Zurich and Allianz: AI Revolutionizes Insurance

Insurers Bet on AI to Transform Underwriting

Insurers' investments in artificial intelligence (AI) are taking a new direction, aiming to generate tangible business value beyond mere efficiency improvements. According to the Evident AI Index 2026, insurers are now integrating AI into processes that directly influence underwriting and capital allocation. Christian Preece, director of insurance at Evident, explains that insurers have long competed on their AI ambitions, but the focus is now on value creation. This shift reflects the maturity of AI, with an internal capacity to measure and disclose these figures.

Industry leaders are beginning to provide concrete data on return on investment, thus responding to shareholder and board expectations amid growing concerns about the costs of AI. More insurers are expected to publish this information in the coming year.

Changes in Workforce and Governance

Although the overall workforce of insurers decreased by 2.2% last year, the number of AI specialists increased by 32% among the 30 insurers tracked in the report. This change highlights a transition from building data foundations to integrating and optimizing specific AI use cases. Data engineering remains a key component of this investment, but its relative share is diminishing as roles focused on AI development and software implementation gain importance. Today, AI specialists represent one in every 50 employees at the insurers included in the Index.

Executive structures are also adapting to these new demands. Nearly 40% of the indexed insurers have appointed a senior leader with explicit responsibility for AI, most of these appointments occurring in the last 12 months. This creates a new level of executive oversight for AI-driven growth.

This governance is crucial as companies move from isolated solutions to agentic AI systems that coordinate actions across multiple stages of policy administration and claims lifecycle. The adoption of agentic AI has significantly increased, with one in four newly disclosed use cases showing evidence of agentic orchestration, compared to just one in twenty six months ago.

Zurich, an Example of Successful Transformation

Zurich Insurance illustrates this transition, moving from 12th to 4th place in the global ranking by focusing on a shared platform model rather than decentralized experimentation. The insurance giant has deployed ZurichIQ, a modular generative AI platform integrated into underwriting, claims, legal, and service operations. This architecture provides a unified environment for various functional tools, such as PolicyIQ for contract comparisons and GuidelinelQ for enforcing underwriting standards.

The challenges in such deployments typically involve maintaining oversight across diverse business lines. Zurich manages these risks through a dedicated committee that governs AI investment and model risk management. The platform approach allows the insurer to push AI capabilities into daily production while maintaining a consistent governance framework, bolstered by internal training programs like the £1.3 million AI learning initiative.

Ericson Chan, Group Chief Information and Digital Officer at Zurich, stated: “Being recognized as the largest insurer in AI-related growth in the Evident AI Index is not just a reflection of technological adoption; it signals a broader transformation, moving from use cases to execution and enterprise-wide change. This recognition reinforces our belief in our AI360 strategy, integrating intelligence into workflows, decisions, and customer outcomes across the value chain. AI is no longer a technology initiative. It is becoming Zurich's operating system.”

The Financial Impact of AI on Risk Selection

With claims typically representing 60 to 80% of premium revenues, even minor improvements in fraud detection and risk selection yield a disproportionate financial impact compared to reductions in overall administrative costs. Insurers are now directing venture capital and internal innovation efforts toward data sources that enable more dynamic analysis of climate volatility and cyber threats. A key indicator of this maturity is the ability to quantify and disclose financial returns.

Manulife, Generali, and Intact Financial have led this effort, publicly reporting the value generated by AI. Projections indicate that these three companies will generate over $1 billion in AI-related value by the end of their respective reporting periods. This transparency provides the concrete data that shareholders demand regarding the costs of deploying AI, effectively necessitating a more rigorous performance measurement in the sector.

The success of the next phase of industry adoption depends on the ability to translate these technical investments into better underwriting outcomes. Market leaders, Allianz (which now holds the largest pool of AI talent in the industry and has recorded 900 AI use cases globally) and AXA, maintain top positions by demonstrating sustained investments in innovation, talent, and transparency.

Barbara Karuth-Zelle, board member and COO of the group at Allianz, commented: “AI has not changed our ambition. It accelerates how we achieve it at scale. Behind this ranking are thousands of moments: a claim processed faster, a reimagined customer experience, a better-connected partner, a colleague freed up for what truly matters. And we are determined to continue — an inspiring and transformative journey.”