Only 2 in 5 insurers use AI for underwriting

Across 10 major markets, researchers identified 126 active insurance artificial intelligence cases.

Global insurers are rapidly automating their underwriting departments to protect margins against intensifying competition and a softening market, as two in five insurance companies now use artificial intelligence (AI).

A new global study by Sollers Consulting further revealed that AI use was found in insurers’ underwriting operations, shifting investment toward a department that has historically trailed claims and distribution in digital adoption.

This automation push is fundamentally changing corporate hiring and workforce structures. 

The demand for technology professionals with distinct underwriting expertise grew rapidly over the past year, with the share of IT job openings requiring underwriting knowledge doubling in 2025—outpacing all other insurance job specialisations.

The industry's technical shift is highly visible in commercial lines. 

Currently, 20% of commercial insurers use AI platforms to automatically sort incoming business submissions and extract critical data from unorganised, multi-format documents. 

Across ten major markets, researchers identified 126 active insurance AI use cases, with 13 specifically running inside underwriting units.

Industry analysts expect the technology to alter day-to-day risk management and internal operations over the next 12 to 24 months. 

Whilst AI currently handles the initial sorting of submissions and document processing, insurers are working to integrate these tools directly into core pricing models and digital workbenches. 

To avoid disrupting core risk selection in the short term, companies are deploying AI to analyse existing portfolios and review complex contract terms in real time, freeing up manual capacity for human underwriters.

Regional approaches to this technological rollout vary across major financial hubs.

Australian insurers are using a recent wave of corporate mergers to modernise their legacy systems, with at least one major carrier now fully digitising its commercial underwriting unit.

In the London market, insurers are actively retiring spreadsheet-based workflows in favour of flexible pricing platforms that connect directly to their core underwriting engines.

North American insurance firms are scaling their existing personal lines AI tools up into complex, large-scale commercial risks.

In France, the wider United Kingdom market, and the Nordic countries, companies are prioritising data integration and software interoperability to build the technical foundation needed for automated workflows.

In Poland and Central Europe, insurers are moving faster than other regions from initial trial phases to full live production, specifically using optical character recognition to automate document processing and pre-screen new risks.