AI Copilots Give Commercial Insurance a Long-Overdue Makeover
The commercial insurance industry, a financial cornerstone valued in the hundreds of billions, has long been held back by outdated processes reliant on paper. While this may not surprise anyone who has recently navigated the sector, the issue stems, in part, from deeply embedded legacy systems, complex regulations, and the sheer scale of underwriting and claims processing. For commercial insurance to successfully embrace digital transformation, it requires “a painkiller, not just a vitamin. Something that solves acute pain points from day one,” according to Vishal Sankhla, co-founder and CEO of Outmarket AI.
But the current inefficiencies are not recent. So why is the industry suddenly recognizing the need for change? Sankhla says the answer is twofold: a persistent drive for greater efficiency, and the availability of powerful artificial intelligence (AI).
“We’re not just digitizing insurance,” Sankhla explained. “We’re redefining it.”
The AI Advantage in Insurance
Sankhla’s company isn’t just using established AI models, however. Instead, they’re building an insurance-specific model from the ground up. “We’ve spent the last year working closely with brokers, MGAs [managing general agents] and wholesalers to develop a solution tailored for insurance,” he said. “Generic AI models won’t go deep into the workflows or integrate with legacy systems.”
One of the most notable impacts AI is having in commercial insurance is enabling greater standardization and orchestration across previously siloed systems. Sankhla gave an example, “If you ask a data analyst to pull a metric like last month’s premium, you’ll get different answers because they’re looking at different systems. We provide a unified data layer where definitions are standardized, ensuring consistency across the company.”
Since launching in November, Outmarket has onboarded 10 pilot customers, showing the industry’s desire to adapt and innovate. The company is currently focused on insurance brokers, a critical yet technologically underserved component of the value chain. Sankhla, who previously led product development at Ethos Life, experienced the inefficiencies plaguing insurance brokers first-hand. Brokers are overwhelmed with workflows, which range from an avalanche of emails and phone calls to manually processing policy documents that can be 200 pages long. Brokers are also sitting on mountains of data spread across various agency management systems, claims platforms, and CRMs, preventing them from finding insights that could greatly improve their business performance.
“Brokers are absolutely critical to this value chain,” Sankhla said. “They provide important advisory services on what insurances businesses need. Businesses don’t just need one insurance — they need multiple coverages. And all of their workflows are extremely manual.”
AI-Driven Inflection Point
AI also offers brokers the ability to optimize key performance indicators (KPIs) like the submission-to-bind ratio — the time it takes to bind a policy after it’s submitted. “If one carrier takes too long, brokers can explore faster alternatives. AI can also pre-fill renewal applications using last year’s data, eliminating unnecessary back and forth,” Sankhla explained.
Previously, insurance firms had to combine multiple point solutions — data warehouses, analytics platforms, and automated workflow tools — to achieve even partial efficiency. Now, AI supports firms in consolidating these functions, providing a seamless, automated experience. “We don’t ask brokers to change their workflows or their systems of record,” Sankhla said. “That’s not practical. Instead, we connect existing systems, making it easier for brokers to do what they already do, but faster and better.”
However, as AI adoption accelerates, the question arises of what happens when every player in the ecosystem has access to the same technology. For Sankhla, the competitive advantage will come down to how well companies integrate AI into their operations. “Every industry today is looking for efficiency. How do I grow my top line? How do I control my costs?” Sankhla said. “The second big thing is that the technology is there now. AI wasn’t where it is today. Now, you can meaningfully automate, creating a co-pilot-like experience for brokers.”
Looking ahead, while Sankhla’s immediate focus is on brokers, Outmarket’s AI-driven platform has implications across the entire insurance ecosystem. “A more efficient broker system means more accurate, complete applications for underwriters,” he added. “Carriers get better data, which means they can process applications faster and offer better coverage options to businesses.”
