Insurers are widely adopting AI and its impact on the insurance industry in Australia, New Zealand and across the world could end up being seismic. The industry’s AI winners could be the professionals who can pair it with judgement, empathy and operational grit. As the world marks International Women’s Day, some industry stakeholders argue that women in the industry could have the most to gain from AI adoption - and might even be better suited to taking advantage of it.
“AI is a game-changing opportunity for professional women who are juggling careers, household and child-raising responsibilities,” said Lisa Carter (pictured left), CEO of Clear Insurance.
Carter said many women have been forced to become elite at managing complexity and if AI can take even a slice of that burden away, the gain isn’t just convenience; it’s capacity.
“The inbox mental load is real. I manage many inboxes across my professional and personal life,” she said. “AI presents a terrific opportunity to cut down admin and free up our time for engaging more meaningfully with our team at work, our clients and, most importantly, our families.”
That could be the insurance career and life implications hiding inside AI’s impact. The people - women - who have historically often carried a disproportionate burden of “coordination labour” in daily life and work, get something scarce back: uninterrupted time.
In corporate life, uninterrupted time is often what separates “doing the work” from progressing into leadership, technical authority and the roles where strategy is set.
But across the business world, including in insurance, the way AI is being deployed at firms could be working against this. McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2025 report found that only 21% of entry-level women say they are encouraged by their managers to use AI tools, versus 33% of entry-level men. If that pattern shows up inside insurance operations, then AI becomes a compounding advantage for the already-encouraged and a compounding penalty for those whose adoption is treated as optional.
Danielle Whitelock (pictured centre), chief operating officer for Achmea Farm Insurance, suggests a way to counteract that: by encouraging women to take the initiative.
“As a woman in insurance, I would encourage other women to be curious and start building capability in AI now,” she said. “AI will open the door to emerging roles, different opportunities and the chance to thrive in organisations that balance trusted relationships with proven, enterprise grade systems, ensuring you’re part of capitalising on the potential of what’s next.”
In her article, How the universal adoption of AI can help women in insurance balance the scales, Laura Drabik (pictured right), chief evangelist at Guidewire, said the insurance industry is currently experiencing an AI "inflection point," or a "specific moment when significant change occurs."
“Over the next 12 to 24 months, the AI inflection is likely to play out along broadly similar lines to the 1990s PC revolution," she said.
And in that reshuffle, Drabik makes a bet on who adapts fastest: “Many of these agile adaptors will be ambitious, capable women."
The World Economic Forum has reported that gender parity in technical proficiencies still lags in areas including AI and big data. If women remain underrepresented in the skills that shape AI deployment, they risk being overrepresented in the roles most exposed to automation. As Drabik acknowledges, AI advantages are not automatic and depend on personal initiative, access to training and leaders who see AI literacy as a priority.
In the end, AI won’t hand anyone a better position but it could amplify whoever turns reclaimed time into better decisions and stronger relationships. In an industry built on human trust, that could be a bankable edge.
