Insurance giant finds claims rep that gives a damn (it's AI)

Tech shows customers more humanity than its human staff

It doesn't sleep, it doesn't eat, and it doesn't get sick of dealing with incompetent customers.

Even if it's fundamentally strings of ones and zeroes, US insurance biz Allstate is finding that generative AI crafts more empathetic and customer-friendly emails than its human claims reps, though anyone who has had dealings with insurance providers might not be surprised.

Allstate has some 23,000 insurance reps sending out around 50,000 communications to claimants every day, gathering information for negotiating settlements and the like.

"When these emails used to go out, even though we had standards and so on, they would include a lot of insurance jargon. They weren't very empathetic ... Claims agents would get frustrated, and so it wasn't necessarily great communication," Allstate CIO Zulfi Jeevanjee told The Wall Street Journal.

Now nearly every one of those emails is written by AI, specifically OpenAI's GPT models, grounded in Allstate's company-specific lingo. For the time being, the AI works alongside its army of reps. "The claims agent still looks at them just to make sure they're accurate, but they're not writing them anymore," Jeevanjee added.

The result has been more polite and less jargon-filled communications – something Allstate's reps likely appreciate, given the repetitive back-and-forth of insurance claims.

Allstate said meatbag reps tended to use phrases like "first notice of loss" or refer to "CCC Intelligent Solutions," a vendor the insurance giant employs to estimate repair costs, without explanation.

It pointed to an email where a rep doled out the acronym "UPP inventory list," but its AI counterpart helpfully spelled it out: "Unscheduled Personal Property inventory list." Jeevanjee also said that where human reps might question the validity of a claim, Allstate's AI would give customers "the benefit of the doubt."

Indeed, the chatbots appear to have an impeccable bedside manner, making empathetic noises like "Thank you for your message. I understand your concern," and "If you have any other questions, feel free to ask" – phrases that may not cross the mind of a tired, grouchy human who is just trying to make it through the day.

While human reps at Allstate still have jobs for now, it's early days for AI-driven customer service in the insurance industry. The WSJ cites a survey from the International Customer Management Institute, where 35 percent of respondents said they think AI will reduce hiring requirements, while 38 percent didn't see it as a factor.

And insurance's interest in AI doesn't stop at customer service. The sector is looking to employ the tech for risk assessment, policy pricing, and claims review – areas where Allstate is experimenting with AI to analyze photos of vehicle damage.

Of course, AI deployment includes its own risks for vendors who use it. For example, litigation, successful or not, is expensive. UnitedHealthcare was sued in 2023 for allegedly using AI to automate healthcare claim denials, raising concerns about the growing role of automation in insurance decisions. The case is still ongoing.

Jeevanjee said the goal of the AI implementation is to make Allstate more customer focused. "If I think about the insurance industry in general, we haven't really done a great job of being customer obsessed," he said. "That's really what I'm trying to drive."

Allstate's AI rollout appears to be going smoother than that of courier DPD. A year ago, a customer exploited its chatbot's weak guardrails and forced it into spouting self-flagellating Vogon poetry. ®