Hiscox and Google Cloud Collaborate on AI in Lead Underwriting for the London Market

Hiscox, the specialist global insurer, has collaborated with Google Cloud to create the first AI-enhanced lead underwriting model in the London Market insurance industry.

The collaboration combines Hiscox London Market’s recently built technology platform, Hiscox AI Laboratories (Hailo) with Google Cloud’s generative AI technology to automate lead algorithmic underwriting from submission to quote.

The work leveraged both Google Cloud’s BigQuery and Vertex AI platform to extract key data and insights from email submissions, a manual process that can typically take up to three days in today’s insurance operating model. By introducing AI into specific elements of the process, underwriting teams have the ability to quote within just three minutes.

Kate Markham, CEO London Market, said: “We are delighted to be working with Google Cloud to explore the applications of AI technology to augment our underwriting teams’ knowledge and expertise. This early stage work suggests that there are areas of the business where automation can support better, faster results for our brokers and clients, and we look forward to developing the programme further.”

The proof of concept was undertaken in Hiscox’s Sabotage and Terrorism line of business, although the principles will apply to other lines of business within and beyond big-ticket insurance.

Kate continued: “We chose this line of business because it involves a considerable amount of manual data extraction and analysis. Human insight is and will always be a crucial part of the specialist underwriting process, but when expertise is paired with cutting-edge AI technology we will be able to serve our customers even more effectively and efficiently – not only in this specific line of business but in many others over time too, and this is an incredibly exciting prospect. AI technology, deployed in the right way, has the potential to remove manual tasks from our specialist underwriters, freeing them up to focus on more complex risks where human expertise and analysis are a must.”

Sandeep Kottekudiyil, Client Director at Google Cloud, said: “Our work with Hiscox demonstrates the value that AI can bring to the underwriting process. We look forward to our ongoing collaboration with Hiscox to transform the insurance industry through the responsible use of AI.