Agentic AI is transforming insurance sales both for consumers and agents

The use of agentic AI in the insurance industry has positively impacted sales by empowering consumers and helping less experienced agents overcome barriers, according to an industry expert.

“The best thing AI is bringing to consumers purchasing life insurance and annuity contracts right now is access to all the information in one place,” Sky Opila, head of business development and growth for Zinnia.

Opila, who previously managed the Policygenius business and ran a direct-to-consumer channel at Allstate, said not only does this help change the way consumers purchase insurance, but it also supports agents with the sales process.

He said AI makes it easier for “power users” to get even better, while also helping the “low-producing population” who may sell life insurance and annuities more infrequently to “really come to the table and start engaging in these products.” For example, those who may have “never done an annuity application” can “do it in minutes with simple technology.”

“Those things that were barriers to entry are now wiped out because we can give them all the tooling and education within AI tools that put everything at their fingertips,” Opila said.

Information at a click

Opila said consumers historically had to put a lot of effort into researching policies, describing it as “essentially a hunt-and-peck to finding information.”

Although he acknowledged that groups such as LIMRA, Life Happens and the Insured Retirement Institute published “generic information” for consumers, most information was published by individual carriers or distributors, and consumers had to “hunt” for it.

“With AI, now I can simply query and I get a litany of information at my fingertips and direct answers to all my questions. It has massively simplified the ability to research and understand life insurance and annuity products,” Opila said.

He suggested that the ability to use AI to research complex topics more easily is changing the way consumers shop for insurance. That’s because previous Zinnia research found “one of the reasons consumers were hesitant to talk to an agent about life insurance and annuity contracts is they didn’t feel well enough informed about the products to get into a conversation.”

“They were ultimately afraid that when the sales tactics came in, they wouldn’t know how to respond because they weren’t well enough educated,” Opila explained.

He said the industry is now moving towards using AI tools to empower consumers to make decisions about their financial future while giving them the confidence to talk to an advisor without feeling worried or fearful.

AI-powered sales tools

On the other side of the equation, Opila said agents are leveraging agentic AI to help streamline the sales process. He said some agents have already begun using AI to help consumers in their education journey.

“We’re starting to see more folks use AI education tools, AI querying tools, to help consumers in the process. Right now, it seems to be focused mostly on how to educate people on their policies and why they should purchase life insurance or annuity contracts,” he said.

Aside from the empowerment aspect, he said one of the biggest barriers to agents selling more life insurance and annuity products is the advisor experience — and this is something agentic AI can help to address.

He said in today’s world, advisors still operate across seven to eight different systems to place a single life insurance or annuity contract. Even further, to manage that book of business, the enforced policy is “a completely different black box.”

“What we need to empower is the ability for the entire buying experience to be a simplified digital journey, so that it can sit right alongside those other financial products,” Opila said.

“We will only see material change in the industry once we make buying, selling and servicing life insurance and annuity contracts as simple as signing up for a checking account or another basic financial product.”

Industry partnership will drive change

Simplifying the insurance sales process is a core focus for Zinnia, Opila said. In his words, this is “the opportunity that’s really going to change the game for our industry; AI only helps us get there faster.”

“We’re really focused on simplifying that experience, so that now instead of life insurance and annuities being separate from all your other financial products, they’re easy and they’re embedded inside of your banking app, inside of your IRA management platform, inside of where you’re managing the rest of your money,” he said.

He stated that a partnership among carriers, regulators, distributors, and technology vendors is essential for the success of the AI initiative.

“I’ve seen the shift in consumer willingness to go online for information; it’s super high right now. But I want to see us, as an industry, come together to bring those parties to the table to really make a meaningful change in how we operate,” Opila said. “AI is the perfect catalyst for that.”

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Rayne Morgan is a journalist, copywriter, and editor with over 10 years' combined experience in digital content and print media. You can reach her at [email protected].