening gap between what clients, brokers, and carriers each know.

Trust can be given once. And lost forever. Andrew Leeds, VP of Homeowner Claims at Plymouth Rock, breaks down the moment of truth in insurance - the first call after a loss - and why so many companies are bleeding money through what he calls “death by a thousand cuts”: small inaccuracies in estimating, pricing, fraud, and subrogation that add up fast. He also redefines what “good data” really means today, from grainy 55-year-old condo documents to real-time claim verification, and makes the case that no amount of new technology matters if you’re not still listening to your adjusters.

30,000 employees adopted Aon’s internal AI tool within three days. Magnus Roe, Aon’s Global Chief Data Analytics Officer, explains why that number has less to do with the technology and everything to do with execution. Speaking from Singapore, he breaks down Aon’s four megatrends framework - trade, technology, workforce, and weather - and why AI is treated as an enabler, never the outcome. From avoiding the trap of endless proof-of-concepts to why people, not platforms, decide whether innovation actually sticks, this is a candid look at what it takes to build AI capability at scale.

This 150-year-old business model shouldn’t work. And yet it does - built entirely on trust. Dave Rengachary, SVP and Head of Underwriting for U.S. Individual Life at RGA, explains why more data hasn’t made underwriting faster, why the real competitive edge now is speed rather than the offer itself, and why he thinks the industry’s fear of AI as a “black box” has it backwards. He even told an AI to be “10% cheekier” - and it delivered. A candid look at what trust really means when the promise you’re making might not be kept for 70 years.

Sofia Kyriakopoulou, Group Chief Technology, Data and AI Officer at SCOR, explains why tweaking the engine mid-race isn’t a disaster - it’s a strategy. She breaks down how SCOR is building a unified data and AI foundation to sharpen underwriting judgment, not replace it, and previews AI Assistant, the company’s new augmented underwriting tool already changing how medical underwriting decisions get made. Trust the data once, then trust it again and again - that’s the governance model behind it all.

Chris Wei, Chief Client and Innovation Officer at Sun Life, unpacks the customer insights reshaping how the company builds products - from underserved populations hiding in plain sight, to why mental health support cut employee absence by 30%, to the reason insurance language keeps failing the very people it’s meant to help. He also opens up on why he bought his son his first life insurance policy at age one - and why the industry still hasn’t cracked how to make everyone else feel the same way. The kind of closed-door conversation you’d want a seat at.

Fraud is organized now. Is your claims strategy? Richard Wolff, Managing Director of Casualty Claims at Markel and a recovering lawyer of 15 years, pulls back the curtain on how coordinated fraud rings and nuclear verdicts are reshaping claims — and why insurers competing on the front end need to start cooperating on the back end. He also makes the case for AI’s real role in claims: not replacing the human connection, but clearing the way for more of it. Because when someone’s damaged, they don’t want a bot. They want to talk to a person.

What if insurance disappeared into the background of your life - always there, never in the way? Sirma Boshnakova, back at Insurtech Insights, talks about Allianz’s push toward a truly frictionless, hyper-personalized customer experience powered by connected platforms and AI. But this isn’t a conversation about replacing people with technology. It’s about what happens when AI takes the repetitive work off employees’ plates — and what’s left is more human, not less. From peace of mind to the moral compass that keeps it all grounded, this is a look at where Allianz believes the industry is heading next.

Just as Duck Creek announced its acquisition of Send Technology Solutions - an AI-native underwriting orchestration engine behind more than $26 billion in Gross Written Premium. In this conversation, CISO Ben Dulieu explains the thinking behind the move: why agentic insurance only delivers real ROI when AI is embedded into core operational workflows, not bolted on from the periphery. He breaks down the orchestration layer making these agents auditable and compliant at scale, and doesn’t hold back on the industry’s real problem - two years of pilots and proof of concepts with almost nothing to show for it. His take? The biggest risk to insurance right now is being too afraid of risk to take the leap.

Claims costs down. Customer trust up. At the same time. Louisa Barile, CEO of Many Pets, breaks down how over half of their claims are now processed with zero human touch - and why 100% automation was never the goal.

From AI agents talking to each other behind the scenes, to the MCP-first infrastructure bet they’re making right now, this is a candid look at what scaling an AI-native insurer actually looks like. The kind of closed-door conversation you’d want a seat at.

EXCLUSIVE EPISODE: Recorded before her appointment as AIG’s Executive Vice President and Global Chief Underwriting Officer, this conversation with Nancy Bewlay hits differently now.

With over 30 years in underwriting across Swiss Re, C.V. Starr, and AXA Group, Nancy breaks down how the world’s most disciplined underwriters think about climate risk, AI, and portfolio strategy in a market that never stops moving. Her take? AI is an asset - but curiosity is still the most important underwriting skill.

Consumer trust in insurance is slipping. Sarah Jacobs, SVP Personal Lines Product and Underwriting at Nationwide, has spent 25 years inside the industry and isn’t shying away from the hard questions: where is money being left on the table, why does fraud get quietly accepted as a cost of doing business, and what would it take for insurers and customers to actually trust each other? From building codes to AI-powered roof inspections, this is a candid look at what rebuilding trust really requires.

Stu Spencer, Group CMO of AIA, sits down with Rory Pyke, Vice President at Insurtech Insights, for a candid conversation on innovation, strategy, and the future of Hong Kong’s largest insurer. Discover how Stu balances internal priorities with external market demands to keep AIA at the forefront of insurance innovation.