Start free trial

The landscape · Insurance

Insurance: what AI is really doing

Checked 25 Oct 2026 · newest receipt 23 Oct 2026 · 6 shifts · 13 companies · every fact sourced

Brief me in 2 minutes

AI in Insurance.

AI has moved past chatbots into the two functions that actually decide who pays what: claims triage and underwriting submission review, both now run by software that reads documents and photos and drafts a decision for a human to check. The money has moved one step further, into AI-native companies that hold the risk themselves instead of selling software to the people who do, and into agents that sit between the customer and the quote. Regulation is still state by state: the NAIC's draft examiner questionnaire for insurers' AI is out for comment as version 6.0 until 30 October, and a later version may be considered for adoption at its 14 to 17 November meeting, while insurers exclude AI failures from standard policies and a handful of startups sell narrow cover for exactly that gap.

The game: we show you 6 things happening. You call each one real now, early or mostly hype. Then the receipts.

Shift 1 of 6

Claims move from adjuster-first to AI-first, humans supervise the exceptions

Shift 2 of 6

Underwriting submissions get read, scored and routed by AI agents before an underwriter opens them

Shift 3 of 6

AI agents reach the point of sale: brokers automate the paperwork, a comparison site blocks the shopping bot

Shift 4 of 6

AI-native underwriters and carriers write the policies themselves, not just the software an insurer buys

Shift 5 of 6

Insurers' AI rules get written one state at a time

Shift 6 of 6

Insurers start selling narrow cover for AI's own mistakes, while quietly excluding them from everything else

The scary part

What happens to jobs in Insurance

What AI is already taking:

  • Routine claims handling, with more than half of one insurer's claims now automated Investing.com ↗
  • Commercial broker paperwork: application forms, document reading and policy comparison TechCrunch ↗
  • Underwriting submission intake and data entry: reading broker emails, ACORD forms and loss runs and executing the workflow Sixfold ↗
  • Fraud detection, alongside claims and underwriting decisions, handed to AI decisioning systems Shift Technology ↗

What stays human:

The judgment calls stay human: deciding what a carrier's actual risk appetite is, negotiating a disputed large claim, and signing off on the bias-testing report a regulator can subpoena. Nobody has built an AI system yet that a state insurance examiner will accept as the accountable party when a decision gets challenged.

Get better · 15 minutes

The ability to audit an algorithmic underwriting or claims decision for bias and document that testing the way Colorado's regulation now requires; that is a specific, defensible skill, not a vague "AI literacy" line on a resume.

Try this this week:

Pull up Colorado's Amended Regulation 10-1-1 on the Colorado Division of Insurance's regulations site, then run one of your own recent underwriting or claims decisions through what it requires you to document (the external data used, the testing done for unfair discrimination, the steps taken to fix what the testing finds) to see how far your current documentation is from what a regulator already asks for.

Your move

If you're building

Underwriting-workflow AI (Sixfold, Federato, Cytora, FurtherAI) is already crowded with well-funded players selling to the same short list of P&C carriers, and broker automation is filling up fast behind it. The open space is narrower: products that hold the risk on AI failure itself, where Armilla and Munich Re with Mosaic have launched cover while standard policies exclude it, and tooling that builds the AI model inventory the NAIC's draft examiner questionnaire asks for.

If you're investing

Watch whether a deal ties AI directly to a loss ratio, quote-to-bind ratio or claims-expense number a carrier actually reports, versus one that only cites internal pilot metrics; the NAIC's draft questionnaire asks carriers for a model inventory and a risk assessment, so a carrier that cannot say how each AI model is used and what it affects will be easy to spot. Red flags: a pitch that claims to replace underwriters rather than naming the manual step it removes, and an AI-native carrier quoting its loss ratio from a press release instead of a statutory filing.

If you work in it

Before the NAIC's 14 to 17 November meeting, write the model inventory its draft exam questionnaire asks for: every AI model your team uses in underwriting, claims or fraud, with its use, the area that owns it, its risk rating and its consumer impact. If that takes more than a day to assemble, you have found your examination problem before the examiner does.

If you're upskilling

Learn to audit an AI underwriting or claims model for bias, specifically the quantitative testing Colorado's Regulation 10-1-1 now requires. Start by reading the regulation text; the NAIC's draft examiner questionnaire points the same way, starting with a model inventory.

