News and Information from Digital Insurance

AI is fueling a surge in data-center construction and a rise in cyber incidents. Insurance companies should have a response to both of these trends.

An underwriter needs to understand where the limits sit, who owns the outcome, how quickly a person can intervene and whether the company can reconstruct what happened after something goes wrong.

The coverage, which experts say will not completely replace standard commercial insurance, centers on definable characteristics from service-level agreements between owners and tenants.

Insurers are mistakenly treating a capacity problem as a headcount problem, warns Norm Hudson, CEO of Staff Boom.

Hurricane preparedness is a workforce challenge as much as a claims challenge, writes Jennifer Lee, president and co-CEO of Intradiem.

The 160-year-old company is focused on ROI to keep it grounded, but does not see this journey as having an endpoint, according to Bill Pappas, head of global tech and operations at MetLife.

The 2026 Travelers Institute Risk Index finds that as AI is creating new opportunities for cyber incidents, but many are underinsured — especially smaller businesses.

A series of tornadoes and severe hailstorms across the Central U.S. turned Midwestern states into claims hotspots in the second quarter, according to Verisk.

AI-powered technology such as early-wildfire-detection tools could help insurers contribute to community resilience, according to a report from Marsh and the Milken Institute.

The real unlock is removing the friction sitting underneath the process altogether.

Howden's latest report finds that only 20 U.S. data center locations account for 81% of square footage impacted by severe hail or tornadoes in the last 10 years.

The most common mistake is treating AI governance as a documentation exercise that happens after deployment, rather than a requirement built into the system from the start.

AI coding tools are putting insurtechs on the spot to change their value proposition; meanwhile, many consumers find that AI tools are making them more comfortable talking to agents. 

Matthew Madsen of Accenture recommends that insurance company leaders get more "hands-on" with AI and get staffs more fluent with AI.

The enthusiasm around agentic AI in reserving isn't wrong but ahead of the infrastructure required.

The company's survey finds that only 23% of AI users accept financial guidance from AI without validating the advice first.

Five insurtech CEOs share the advice they would give to their counterparts or themselves five years ago.

AI may improve the view from the driver's seat, but it should not occupy that seat, writes Marc Jeffreys, general manager of Health for Gradient AI.

Agents can't be in constant contact with every client. AI can help them flag important coverage gaps, writes Jackson Fregeau, the CEO and co-founder of Quandri.

Half of consumers plan to use AI but also want an advisor who can relate to their life experience to review information at some point in the purchasing process, according to the Capgemini Research Institute and LIMRA.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a request for information to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners about state regulators' efforts to address private equity ownership of life insurance companies.

With AI creating hidden risks that insurers must account for, some insurers leave these up to existing policies, others explicitly affirm they will cover AI risks, and a third set is excluding them.

Technology will enhance agents' abilities to serve clients, according to insurance risk expert Robert Hartwig of the University of South Carolina.

The build-versus-buy conversation is shifting hard toward build, and insurtechs must adapt to this change, according to Eoghan Scully, applied AI architect at Anthropic.

Clear policies, training, supervision and reporting routes are essential as smart glasses become more common.

To meet the climate challenge, capital investment must shift to early resilience investment and preparation from disaster recovery, a new report argues.

Technology, underwriting and claims remain the top needed roles for the insurance industry, according to the Jacobson Group and Aon's Semi-Annual U.S. Insurance Labor Market Study.

State insurance commissioners developing AI systems evaluation tool expect disclosures about claims operations, oversight and more, according to representatives of an industry group who attended a NAIC conference.

New York's Arrow Financial and Pennsylvania's First Commonwealth Financial were seeing their insurance revenue grow before they announced agency purchases this week. Prior to 2025, banks were shedding their insurance agencies.

With more insureds going to AI to do research, the workers' comp company chose to intercept them with a ChatGPT app.

Insurers serving the growing microbusiness market must understand how digital risks to this segment are evolving and adapt accordingly.

Catastrophe readiness is not only about processing capacity. It is about coordination capacity, writes Erika Echaniz, product manager at Foxit.

Insurance employees are less willing to trust AI decisions they cannot understand, according to a new SAS study.

