Artificial intelligence will shape the future of most industries, yet the insurance sector still lacks clarity on how losses will be picked up and priced.
According to Andrea Ward (pictured), senior vice president, casualty, at CRC Insurance Services, the market is underestimating AI as a risk. Despite those uncertainties, she remains optimistic about AI’s long-term contribution.
“We don’t know what we don’t know. (AI) is evolving day in and day out,” Ward told Insurance Business ahead of a panel discussion on AI at the Women in Insurance Los Angeles Summit.
“Until we’re really clear on exactly how insurance is going to pick up these claims, it’s going to be a struggle to utilize it in the manner that it should be,”
One of the most immediate shifts Ward is seeing is on the E&S front, where insureds’ core products are AI-based. That demand prompted her organization to help develop a London facility dedicated to AI-focused companies, providing capacity and wording tailored to enterprises whose value proposition depends on machine learning.
“Anyone who is using AI for their ultimate goal, we’ve been able to develop an exclusive facility to properly insure those risks,” she said.
The coverage challenge, Ward noted, is not just heightened exposures but novel liability pathways. She has long worked in risks that connect people through platforms; AI now goes beyond connection to creating experiences and outputs that may trigger new causes of loss.
“How is a CGL form going to apply to a claim we could have in this space? We’re still trying to figure out how this will apply,” she said.
Ward sees ways AI can help shorten research cycles, surface benchmarks, and bring more resources to the table. But she also warned of unintended consequences in casualty, such as easier public access to high verdict data that could influence expectations around claims. “In some ways, it could hurt us,” she warned. It’s why she urges insurers and brokers to treat AI as an assistive tool, but not as a silver bullet.
“It needs to be a component of what we do, but not 100% taken as the end all,” Ward said. “Judgment and experience still have a meaningful place in what we do.”
What should brokers watch next? Policy language and allocation around AI, for one: there will likely be active debate over how standard liability forms respond to AI-generated outputs and interactions.
At the same time, purpose-built facilities for AI-native risks will continue to emerge as carriers become more comfortable with loss themes.
For Ward, experience and relationships remain decisive. Insurance remains a people business, she added: “There are certain jobs AI can fulfill a need for. But person-to-person interaction – how to handle a claim, the empathy in a loss, the discussion of, ‘we’ve looked at this before and here’s how we approached it’ – that’s the nature of being human.”
Ultimately, Ward argued, people will future-proof insurance, with AI as a force multiplier. Used responsibly, AI can help smooth volatility by providing more objective and consistent inputs into E&S underwriting, while seasoned professionals set boundaries, interpret context, and make informed decisions.
Ward will serve as a panel moderator at the Women in Insurance Summit Los Angeles on October 30, a must-attend event now in its 8th year.
The summit brings together insurance professionals for a day of trailblazing speakers, candid conversations, and hands-on leadership development, covering practical ways to apply AI in your role, strategies for navigating career transitions, and building your leadership brand.
Join the community shaping a more innovative, resilient, and inclusive future for insurance, and catch Ward’s panel to continue the conversation on how AI and human expertise can advance the industry.
Women in Insurance Summit is also one of the top global and US insurance events in the list to find key growth opportunities for brokers. Learn more about the Women in the Insurance Los Angeles Summit and register at here.
