iA Financial Group Expands Insurance Underwriting with FICO Platform, Aiming for 80% Automation

FICO® Platform empowers iA Financial Group to scale operational efficiency, enhance underwriting capabilities, and strengthen its position as Canada’s top individual life insurer

BOZEMAN, Mont.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FICO (NYSE:FICO):

Highlights:

• iA Financial Group has implemented FICO® Platform to scale and enhance its underwriting process. Already a leader in Canada with over 50% automation, iA aims to achieve 80% automation by 2030, securing its position as a frontrunner within the insurance market.
• FICO® Platform empowers iA Financial Group to make real-time underwriting decisions, allowing for increased decision speed, faster policy approvals, and a seamless experience for advisors and clients.
• iA Financial Group has won the 2025 FICO® Decision Industry Vanguard Award.

iA Financial Group, a leading Canadian insurance and wealth management provider, serves over five million clients and manages close to $260 billion in assets. The company made the strategic decision to deploy FICO® Platform to advance and accelerate the automation of its underwriting process. This shift allows a large number of underwriting decisions to be made in real-time by leveraging FICO Platform. This strategic move solidifies its leadership in the mass- and mid-market individual life insurance sector in Canada.

Looking to strengthen its underwriting process, iA focused on expanding automation, speeding up decision-making, and enhancing the onboarding experience to support faster and more precise underwriting. By leveraging FICO Platform, iA has gained greater control over underwriting workflows, accelerating product implementation and enabling more refined risk assessments.

“With FICO Platform, we are evolving our underwriting process to be faster, more precise, and more responsive to our clients’ needs," said Philippe Cleary, vice president, Underwriting, New Business & Claims, Individual Insurance, Savings and Retirement. "By increasing automation and refining advisor workflows, we’re delivering a seamless experience that allows more hard-working Canadians to access the protection they need. Plus, these improvements not only streamline current processes but also pave the way for the future automation of more complex decisions, ultimately driving efficiency and accuracy in our operations.”

This strategic investment has provided iA with deeper insights and greater visibility into policy submissions, enabling them to optimize the application process and improve policy conversion rates. Additionally, FICO® Platform has strengthened iA’s ability to manage risk exposure while adhering to strict regulatory standards, in order to provide its clients with the peace of mind and confidence of having invested in sound and secure insurance products. This shift supports iA’s broader strategy of combining advanced digital technology with human expertise, reinforcing its leadership in Canada’s life insurance industry.

For its achievements, iA won the 2025 FICO® Decision Industry Vanguard Award.

"iA’s implementation of FICO Platform showcases how AI-powered decisioning is reshaping the insurance industry by delivering exceptional value to its clients,” said Nikhil Behl, president, software at FICO. "By automating processes and enabling real-time decision-making, iA is driving smarter operations, reducing costs, and delivering a superior experience for clients, reinforcing its leadership and strength in the insurance sector."

To see the full list of this year’s FICO Decision Awards winners, read here: https://www.fico.com/blogs/2025-fico-decisions-awards-winners

About the FICO® Decision Awards

The FICO Decisions Awards recognize organisations that are achieving remarkable success using FICO solutions. A panel of independent judges with deep industry expertise evaluates nominations based upon measurable improvement in key metrics; demonstrated use of best practices; project scale, depth and breadth; and innovative uses of technology. The 2025 judges are:

• Regan Goble, risk analytics senior manager at Westpac NZ (Previous Winner)
• Megha Kumar, research vice president at IDC
• Joe McKendrick, analyst and senior contributor at Forbes
• Luiz Pacete, technology and marketing industry influencer
• Ali Paterson, founder and editor-in-chief at Fintech Finance
• Mike Roberts, head of unsecured retail risk at HSBC UK bank (Previous Winner)
• Erin Stillwell, EVP, payment partnerships at Blankfactor
• Allan Tan, group editor-in-chief at Cxociety

The winners of the FICO Decisions Awards will be spotlighted at and win tickets to FICO® World 2025, May 6-9, 2025, at the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida.

About FICO

FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 200 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 80 countries do everything from protecting four billion payment cards from fraud, to improving financial inclusion, to increasing supply chain resiliency. The FICO® Score, used by 90% of top US lenders, is the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the US and has been made available in over 40 other countries, improving risk management, credit access and transparency.

Learn more at https://www.fico.com

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