If you’re not using AI you’re ‘ten years behind,’ speaker says

DALLAS – Artificial intelligence brings the potential to change the insurance industry from risk to pricing to customer leads. Yet, some insurers remain skeptical.

They shouldn't be, agreed a panel at the Annuity Distribution Summit, hosted by the National Association for Fixed Annuities. The panel examined how AI is impacting various aspects of distribution.

"Our industry tends to be a little bit slow in certain areas, but I do think if you are not utilizing some AI in your day-to-day business today, you are 10 years behind," said Roy Goodart, vice president of product management for IPipeline.

A recent industry survey by LIMRA shows a mixed bag of enthusiasm for AI among insurance companies. Forty-seven percent said that AI will have a significant impact on the industry, with another 41% saying the impact will be moderate.

Almost 29% had a flat AI spend this year, and next year, 71% will have a flat or just moderately higher spend, LIMRA said. In addition, nearly half (48%) have not yet implemented any type of employee training program on using this technology.

Goodart listed the many ways the AI can help right away: "Do presentations, look at contracts, look at different documents in a different way. Help you summarize things for your clients, and kind of talk through what some of those things are. Those are easy things that you and your office can do today."

'Get familiar with it'

For companies not sure where to get started with AI, Jay Charles said simple experimentation will get employees comfortable with the technology. Charles is managing director and head of insurance products at Luma Fintech.

"Start small. Create an environment where folks at your firm can start doing some testing, start playing around with it, and get familiar with it," Charles said. "I think that will spur a tremendous amount of creativity just around the processes and tasks that they may be doing today."

It is important to set some ground rules on what your employees can and can't share to an AI program like ChatGPT, said Doug Massey, executive vice president of sales at Hexure. But if everyone understands how to use AI, it can work wonders on even difficult tasks, he added.

"Maybe you're doing a lot of recruiting, and you've got new producers that are coming in," Massey explained. 'You want to give them a nice playbook for how to talk to clients about annuities. But you don't have time to spend writing a complicated playbook. ... It'll write you an entire playbook that you can go review and edit instead of spending weeks and weeks doing it."

One thing employees shouldn't be worried about is losing their jobs, the panel agreed. Unless they run scared from the technology, that is.

"AI is not going to really replace your job," Goodart said. "But what will replace your job is the person who understands the AI."

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