Travelers partners with Google Cloud on insurance underwriting

Travelers and Google Cloud announced a partnership to create a cloud-based ecosystem to help underwriters evaluate large amounts of information more efficiently. 

"We are continuously focused on identifying new and emerging technologies that will further enhance our risk management expertise, streamline processes, improve productivity and efficiency, and make for a better overall experience for our customers and agents," says Greg Toczydlowski, executive vice president and president of Business Insurance at Travelers, in an email.

The data ecosystem, built on Google Cloud, will use artificial intelligence and analytics to give underwriters more information about a potential customer's risk profile.

"Google Cloud's world-class data science capabilities will significantly enhance our efforts and provide us with an even more granular understanding of the risks we're evaluating at a faster pace," said Toczydlowski, in a statement.

Early pilot results from the two companies reveal that the process will likely reduce the amount of time to complete an underwriting file for a commercial insurance quote from weeks to perhaps minutes for large and middle-market businesses.

"Insurance companies are rich with proprietary data, but there's an abundance of new and developing third-party data that's becoming increasingly valuable to underwriters," said Henna Karna, managing director, Global Insurance, Reinsurance & Risk Management Industry Solutions, Google Cloud, in a statement. "Our ultimate goal is to empower the insurance industry with cloud-based capabilities that connect those dots and provide a complete view of risk. Travelers is an industry leader known for underwriting excellence and innovation, and together, we're working to further scale its advanced analytics and unlock additional data-driven insights."