The insurance sector has been slow to adopt AI, but it's making steady progress. Companies are using computer vision applications to assess damage, machine learning algorithms to detect fraud, and AI to boost productivity in support functions like customer service and marketing. But which insurance companies are doing it best?
A new index from London-based research firm Evident Insights aims to answer that question. The index assesses major insurance firms' AI prowess based on four "pillars": talent (45% of the overall ranking), innovation (30%), leadership (15%), and transparency of responsible AI activity (10%). The index ranks the 30 largest North American and European insurers based on total premiums underwritten or total assets under management.
Two insurers, Axa and Allianz, emerged as clear leaders in Evident's assessment. They were the only two to rank in the top five across all four pillars and had a substantial lead over third-place insurer USAA.
But why are Axa and Allianz leading the pack? According to Evident's co-founder and co-CEO Alexandra Mousavizadeh, it's because they have an "engineering culture." She says that claims and underwriting automation are big engineering challenges that require large teams of skilled developers and technology experts to make work at scale.
Companies that invest most heavily in human AI expertise are most likely to excel at using AI to run their businesses more efficiently, opening up an ever-widening gap between these companies and those that are AI laggards. However, there's still a substantial gap in the insurance sector between AI hype and actual ROI. Of the 30 insurers Evident evaluated, only 12 had disclosed at least one AI use case with a tangible business outcome. Just three insurers—Intact Financial, Zurich Insurance Group, and Aviva—had publicly disclosed a monetary return from their AI efforts.
The story here isn't just about insurance—it's about every industry grappling with AI. Executives everywhere are still figuring out which AI investments will pay off, but the early winners share a common thread: they're not just buying AI tools, they're building AI teams. They're hiring engineers, experimenting relentlessly, measuring results—and then expanding the successful use cases everywhere they can.
With that, here's more AI news. And before we get to the other sections, I want to flag this deep dive article from my colleagues Sharon Goldman and Allie Garfinkle into the background behind Meta's $14 billion investment into Scale AI and the hiring of Scale co-founder and CEO Alexandr Wang for a major new role at Meta. Their story is a must-read. Check it out here.
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Jeremy Kahn
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@jeremyakahn
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.
