There’s a subtle seduction in the automation AI provides.
It’s a hollow promise that flitters across the screen through dashboards and algorithms. Insurance carriers cling to this by assuring faster claims, cleaner data, and fewer delays. It’s a level of efficiency that speaks to their bottom line, which is elegant, scalable, and controlled.
But storms and the damage they cause are anything but elegant or controlled.
It’s the sagging ceilings and contaminants rendering a home uninhabitable. Tears lamenting lost valuables. Scattered dreams of safety and security. It’s the uncertainty of what’s coming.
This is the underlying tension. It’s not between technology and progress, nor does it rest with shareholder profits.
AI is Embedding Itself Into Claims
The advantages appear like a shiny new car:
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- Automated damage recognition from aerial imagery
- Remote estimating platforms
- Predictive severity modeling
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It’s clear this will reduce the timeline of claims, provide lower operational costs, and render standardized outputs. This standardized automation assumes that losses behave with predictability. Consistency.
They don’t.
Public Adjusters and the Human Element
Public adjusters have always served as a counterbalance between the insurance carrier and the insured, providing a critical interpretation of the loss and translation into the language of coverage.
While AI might ask, “What does predictive modeling say this will cost?”
A seasoned public adjuster wonders, “What will it take to restore this property?”
Software and algorithms provide consistency and conformity. The public adjuster investigates nuances and specificities. Even after the carrier adjuster, or the algorithm they employ, closes a file, the public adjuster continues asking questions.
Rapid Fire Adoption Lacking in Accountability
Artificial intelligence is infiltrating all corners of our world faster than any of us can keep up with, including insurance industry policymakers.
Some insurance carriers are already implementing AI controls operating in quietude, influencing claim outcomes. We’re no longer living in the world of theoretical automated intelligence. Chip Merlin reports on the one and only state spearheading acknowledgment of the propensity for damage in his post, Florida’s New Artificial Intelligence Claims Bill.
“It’s happening now, and we have already seen the harm when claims decisions are influenced by machines trained to maximize profits without meaningful human judgment. Florida is now stepping into that arena with House Bill 527…”
It’s no secret that for any business to remain competitive in any market, it will require some implementation of AI-assisted workflows, but the line between support and dependence teeters on a tightrope of imperceptibility.
Florida’s House Bill 527 demands accountability in an industry where reliable compliance from the insurance company has been spotty at best.
The bill addresses the elephant in the room—claims running through nothing but algorithmic automations straight into denial. Instead, this will require adjusters to at least provide independent fact verification, as well as signing off on any ultimate claim denial.
Automation Has Entered the Brief—Now Someone Must Cross-Examine It
Insurance companies implementing artificial intelligence into their work-flows may whisper in the background, but it bellows like thunder across the valley in the courtroom.
Legal and insurance models, the norms of those industries, and the frameworks built within them have had decades to develop into what we are familiar with today. Today’s artificial intelligence speeds up changes with such fervor that the governing bodies regulating these industries cannot keep up.
Neil Mody of the Claims Journal cautions that, “for law and insurance, industries built on precedent and process, that acceleration is especially consequential.”
Nothing quite encapsulates those bellowing consequences quite like a recent case brief brought before the Nebraska Supreme Court.
A local attorney came under scrutiny after his brief revealed citations to cases that never existed. The attorney rejected the judge’s accusation of utilizing artificial intelligence to write his brief, but the contents revealed AI’s hand in penning his argument.
More than a cautionary tale, but a signal flare
Professional embarrassment aside, this illustrates that we are now confronting operational reality. Systems once trusted to function with precision are now being remodeled in ways that shake their very foundations.
Proactive verification shrinks into the ether, shifting the duty to professionals willing to question results rather than swallowing the presented narrative.
It shifts to trained advocates who understand what does not belong and who recognize that efficiency without discernment is a recipe for expedited error.
Public adjusters evolve from helpful conveniences into vital protectors, acting not merely to negotiate monetary amounts but to scrutinize findings.
When programmed algorithms step into the role of an adjuster by shaping valuations, interpretations, and outcomes, policyholders need more than just the process; they need enhanced protections within it.
We cannot halt technological evolution, though mistaking velocity for precision or automation for dominion is detrimental.
In an ever-shifting landscape blurring boundaries between automation and integrity, the need for a discerning human voice only amplifies.
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