Commercial lines insurance is changing—not with loud announcements or flashy tech demos, but through quiet, meaningful shifts in how work gets done.
Executive Summary
AI agents might be able to detect that a logistic company frequently uses subcontracted drivers and hasn't asked for non-owned auto liability coverage, leaving a gap that underwriters could recommend filling.If portfolio data indicate that midsize manufacturing accounts in a specific region consistently generate higher-than-expected loss ratios, AI agents can help flag this pattern for investigation, ultimately helping underwriting teams to explore potential underwriting adjustments, update guidance and communicate to brokers.
Here, Farah Ismail from WTW presents these two examples related to product customization and portfolio monitoring as she looks at how AI is transforming commercial insurance by improving efficiency, enhancing decision-making and building resilience across nine carrier activities, including pricing, claims processing and loss reserving.
Much of this progress is driven by teams applying AI tools to everyday tasks. Underwriters are spending less time wrangling documents and more time thinking critically about risk. Claims teams are gaining faster access to the right information. Actuaries are testing ideas in minutes, not days.
This isn’t about replacing people. It’s about giving insurance professionals better tools—tools that learn, adapt and support decision-making in ways that weren’t possible before. AI agents and solutions are being integrated across the value chain, helping carriers operate more efficiently, intelligently and with greater resilience.
Where AI Is Making a Difference
Submission IntakeSubmission ingestion is one of the most manual and time-consuming parts of the underwriting process. Submissions arrive in various formats, including PDFs, scanned forms, emails and spreadsheets. Underwriters are often required to sift through each document to extract relevant information. With AI solutions, this process becomes significantly more efficient. These tools can handle format variability, extract and clean data, fill in missing fields, and flag any inconsistencies or anomalies.
