Rewriting the rules: Digital and AI-powered underwriting in life insurance

To many consumers, buying life insurance can be painful. Despite insurance companies' substantial investments over the past several years in digitizing customer onboarding and policy binding, progress has been slow and incremental and, for many companies, has fallen short of expectations. Many companies have failed to meaningfully scale their efforts to modernize underwriting. The recent COVID-19 lockdowns and ongoing physical-distancing protocols reinforce the need to rethink underwriting. More than ever, insurance companies must address customer and agent frustration with the still lengthy, high-touch, manual process. With COVID-19, paramedic home visits to conduct medical exams have become highly undesirable--especially for a "pushed" product that is not immediately crucial to the customer. In this environment, risk assessment must shift toward more remote, data-driven models, while distribution must shift from in-person interactions to more online interactions.