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Underwriting

Automating what can move, giving underwriters the context for what needs judgment, and keeping the path from application to issue connected.

  1. The Robots Took the Easy Cases — What's Left for Human Underwriters
    S1E21
    43:02

    The Robots Took the Easy Cases — What's Left for Human Underwriters

    Frank Chechel — VP and Head of Individual Life Underwriting at Gen Re, and an actuary who fell into underwriting a decade ago building an R&D team — argues underwriting is only just scratching the surface after a hundred years. He and Paul trace how COVID turned accelerated underwriting from experiment into mandate overnight, why wellness programs went quiet and are now roaring back, and how to think about AI in three layers: predictive, generative, and the still-early agentic frontier. Frank is blunt about the limits: a summary that's 95% accurate is a good way to get fired, and the same case put in front of five underwriters yields five answers. The robots are taking the easy cases — which makes the human's job harder, not obsolete.

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  3. "Break Some Dishes" — A Sitting Commissioner on Where to Move Fast on AI, and Where to Stop Cold
    S1E18
    38:53

    "Break Some Dishes" — A Sitting Commissioner on Where to Move Fast on AI, and Where to Stop Cold

    Josh Hershman — Connecticut's Insurance Commissioner, and formerly a private attorney, deputy commissioner, open-source data-standards executive (openIDL), and life insurance company CEO — gives a regulator's candid map of AI in insurance. He borrows the EU's consumer-impact tiers to argue carriers should 'break some dishes' on internal use cases while moving carefully on anything that approves or denies a claim, calls annuity illustrations the single most tailor-made AI use case in the industry, and explains why McCarran-Ferguson, the NAIC's slow model-act machinery, and the ambiguous word 'testing' leave carriers frozen.

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  4. "You Can't Just Slap AI On It" — Brian Poppe's Four-Phase Test for Carrier AI Adoption
    S1E11
    38:02

    "You Can't Just Slap AI On It" — Brian Poppe's Four-Phase Test for Carrier AI Adoption

    Brian Poppe — SVP of Life Insurance Solutions at Mutual of Omaha — has been an actuary, the entire innovation department, the Chief Data Officer, and now a P&L owner. In this episode he walks through his four-phase AI adoption framework, gives an honest read on where Mutual of Omaha actually sits (phases two and three), and explains why a memorial-book partnership he loved had to be killed because the timing of the offer was wrong.

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