Takeaways:
- Allianz Trade Americas new CEO is working on its use of AI
- The trade credit insurer is using AI to help manage its risk data
- Allianz Trade Grade Check provides credit rating monitoring
Sarah Murrow, Allianz Trade Americas' new CEO as of July 1, brings 20 years of experience to the role leading the trade credit insurer's U.S., Canada and Brazil operations. Starting with Euler Hermes, which Allianz acquired in 2018, she managed brokers in the company's Americas territory, and commercial underwriting in roles in Paris and London, then led its U.K. and Ireland division since 2021. As Americas' CEO, Murrow is figuring out how the insurer will use AI and technology to manage data in the business. Digital Insurance spoke with Murrow about the challenges of AI and managing staff in a field that is increasingly using AI.
This article is from a longer interview and edited for clarity.
How is Allianz Trade Americas using AI?
Our unique selling proposition is the volume of data and the amount of data that we get, and how we integrate that data into our predictive credit intelligence. Getting new data on an ongoing basis is super important to us, to continue to offer our clients the best in class credit prediction. We embrace cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and try and implement automation where it's possible. The goal here is to elevate our customer experience and deliver a better service to our customers. What's important is that we don't replace service with these tools. We use them to enhance the service that we provide.
We keep looking at ways to automate. When I speak with businesses, their interest is driving productivity, because it's a difficult environment for companies to grow. Allianz Trade Credit is no different. We implemented automation in a number of areas of our business, including claims processing – not on big claims but lower level claims. We use automation to help us get organized on larger claims. We also use automation to integrate data, so we're interested in getting up to date information. We have data sources with local credit reporting agencies around the world that integrate into our system. Data points go into the Allianz Trade Grade. We monitor millions of buyers in our risk database. Every one of those companies has a risk grade, putting a customized view on the risk.
We're using machine learning to identify fraud, either in claims or on credit limit requests, to identify potential fraudulent transactions. We use AI for FAQs for chatbots and to create decision codes. When we render a credit limit decision for a customer, we use that to explain the decision and why we made it. It really serves as a supportive decision-making tool for our in-house experts.
Does AI provide more flexibility to deal with the changing economic climate?
Of course. AI allows us to crunch massive amounts of data in a much faster time. Even looking at reasons for client wastage [attrition], if you have a big Excel spreadsheet, it can crunch that and produce outcomes very quickly. The same goes for ongoing credit risk monitoring. We can also look more closely at trends that are correlated. If we are monitoring external KPIs around credit like GDP inflation, AI helps us be more predictive in the correlation between those KPIs, especially external ones, and ours.
The potential is huge in seeing different data points that are correlated, that you might not have identified before, or being able to monitor and manage large amounts of data and to act on that. But the risk is, you need to understand how the models work and where there could be weaknesses, so you can't just assume that the models are putting out 100% accurate data.
What's the impact of so many companies using AI tools?
On the plus side, it clearly gives businesses an opportunity to create efficiency. I remember once having a training on AI, and the individual that was doing the training said, AI will not make people smarter, but it will raise the bar of the minimum. With AI, quality will be at least a minimum standard. It has the opportunity to raise the quality for some businesses, but also create lots of efficiency.
On the flip side, we know AI is not 100% accurate. We hear about hallucinations – AI hallucinating and making up facts. The
In what aspects of insurance and technology can Allianz lead?
We are the global market leader of credit insurance. We have market share globally. We also have immense underwriting capabilities. Our database is second to none in the amount of data and the ability for us to aggregate data. It's about making sure that we are advising our clients in this uncertain environment.
Just recently, we launched credit information products. Historically, we've only sold insurance and alongside that, credit prediction. There's a new product, Allianz Trade Grade Check, that allows clients to access our credit rating and the monitoring of that credit rating over a 12-month period. It's also for businesses interested in understanding and monitoring the credit risk in their portfolio.
We saw significant interest from companies wanting to manage credit risk in their supply chain. For businesses that have a large number of suppliers or are importing products from a number of different countries, if there's a disruption in the supply chain, it could really impact their business operations. This is an interesting line of business, and something that we'll be exploring in the U.S. We need to do market analysis to make sure it's a viable product for us. Our proprietary credit information is second to none, and it would be really interesting to a lot of businesses, both for buyer risk monitoring and supplier risk monitoring.
What have you learned from previous roles, especially abroad, that will be useful in your new role?
There's a quote that transformation is not about technology, it's about people. This was probably the biggest lesson learned in my career. We were implementing a new policy administration system in the U.K., and when I came into the project, I really thought it was around the processes and the IT working, reducing defects and correcting defects and doing ample testing. But really, the mistake that I made is I didn't bring the people along with the change enough, and this is something that will stay with me, not only through IT transformation, but any sort of change. It's really about people.
How would you handle that differently?
Having employee focus groups to check in on how people are feeling, having ambassadors within the organization to come together and to voice concerns. Doing temperature checks with employees to understand how they're feeling. Having drop-in sessions in training or retraining on different topics. Managers need to understand that the change curve is faster or slower within their teams depending on the person. To identify who might be slower on the change curve than others and to support them along the way, is a skill unto itself.
