Insurance Leadership Summit Reveals New Consensus: AI Is Widening the Gap Between Leaders and Laggards

Federato’s Insurance Leadership Summit brings Goldman Sachs, Anthropic, Reuters, and the Financial Times together with P&C carriers and MGAs to discuss what separates the winners from the rest

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The insurance industry has crossed a threshold. AI is now the operating system separating carriers and MGAs that are capturing the best risks from those left competing for the rest. That was the consensus at Federato’s inaugural Insurance Leadership Summit, where more than 100 CEOs and senior executives from leading carriers, MGAs, and MGAAs convened with Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Anthropic, Reuters, and the Financial Times.

A recurring theme throughout the day was the cost of inaction.

“Most organizations aren’t struggling with the technology. They’re struggling with the mindset. Scattered pilots rarely scale since they seldom align with what truly matters to the business. Instead, start with a vision and value, then work backwards from there.”
— Cassie Kozyrkov, Former Chief Decision Scientist, Google

Jared Klyman, Global Head of Insurance Asset Management, presented a midyear update to Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s 14th Annual Global Insurance Survey showing the number of respondents currently using AI increased by 14-percentage points year-over-year and 33-percentage points since 2024. The study surveyed more than 400 senior investment professionals representing over $14 trillion in assets.

“American insurers were already concerned about inflation, closely followed by the risk of US economic slowdown or a possible recession. Insurers need to find AI growth, preserve margins, and avoid strategy drift, but how it’s executed is critical.”
— Jared Klyman, Global Head of Insurance Asset Management, Goldman Sachs

Combined ratios are diverging
Industry data shows that combined ratios, which historically have converged industry-wide, are diverging. This bimodal distribution suggests that some insurers are gaining real advantage from AI while others are not.

In a recent study, Federato learned that among large carriers with over $5 billion in annual premiums, 37 percent report wasting up to half their underwriting effort on submissions that fall outside their portfolio appetite. The risk selection race is zero-sum: organizations that evaluate and act on submissions faster are capturing the most attractive opportunities; slower competitors get what’s left.

Early lessons learned from other industries
A session on lessons learned from banking revealed as much as 80% of bank IT budgets still go to legacy system maintenance, limiting funds available for innovation. Laggards maintained legacy systems while trying to bolt AI onto incompatible foundations. By contrast, leaders made an executive commitment to multi-year modernization.

Data architecture is destiny. Legacy infrastructure carries technical debt and inherent latency that point solutions cannot fix.

“While the essential insurance capabilities of the core remain useful and fit, the context in which they operate has changed markedly. AI-driven, data-intensive solutions tease out new opportunities, new risks, and fill important traditional gaps. Your whole tech ecosystem, from core-out, has to integrate, interoperate, and flow flawlessly in real time, all the time. You need solutions that are up to the task. Must-have, not optional.”
— Robert Pick, EVP & Chief Information Officer at Tokio Marine

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE SUMMIT AI has moved from pilot to production: carriers are already using AI in core underwriting workflows, not just back-office automation. Legacy systems are a growing liability: technical debt and processing latency cannot be patched with point solutions — the architecture has to change. The risk selection race is zero-sum: organizations that evaluate and act on submissions faster are capturing the most attractive opportunities; slower competitors get what’s left. Financial services offers a playbook: banks and fintechs that tied AI investment to specific business outcomes outperformed those that adopted technology for its own sake. Goldman Sachs data confirms the divergence: among 400+ senior investment professionals representing $14T+ in assets, AI-forward firms are already repositioning portfolios and managing risk differently.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is Federato’s Insurance Leadership Summit?
Federato’s Insurance Leadership Summit is an executive-level gathering for senior leaders at P&C carriers, MGAs, and MGAAs. The keynote was delivered by Cassie Kozyrkov, CEO, Kozyr, and Former Chief Decision Scientist at Google. Other speakers, listed alphabetically, included:

• Varada Bhat, Senior Correspondent, P&C Specialist at Financial Times
• Jared Klyman, Global Head of Insurance Asset Management, Goldman Sachs
• Kelly Galanis, Partner at Goldman Sachs
• Robert Pick, Group Deputy CITO, Tokio Marine Group
• Mike Ram, Head of Insurance at Anthropic
• James Thaler, Head of Americas, News Content, The Insurer from Reuters
• Bobby Touran Co-Founder and CEO, Rainbow
• Chuck Wallace, Co-founder, HDVI & Esurance

What did the Goldman Sachs survey find about AI in insurance?
The survey highlights that AI adoption is growing, specifically in how investment professionals integrate AI into investment-related decision-making, particularly for research on market trends and asset classes. The respondents (434 insurance industry investment professionals: 370 CIOs, 45 CFOs, 19 both) recognize AI as a tool for analysis within their investment decision-making processes.

What is an AI-native insurance platform?
An AI-native platform is built from the ground up to support real-time data processing, machine learning, and autonomous decision-making across the full policy lifecycle — rather than layering AI tools onto legacy core systems that were not designed for it. Federato’s platform is purpose-built to handle submission analysis, risk selection, and underwriting workflows without the latency constraints of traditional infrastructure.

Why does legacy technology create a competitive disadvantage in insurance?
Legacy core systems were the safe choice 20 years ago. Today, they’re a slow, expensive drag on innovation. Insurers are locked into multi-year cloud migrations, costly SI dependencies, and rigid workflows that lock insurers into old ways of working.

Legacy core systems carry technical debt and process data with inherent latency that limits how quickly an insurer can evaluate a submission and make a binding decision. As AI accelerates submission velocity across the market, there is a zero-sum race to write the best risks. Insurers on legacy systems are structurally slower, which means they either lose the best risks to faster competitors or take on adverse selection.

What lessons did the Summit draw from financial services?
As much as 80% of bank IT budgets still goes to legacy system maintenance, limiting funds available for innovation. Laggards maintained legacy systems while trying to bolt AI onto incompatible foundations. By contrast, leaders made an executive commitment to multi-year modernization. Summit discussions examined how banks and fintechs approached AI implementation — a sector that is further along in the trial-and-error cycle. The consistent finding: AI investments tied to specific, measurable business outcomes (such as faster loan decisioning or improved fraud detection rates) outperformed those framed around technology adoption alone. The same principle applies to insurance: AI that moves submission-to-bind speed or improves loss ratios earns buy-in; AI that merely generates dashboards does not.

What is Federato?
Federato is the only AI-native platform that spans the full policy lifecycle and changes the way insurance work gets done. It replaces legacy policy administration systems with AI capabilities built in to insurers' workflows, not bolted on. Its proven agentic AI conducts complex analyses with depth and rigor, freeing up insurer's human capital to focus on nuanced decisions and relationships. Federato is the independent alternative to legacy systems that enables better business outcomes.

ABOUT FEDERATO
Federato is the only AI-native platform that spans the full policy lifecycle, changing the way insurance work gets done. Its proven agentic AI conducts complex analyses with depth and rigor, freeing up insurers’ human capital to focus on nuanced decisions and relationships. Federato is the independent alternative to legacy systems and provides better business outcomes with capabilities that are built into insurers’ workflows, not bolted on. Learn more at federato.ai.