The middle of a catastrophe is not the time to discover gaps in a disbursement process. Carriers should understand the complete path from claim approval to usable funds before claim volumes spike.

Cyber policies must keep pace with a surge in incidents fueled by AI, as well a growing trend toward account takeovers.

Even when AI is accurate enough to act on its own, customers and regulators will challenge the results. Insurers must be able to defend these decisions.

The life insurer credits its leap to the top of LIMRA's rankings after a years-long push toward using AI to accelerate decisions and lower costs.

Incorporating climate risks into modeling and pricing can help insurers better anticipate and manage their potential health and financial impacts.

Insurtech executives share the biggest mistakes they see other insurtechs making.

AI models are now reliable enough to automate most decisions that define performance in insurance, writes Taktile CEO Maik Taro Wehmeyer.

With the right foundation, insurers can more fully embrace AI and realize the benefits it brings, writes Kevin Gaut, CTO of Instanda.

Large corporations generate more than $7 billion in global market premium, and AI fueling more cyber incidents, many remain underinsured, according to the latest Swiss Re report.

BEC claims were 57% higher in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period last year, and fraudsters are increasingly focused on account takeovers, according to the Travelers' Q2 2026 Cyber Threat Report.

Companies like MSI, AGI and VIPR are finding that the best way to benefit from AI is to keep a tight grip on the data that they feed into those tools.

David Tobias, chief product officer at Nearmap, shared insights with Digital Insurance around how aerial imagery is used by insurers to better understand the impact of natural disasters.

Real improvement in managing uncertainty from a risk perspective won't come from better technology alone.

Independent agents want increased AI usage and automation to address pain points, according to Ivans' latest report.

Evident, a data platform, issued its second annual survey of insurers' AI efforts, showing some insurers ranking much higher than last year.

Pablo Palafox, CEO and co-founder at HappyRobot, shares a common mistake insurtechs make is leading with technology instead of the customers' problem.

Human oversight would still be needed, especially for underwriting, industry experts say. Yet linking voice recognition with AI engines will put insurance agents jobs at risk, they add.

One particular focus of attorneys general in the insurance space will likely be companies' use of AI in underwriting.

More than one-third, 37%, of customers who use AI to research insurance options changed their policy as a result.

Andrew Engler, CEO and co-founder of the insurtech, shared that if a property owner is willing to invest in reducing the possibility of a catastrophic loss, it should translate into insurance value.

To find the most success with AI, insurance companies should view it more as a way to fundamentally rework processes, according to the experts who write for InsureThink.

Introducing insurance options during the auto purchasing process correlates to a 20% boost in finance and insurance gross, according to Polly's Q2 embedded insurance report.

The broker experience is determined not by how quickly a risk can be submitted, but by how efficiently and confidently a carrier evaluates it.

Andrew Dalton, chief product officer, spoke about the challenges and risks presented by property data and how the MGA is using AI technology.

Mike Fiato, EVP and chief claims officer at Allstate, discusses The Allstate Claims University, a hands-on training campus in Dallas to simulate real-world damage situations and give employees practical experience.

Insurance expert Kenneth Saldanha says workflow and volume solutions are startups' biggest focus.

Collaboration between employers, brokers and third-party administrators will be essential to developing customized, cost-effective and employee-friendly solutions.

Insurance needs to stop treating its shrinking pool of checks as business as usual, especially when the data needed to manage the risk inside that pool already exists inside most carriers' own systems, writes Shareen Minor, chief revenue officer, U.S., at Vitesse.

VIPR created an insurance native platform, built for insurance data: AI-enabled technology solutions for the delegated authority and program business insurance markets.

The 2026 Excellence in Benefits winner is leading the insurance company's efforts to close the preventative care gap and personalize the employee experience.

Investors are committing almost 10 times as much as they were three years ago, but they are also setting higher standards for efficiency and profitability.

American Growth Insurance expects its in-house AI brokerage platform to improve risk transfer protocols, open cross-selling opportunities and increase its client base.

The explosive growth of data centers, which fuel a seemingly insatiable global demand for AI services, is creating a huge demand for insurance policies covering a wide range of risks.

Executives from Liberty Mutual, UnitedHealth Group, Travelers and The Hartford share where AI investments are paying off.

