Specialist insurer Hiscox’s multi-year collaboration with Google has been a core growth driver for the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning across the business, said Paul Cooper, chief financial officer of specialist insurer Hiscox.
Commenting on the company’s AI implementation, Cooper highlighted the partnership’s transformative results, particularly in accelerating the submission process and opening up new market opportunities.
The most direct effect of AI implementation is to strengthen lead underwriting operations against terrorism insurance sabotage.
“What we saw was the benefit of this kind of enhanced lead underwriting arrangement against sabotage and terrorism, and in this case, it drove the application from a timing standpoint, from about a three-day turnaround time to certainly about three minutes,” Cooper said.
He added: “This is certainly something we’re looking at to accelerate adoption into other parts of the business and be able to roll out components of it into other areas.”
He acknowledged that this proof of concept has become industrialized, with approximately two-thirds of sabotage and terrorism operations now subject to enhanced underwriting procedures.
Cooper said the partnership with Google has two main drivers: to serve as a growth enabler and to drive efficiency.
“One is growth enablement, similar to sabotage and terrorism, expansion into mid-market real estate, and more generally looking at technological expertise to drive business efficiency,” he said.
Hiscox is quickly exporting its technology capabilities to the retail industry and deploying components of its AI framework to other sectors, such as the mid-market real estate sector, where it has recently been used in the London market.
“Part of our ability is to partner with Google to use AI to cleanse data and accelerate the submission process as a result,” Cooper said, highlighting the speed advantage this gives Hiscox compared to competitors that use purely manual processes.
Sea freight is another area where Hiscox has gained access to business thanks to technology. The executive said: “In ocean freight, we use APIs to essentially digitally underwrite, quote, and tie up risk almost instantly.
“In the smaller ocean freight sector, it was usually unthinkable that that deal would come to Lloyds because the average premiums are high, and certainly there are question marks as to whether it could have taken it on economically.”
He concluded: “We look forward to continuing to innovate more broadly, not just in the London market, but across the group. If you look at what we’ve done in terms of the AI application process, this is an area that increased productivity in the UK by 40% last December, and we’re rolling it out across Europe, the US and our brokers in the US.”
