AI moves into the core insurance value chain

AI moves to the core of the operating model

The 30 insurers tracked in the Evident AI Index announced 27 new AI use cases in Q1, down from the previous quarter, but with a clearer focus. 

Insurers are concentrating deployments on the core insurance value chain, with Underwriting & Pricing and Claims Management – the two functions that most directly impact profitability – making up the majority of use cases in Q1.

Property & Casualty (P&C) led by line of business, representing 56% of all new announcements. That concentration is telling: P&C is uniquely well positioned for AI adoption because it combines high-volume workflows, shorter renewal cycles, rich claims data, and frequent customer interactions across underwriting, customer service, and claims.

Agentic sharpens its focus on Claims and Specialty Underwriting

Five of Q1’s use cases were agentic – fewer than the previous quarter – but more concentrated as the technology finds its footing in two areas: Claims and Specialty Underwriting. 

Claims is where agentic is actively shipping, including Allianz’s multi-agent food-spoilage orchestration, Travelers’ voice-native Claim Assistant and Zurich’s ZuriFault liability tool. In Specialty Underwriting, AIG and McGill and Partners announced a collaboration using agentic AI to manage the deployment of capacity across up to $1.6bn of McGill and Partners' GWP specialty portfolio, with AIG expecting to deploy a 25% share, underpinned by Palantir's Foundry platform.

AI adoption is still a productivity story

Just 18% of new use cases in Q1 reported an outcome, down from 38% in the previous quarter. Of those, 4 in 5 were productivity gains – no revenue uplift, customer satisfaction, or risk figures were reported for new Q1 deployments.

Aggregate ROI disclosures from the 30 insurers we track remain limited to just three insurers (10%) – Generali, Manulife and Intact Financial. In contrast, almost 30% of the 50 banks we track in the Evident AI Index now disclose aggregate AI ROI.