10 Things to Consider When Exploring Artificial Intelligence in Your Insurance Agency

Always review and validate AI output 

Even the best AI is only as good as its data, the programming behind it and the quality of user prompts. It is critical to insert human oversight in reviewing any output from AI to assess whether it addresses your need, accuracy, tone, brand voice, etc.   

In an industry driven by contracts and compliance, your agency is likely accountable for actions and content generated by your agency – whether by human or AI. As the technology continues to mature, it’s a best practice to involve humans to review and validate the output AI is generating whether you’re using it internally or externally. 

Set expectations and provide guidance for your team  

If you’re an agency leader, it’s important to talk about the risks of AI with your team, set expectations, and begin to offer formal guidance to your team in how you expect and allow them to use AI for work or while at work.  

If you’re implementing an artificial intelligence tool as part of your insurance agency’s processes, make sure to focus on your staff. We all have different thoughts about AI, and you may have employees who fear AI will take their job. Be clear that is not your goal, that AI can help them do their job more efficiently and remove mundane repetitive tasks so they can do more rewarding tasks. 

Even if you personally aren’t using AI or making it part of your agency’s processes, your team may be using AI. They may even be using AI tools to support them in their job, such as using free generative AI tools for research, brainstorming, letter writing, sales/service replies, and perhaps even renewal or policy reviews.  

AI tools may help your staff save time on routine tasks, but given the risks discussed above, it’s essential to have a clear policy for your team about when using AI is permitted and for what activities. 

Be transparent with your customers  

If your agency is using AI to generate any content or interaction with your customers, experts recommend that you notify them. If you use AI for customer service interactions, offer customers a means to interact with one of your staff. 

Be aware of potential issues with E&O and licensing  

Errors and omissions (E&O) and licensing are ripe for impact from AI. We’ve discussed the possibilities of inaccurate output from IA, and it goes without saying that inaccurate information and customer advice can lead to E&O issues. In fact, some are speculating that carriers, especially E&O, may begin requiring some form of AI disclosure and/or an auditable AI policy/procedure document.  

It’s also likely that AI will develop to the point it could be deployed with more direct customer interface. It seems that will lead to interesting questions about licensing, especially if the AI tools are construed to service, negotiate or solicit insurance.   

Decide if you’re an AI builder or consumer  

When exploring AI solutions, it’s important to be honest about the capabilities and desires of your agency. There are certainly agencies capable and interested that will invest in experimentation and building their own custom AI solutions. This holds true with any new technological advancement over the years. The industry and society need these people and companies. 

But the reality is that most agencies and people won’t have the desire or capability to build AI solutions from scratch. Rather, most will be educated consumers of products built to solve established use cases or enable new capabilities. And that’s OK! After all, how many agencies build their own comparative raters, CRM, or management system? Some clearly do, and we are grateful for the paths they help us forge. But most are consumers of products built and tested to solve what we each need.   

Clean up your data  

Since AI models are driven by data, having clean and consistent data, and lots of it, makes AI more accurate and usable. Even if a custom AI is still aways off for you, there are other business benefits from clean data and consistent processes. 

With AI evolving so quickly and the promise of business impact being very real, it’s important to pay attention, learn as much as you can, and be intentional about how you implement artificial intelligence in your insurance agency. We at the Agents Council for Technology encourage an open and inquisitive mind, that you stay plugged in to AI developments, but also be aware of these cautions and considerations.