The high-risk delay is not a compliance holiday. It is time to make AI evidence, procurement and accountability operational, according to Corto Romagny, general manager for U.S. Operations at Uxopian Software.

Eighty-eight percent of policyholders reported that they want a provider that anticipates coverage problems before they ask, but doesn't rely solely on AI to do so, according to a new VIU by HUB survey.

Three areas inside agency finance are seeing the clearest, most measurable returns from AI and automation: commission reconciliation, premium financing and the monthly close.

Tens of thousands of acres have burned in central Oregon and in the Spokane region of eastern Washington.

In every weather event, entire regions are described as "impacted" as if risk were evenly distributed across geography. However, on the same street, sometimes even next door, one property suffers significant loss while another holds up.

One executive sees the biggest opportunity in pushing past AI's pilot stage and another suggests erasing the opacity of pricing.

Overall satisfaction with commercial insurers rose 15 points in 2026, and was above-average for digital shoppers, according to new research.

The most successful insurers avoid framing digital transformation as a choice between experience and technology.

FlyGuys and TerraFort combine their resources to conduct on-demand damage assessments after natural disasters.

Only 24% of insurers consider themselves to have a leading edge on data management maturity.

Once an AI-generated answer causes a loss, the argument moves beyond whether the answer was wrong, writes Dr. Viroshan Naicker, co-founder and CEO of Refiant.

The six underwriters did 17% more business versus the second quarter of 2025, with earnings per share estimates increased for four of them as a result.

Insurtechs have a major opportunity to address the industry's lack of data transparency, according to Ashwin Agarwal. "Whoever builds that trusted, transparent pricing layer first sets the terms for the entire industry."

Agencies rarely struggle because they don't use the right technology. They struggle because technology decisions become disconnected from the operational problems they are trying to solve.

Not every AI story is a success; what are companies like Liberty Mutual and Manulife doing right that others get wrong?

Most global data center construction is located in areas with heightened natural catastrophe peril, according to Allianz's latest report.

The best place to start AI adoption is tasks where employees already describe them as repetitive, slow or unnecessarily difficult, writes Amy Carlisle, president of MSI.

Cyber incidents raise key questions about coverage, particularly when it's a third party under attack, writes Deborah Dioguardi, EVP and Professional Lines National Practice Leader at Jencap.

A record percentage of homeowners renewing their insurance policy saw their fee decrease, up from 7.4% last year, according to Matic's mid-year trends report.

Aaron Minkovich, chief technology officer at Manulife, shared insights into how the company will expand AI and the ROI related to the partnership.

Insurtech service providers recommend human review and information sourcing checks as ways to prevent inconsistent claims and underwriting model output.

Effi Fuks-Leichtag, chief product officer at ERGO NEXT Insurance, writes about how entrepreneurs are turning to AI search tools for insurance guidance.

Improving the claims experience is critical for customer satisfaction and retention, according to Deloitte research.

The insurtech builds secure, compliant AI infrastructure for regulated industries including banking, credit unions, healthcare and insurance.

Entrepreneurs report a high level of trust when using an AI chatbot or search tool to look up options related to business insurance, according to an ERGO NEXT survey.

The insurer highlighted AI as underlying the many factors that fueled its financial performance for the first half of 2026.

A wave of new AI-enabled frameworks for marketing mix modelling are becoming the new standard among forward looking marketing leaders, writes Karl Canty, partner at Artefact.

When multiple data sources disagree, AI can be a "tie breaker" to correct discrepancies in property information, according to insurance data experts.

Danielle Lutkus, principal consultant at Capco, shared insights about how claims, underwriting and fraud teams are responding to AI-driven fraud.

Michael Estep, (president of group insurance) discusses the importance of improving customer experiences, team communication, and making benefits a year-round priority.

Despite AI-driven productivity gains, 77% of financial services firms say that AI investments don't deliver a measurable return.

AI is enabling a wide range of fraud threats, but those that deploy AI and automation in security can cut breach costs by millions.

Recent chemical incidents in Washington and California highlight the peril of forgoing pollution coverage, writes Dennis Willette, SVP and head of environmental at Westfield Specialty Insurance.