Done. That was the whole industry.

What's actually changing

  1. 1

    Claims move from adjuster-first to AI-first, humans supervise the exceptions

    How it works. AI now reads the first notice of loss, photos and documents, scores severity, flags coverage issues and drafts a payout before a human ever opens the file. Lemonade's bots run this for its own book; Corgi Claims does the same as a third-party administrator for other carriers, backed by a network of licensed adjusters for anything the model flags.

    Why it matters. The payoff shows up directly in the loss ratio insurers report to shareholders, not just in a demo: Lemonade's claims-handling expense is now roughly half the industry norm.

    What's overstated"AI settles claims" describes the easy half of the book. Every one of these systems is built to hand off severity or coverage-flagged cases to a human; the automation number is a mix, not a replacement rate.

    LemonadeCorgi

    2 receipts
    • Lemonade's Q2 2026 results show more than half its claims fully automated and a record-low claims-expense ratio. The company now automates more than 50% of claims, resulting in a loss adjustment expense ratio of just 5% Investing.com, 29 July 2026 ↗
    • Corgi's AI-native claims TPA screens every claim at first notice before a human adjuster sees it. The platform will review every claim at the first notification, using AI to assess severity, flag potential coverage issues and identify missing information before an adjuster begins reviewing the file fintech.global, 30 June 2026 ↗
  2. 2

    Underwriting submissions get read, scored and routed by AI agents before an underwriter opens them

    How it works. Startups sell software that ingests broker emails, ACORD forms, loss runs and statements of value, extracts and validates the data, and produces a triaged, risk-scored submission, sometimes with a draft quote attached. Sixfold, Federato and Cytora each sell a version of this to named commercial P&C carriers, and Ledgebrook's underwriters use its own engine, Blackbird, to quote specialty risks in hours rather than weeks in many cases, keeping responsibility for final decisions.

    Why it matters. Underwriters stop doing data entry and start doing the judgment calls the job was supposed to be about, which is also how carriers quote faster without adding headcount.

    What's overstatedCytora describes workflows that run without human intervention, while Sixfold and Ledgebrook keep underwriters on judgment and final decisions: "end-to-end" means a different amount of autonomy at each vendor.

    SixfoldCytoraLedgebrookFederatoZurich North AmericaSkyward Specialty

    3 receipts
    • Sixfold says its customers' underwriters now spend half as long reviewing submissions. Ferrandis reports that customers are seeing underwriters spend 50 percent less time reviewing submissions. Insurance Innovation Reporter, 23 Oct 2026 ↗
    • Ledgebrook's Blackbird lets underwriters quote specialty risks in hours rather than weeks in many cases, with underwriters keeping responsibility for final decisions. The system enables underwriters to quote specialty risks in hours rather than weeks in many cases, although experienced underwriting professionals retain responsibility for final decisions. Beinsure, 8 Oct 2026 ↗
    • Cytora's Autopilot runs risk workflows without a human triggering each step, reacting as new data arrives. The platform allows workflows to execute automatically without human intervention, responding to available data and adapting as new information arrives fintech.global, 18 Mar 2026 ↗
  3. 3

    AI agents reach the point of sale: brokers automate the paperwork, a comparison site blocks the shopping bot

    How it works. On the broker side, Outmarket plugs into agency management systems and does the forms, document reading and policy comparison so the broker can spend the time advising. On the consumer side, 1st Central's Motivo, built with Microsoft, is an agent that buys and changes a car policy for the customer. The fight is over who controls the quote: Insurify blocked Meta's Muse agent for scraping carrier prices without the limits, deductibles and disclosures attached.

    Why it matters. Whoever owns the agent owns the customer and the commission; an insurer whose quote gets flattened into a bare price list by someone else's bot competes on price alone.

    What's overstatedMotivo is sold through one comparison site and its claims support is planned for a future phase, so the agent buys the policy but does not yet handle the moment the policy exists for.

