AI as a catalyst for smarter underwriting and insurance innovation – RSA

The conversation around artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving. No longer just a tool for automation, AI is now seen as a key driver of economic growth.

The UK government has highlighted AI as a transformative force, encouraging sectors – including insurance – to harness its capabilities to improve efficiency, enhance decision-making and unlock new opportunities.

At RSA, a commercial lines technology and workflow transformation programme is embedding AI into underwriting processes. Acting as an assistive tool, AI is automating manual tasks and surfacing deeper insights and opportunities for innovative growth, allowing underwriters to focus on complex risks, improve pricing accuracy and enhance broker service through faster decision making and more communicative support.

Smarter risk insights

Processing vast amounts of data in real time gives AI the edge in risk assessment. Traditional underwriting relies on high-volume manual data input and analysis – an approach that holds back underwriters and brokers.

As thousands of detailed submissions come through in commercial lines, underwriters have previously prioritised inputting data for the most viable opportunities to ensure their time is spent where they can add the most value.

As a result, insights from declined or unassessed submissions have remained untapped. AI powered data ingestion can now process these submissions at scale, even those we don’t want to write, giving us a much richer understanding of market demand that will help identify emerging trends and unmet market needs.

Beyond improving risk assessment, this AI enabled, data-driven approach can fuel product innovation. By identifying patterns in market demands and leveraging data breadth and quality, AI provides the insights needed to explore new product opportunities or refine existing offerings. This fuller view of market demand leads to smarter underwriting, enhanced risk selection and pricing, improved product design and strengthened commercial resilience.

Accelerating decision making

Once complete, RSA’s technology transformation will increase speed to market while supporting better decision making in underwriting and pricing. A key component of this is the implementation of AI driven tools that assist underwriters by prompting relevant questions tailored to customer risks, delivering insights faster.

For example, we’re implementing an AI tool that scans broker-submitted data, extracts key underwriting information and seamlessly integrates it into the necessary systems.

Not only will the tool analyse trends and patterns that may not be immediately clear, but will supplement internal data with publicly available insights, offering underwriters a deeper understanding of risks. We see real potential in leveraging AI beyond the point of sale and across the entire value chain, to improve the end-to-end customer journey.

Amplifying human expertise

AI alone doesn’t drive innovation. Our business, and industry at large, is built by people and relationships. While AI is a valuable tool, it’s our expertise that guides, designs and shapes how we apply it. Our primary focus must always remain on optimising solutions and providing support to our customers.

By complimenting human expertise, AI is not just enhancing efficiency, it is driving progress.

When embedded into underwriting workflows, it can unearth new opportunities. But it’s true potential lies in collaboration.

Insurers must work alongside regulators, brokers and businesses to ensure AI-driven models are explainable, fair and transparent. By combining data science with human judgment, the industry can create smarter, more adaptive solutions that support long-term innovation.