    Outmarket1st Central GroupMicrosoftInsurifyMeta

    3 receipts
    • Outmarket's broker automation has signed hundreds of agencies, including a quarter of the top 100. That value has attracted over 300 insurance agencies, including 25% among the top 100, as Outmarket’s customers since launching a new product 14 months ago. TechCrunch, 28 Sept 2026 ↗
    • 1st Central Group's Motivo agent makes policy changes and manages payments on the customer's behalf. The technology can carry out tasks on a customer’s behalf, including making policy changes and managing payments. Insurance Edge, 23 Oct 2026 ↗
    • Insurify blocked Meta's Muse because it showed carrier quotes as bare prices. Muse presents only price and omits other details such as limits, deductibles, discounts, eligibility, and disclosures. Insurance Journal, 24 Sept 2026 ↗
  4. 4

    AI-native underwriters and carriers write the policies themselves, not just the software an insurer buys

    How it works. Corgi went from selling AI-underwritten policies as an MGA to holding an admitted insurance carrier license itself. Ledgebrook underwrites general liability, professional liability and specialty insurance for mid-sized businesses through wholesale brokers, with Allianz X co-leading its $200 mn raise and Allianz Re signed as a multi-year reinsurer. Mandl launched as a holding company around Nirvana, an AI-native commercial insurer, plus an AI claims administrator and an agency operations platform.

    Why it matters. Writing the policy captures more of the premium than selling software ever could. An insurer that keeps the risk, as Corgi's new carrier and Nirvana do, also carries the loss ratio when claims come in above what it priced.

    What's overstatedCorgi's admitted carrier has filed its first products for a wider list than its startup base: technology companies sit beside salons, dry cleaners, self-storage facilities and small apartment buildings. Nirvana's "top-tier loss ratio" comes from its own launch press release, not a filed statement.

    CorgiLedgebrookAllianzMandlNirvana

    3 receipts
    • Corgi launched its own admitted insurance carrier, adding to the MGAs, captives and reinsurers it already runs. Corgi Insurance, the AI financial infrastructure company, today announced Corgi Insurance Company, Inc., its admitted insurance carrier. PR Newswire, 26 Aug 2026 ↗
    • Ledgebrook expects to pass $1bn in cumulative premium written since it started underwriting in 2023. Ledgebrook expects cumulative written premiums to exceed $1bn since it began underwriting business in 2023. Beinsure, 8 Oct 2026 ↗
    • Mandl says its insurer Nirvana has grown past $300 million in run-rate premium. Nirvana, the AI-native commercial insurer that has now grown to more than $300 million in run-rate premium with top-tier loss ratio performance GlobeNewswire via The Manila Times, 19 Oct 2026 ↗
  5. 5

    Insurers' AI rules get written one state at a time

    How it works. There is no single federal rule for AI in insurance decisions. Instead, the NAIC's Model Bulletin on AI governance has been picked up by roughly two dozen states, a draft questionnaire that tells state examiners how to review an insurer's AI, starting with a model inventory, drew 26 comment letters in a round that closed on 29 September, and version 6.0 is now out for comment until 30 October, and Colorado's amended Regulation 10-1-1 requires life, private passenger auto and health insurers to govern external consumer data and the models that use it, test for unfair discrimination and file a compliance report (first due 1 July 2026).

    Why it matters. A carrier operating nationally has to meet each state's rules, including Colorado's testing and reporting requirements, and should expect examiners who use the NAIC questionnaire, if it is adopted, to start by asking for an inventory of its AI models.

    What's overstatedAnyone expecting a unified federal AI-insurance framework soon is reading the room wrong; the NAIC's own position is to keep this at the state level.

    NAICColorado Division of Insurance

    4 receipts
    • About 24 states have adopted the NAIC's Model Bulletin on insurers' use of AI. That Model Bulletin has now been adopted in approximately 24 states. Crowell & Moring, 25 Mar 2026 ↗
    • The NAIC's draft AI exam supplement drew 26 comment letters after an earlier comment window closed on September 29. Comments closed on September 29, and NAIC posted 26 comment letters on October 2. The D*AI*LY Brief, 5 Oct 2026 ↗
    • The NAIC's Big Data and AI working group exposed version 6.0 of the AI Risk Evaluation Supplement for a 14-day comment period ending October 30, 2026. we are exposing the AI Risk Evaluation Supplement version 6.0 for written comments and feedback, for a 14-day comment period ending Friday, October 30, 2026. NAIC, 16 Oct 2026 ↗
    • Colorado's amended insurance regulation requires compliance, and a first compliance report, by July 1, 2026. Compliance with the Amended Regulation is required by July 1, 2026, and a compliance report is due to the Division by that date (and annually thereafter). Faegre Drinker, 2 Sept 2025 ↗
  6. 6

    Insurers start selling narrow cover for AI's own mistakes, while quietly excluding them from everything else

    How it works. New products now price specific AI failure modes. Munich Re's aiSure, distributed through Mosaic, names four: LLM hallucinations, algorithmic discrimination, copyright infringement and AI-specific regulatory fines, and pays a pre-agreed amount when a model-accuracy benchmark is breached rather than adjudicating each claim. Armilla AI's standalone policy lists its own set, including AI regulatory violations, data leakage, harmful outputs and AI agent failures. Meanwhile Verisk's ISO forms let carriers strip generative AI out of standard general liability, and the biggest names have filed to use them.

    Why it matters. A company deploying an AI agent can no longer assume its existing E&O, cyber or general liability policy responds if that agent causes a loss; that gap is what these new, capped products are built to fill.

    What's overstated"Insurable AI risk" sounds like actuaries have a proven loss model; a parametric trigger is really a bet on where you set the accuracy benchmark, not a claims history, and none of these products has run long enough to prove the benchmark was set right.

    Armilla AIMunich ReMosaic InsuranceVeriskW.R. BerkleyChubb

    3 receipts
    • Armilla raised the limit on its standalone AI Liability Policy to up to $25 million. Armilla AI, a US-based InsurTech specialising in AI liability coverage, has raised its standalone AI Liability Policy to offer limits up to $25m to expand its insurance offerings amid growing demand for protection against generative AI risks. fintech.global, 23 Jan 2026 ↗
    • Munich Re's aiSure with Mosaic covers four named AI failure modes with a fixed per-claim limit. LLM hallucination, algorithmic discrimination, copyright infringement, regulatory fines actuary.info, 8 July 2026 ↗
    • Five major carriers had filed to adopt the ISO generative AI exclusions or their own versions by April. W.R. Berkley, Chubb, Travelers, Berkshire Hathaway, and AIG had each filed to adopt the ISO forms or proprietary equivalents by April. Insurance Business, 16 Sept 2026 ↗

Who's doing it

13 companies to know, 6 with a round we can source. Newest first where dated.

Search these companies in the startup database ↗ · Explore all research tools

Sixfoldunderwriting

AI agents that read commercial P&C submissions and execute the underwriting workflow for carriers like Zurich and Skyward Specialty.

Latest · 23 Oct 2026Says customers' underwriters spend 50 percent less time reviewing submissions, and is pushing its AI Underwriter from intake toward a quote. Insurance Innovation Reporter ↗

$30M Series B, 29 Jan 2026 source ↗

MandlAI-native insurer holding company

Holding company for Nirvana (an AI-native commercial insurer), Vega (an AI claims administrator) and Cooper (operations software for agencies, MGAs and carriers), set to build or buy more.

Latest · 19 Oct 2026Launched in October 2026; says its insurer Nirvana has passed $300 million in run-rate premium. GlobeNewswire via The Manila Times ↗

LedgebrookAI-native specialty insurer (E&S)

Boston excess and surplus insurer whose in-house Blackbird engine reads submissions, classifies risks and prices them for mid-sized businesses placed through wholesale brokers; underwriters make the final call.

Latest · 8 Oct 2026Expects to pass $1bn in cumulative premium written, with Allianz Re signed as a multi-year reinsurer. Beinsure ↗

$200M Primary equity, 8 Oct 2026 source ↗

CorgiAI-native insurer and MGA infrastructure

Runs insurance for tech startups, small businesses and now data centres, across MGA, captive, reinsurer and admitted-carrier structures, plus an AI-native claims TPA.

Latest · 5 Oct 2026Launched a data centre programme covering construction through operation, including residual value protection for GPUs. fintech.global ↗

$108M Series A and earlier seed, 12 Jan 2026 source ↗

Outmarketbroker and agency operations

AI that connects to agency management systems and automates the forms, documents and policy comparison commercial insurance brokers do by hand.

Latest · 1 Oct 2026Passed 10,000 active users across more than 300 agency customers. Insurance Journal ↗

$34.5M Series B, 28 Sept 2026 source ↗

LemonadeAI-native insurer, claims

Publicly traded insurer whose AI runs quoting (Maya) and claims (Jim) for renters, home, pet, life and car policies.

Latest · 29 July 2026Q2 2026: more than half of claims fully automated, pushing the claims-expense ratio to 5% against an industry norm near 9%. Investing.com ↗

ZestyAIunderwriting, property risk models

Property-level AI risk models used by P&C carriers, reinsurers and brokers to price climate and structural risk.

Latest · 24 Mar 2026Launched Z-SPARK, a model predicting non-weather fire risk at the individual property level. PR Newswire ↗

Cytoraunderwriting, digital risk processing

Autopilot product runs commercial insurance risk workflows from submission to decision, pulling data from emails, documents and calls as it arrives.

Latest · 18 Mar 2026Launched Cytora Autopilot, letting underwriting workflows execute automatically as new submission data arrives. fintech.global ↗

Gradient AIunderwriting, claims, fraud

Underwriting and claims prediction platform for insurers, pricing risk off a shared, cross-carrier data lake rather than one insurer's own history.

Latest · 9 Mar 2026Secured growth capital financing from CIBC Innovation Banking. AI News ↗

Shift Technologyfraud detection, claims decisioning

Fraud-detection and claims automation platform built for insurers, used across claims, underwriting and fraud workflows by carriers including AXA.

Latest · 5 Mar 2026Renewed its strategic partnership with AXA for another five years across multiple countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Shift Technology ↗

Armilla AIinsuring AI risk

Lloyd's-backed MGA selling standalone AI liability insurance covering model error, harmful outputs, agent failures and AI-specific regulatory fines.

Latest · 23 Jan 2026Raised the limit on its standalone AI Liability Policy to up to $25 million. fintech.global ↗

FurtherAIsubmission intake, brokers and MGAs

AI agents for carriers, MGAs and brokers that automate submission intake, policy comparison, claims processing and compliance review.

Latest · 7 Oct 2025Raised one of the largest Series A rounds in insurance AI, led by Andreessen Horowitz. FurtherAI ↗

$25M Series A, 7 Oct 2025 source ↗

Federatounderwriting, portfolio risk

RiskOps platform that has AI triage submissions against a carrier's target portfolio and feed underwriters real-time appetite guidance.

Latest · 20 Nov 2024Customers report large gains in quote speed and share of on-appetite business written. Federato ↗

$40M Series C, 20 Nov 2024 source ↗

Your move

Our read, built on the receipts above.

If you're building

Underwriting-workflow AI (Sixfold, Federato, Cytora, FurtherAI) is already crowded with well-funded players selling to the same short list of P&C carriers, and broker automation is filling up fast behind it. The open space is narrower: products that hold the risk on AI failure itself, where Armilla and Munich Re with Mosaic have launched cover while standard policies exclude it, and tooling that builds the AI model inventory the NAIC's draft examiner questionnaire asks for.

If you're investing

Watch whether a deal ties AI directly to a loss ratio, quote-to-bind ratio or claims-expense number a carrier actually reports, versus one that only cites internal pilot metrics; the NAIC's draft questionnaire asks carriers for a model inventory and a risk assessment, so a carrier that cannot say how each AI model is used and what it affects will be easy to spot. Red flags: a pitch that claims to replace underwriters rather than naming the manual step it removes, and an AI-native carrier quoting its loss ratio from a press release instead of a statutory filing.

If you work in it

Before the NAIC's 14 to 17 November meeting, write the model inventory its draft exam questionnaire asks for: every AI model your team uses in underwriting, claims or fraud, with its use, the area that owns it, its risk rating and its consumer impact. If that takes more than a day to assemble, you have found your examination problem before the examiner does.

If you're upskilling

Learn to audit an AI underwriting or claims model for bias, specifically the quantitative testing Colorado's Regulation 10-1-1 now requires. Start by reading the regulation text; the NAIC's draft examiner questionnaire points the same way, starting with a model inventory.

What's next

  • 14 Nov 2026 NAIC Fall National Meeting, where a trade report expects a version 7.0 of the AI exam questionnaire to be considered for adoption; the NAIC's own page so far shows version 6.0, out for comment until 30 October beri.net ↗
  • 5 Nov 2026 Lemonade's Q3 2026 results: does the share of fully automated claims stay above the half it reported for Q2? finviz.com ↗

Other industries