The application of large language models (LLMs) has achieved remarkable success in various fields, but their effectiveness in specialized domains like the Chinese insurance industry remains underexplored. The complexity of insurance knowledge, encompassing specialized terminology and diverse data types, poses significant challenges for both models and users. To address this, we introduce InsQABench, a benchmark dataset for the Chinese insurance sector, structured into three categories: Insurance Commonsense Knowledge, Insurance Structured Database, and Insurance Unstructured Documents, reflecting real-world insurance question-answering tasks.We also propose two methods, SQL-ReAct and RAG-ReAct, to tackle challenges in structured and unstructured data tasks. Evaluations show that while LLMs struggle with domain-specific terminology and nuanced clause texts, fine-tuning on InsQABench significantly improves performance. Our benchmark establishes a solid foundation for advancing LLM applications in the insurance domain, with data and code available at InsQABench.

As the Insurtech industry continues to evolve rapidly, it's essential to stay informed about the latest trends shaping the sector. To help you stay ahead of the curve, we've gathered insights from 14 industry experts on the most significant trends happening in Insurtech today. From personalized insurance offerings to the adoption of AI and blockchain technology, these trends are revolutionizing the way insurance is delivered and experienced by customers. A growing trend within Insurtech is the development of personalized insurance offerings. By utilizing AI and advanced analytics to analyze customer data, Insurtech companies can provide tailored insurance products based on individual needs and risk profiles.

If you think embedded insurance is the only hot thing in insurtech these days, we've got a surprise in store for you: While it's true that startups that help sell insurance together with other products and services are enjoying tailwinds, there are plenty of other opportunities in the space, several investors told TechCrunch . You see, insurtech startups often need to take into account the myriad rules and regulations in place when they seek to innovate and embed insurance into products, which might make it difficult to pull it off. Given the current emphasis on achieving cost efficiency to extend runways in the broader startup ecosystem, it appears investors are open to insurtech startups that can build a sustainable business model, regardless of it including embedded insurance. "Insurtech startups that do not offer embedded insurance, and rather provide other innovative solutions will still attract VC funding this year, especially if they can show cost-efficient and sustainable growth," said Nina Mayer, a principal at Earlybird. And according to David Wechsler, a principal at OMERS Ventures, "having an embedded strategy is not required for venture funding."

If you think embedded insurance is the only hot thing in insurtech these days, we've got a surprise in store for you: While it's true that startups that help sell insurance together with other products and services are enjoying tailwinds, there are plenty of other opportunities in the space, several investors told TechCrunch . You see, insurtech startups often need to take into account the myriad rules and regulations in place when they seek to innovate and embed insurance into products, which might make it difficult to pull it off. Given the current emphasis on achieving cost efficiency to extend runways in the broader startup ecosystem, it appears investors are open to insurtech startups that can build a sustainable business model, regardless of it including embedded insurance. "Insurtech startups that do not offer embedded insurance, and rather provide other innovative solutions will still attract VC funding this year, especially if they can show cost-efficient and sustainable growth," said Nina Mayer, a principal at Earlybird. And according to David Wechsler, a principal at OMERS Ventures, "having an embedded strategy is not required for venture funding."

The future of insurance is here! With the rise of AI, predictive analytics, and chatbots combined with cutting-edge tech like drones, blockchain technology and IoT taking center stage - even the FBI has taken notice. Get ready for a revolution in how we use technology to secure our futures. Then came 2022, when insurers focused on pandemic recovery and meeting customer expectations for digitization and personalization. While adapting to the latest insurance technologies was a challenging experience for many carriers, those who did are selling more benefits faster and smarter than ever before. From underwriting and claims to the customer journey and distribution methods, here are the top insurance technology trends our team believes will be beneficial to carriers in 2023.

Artificial intelligence has been around since the 1950s, but over the last several years the business potential of AI has expanded dramatically. We now live in a world where big data and powerful computational capabilities allow AI to flourish. Companies--including insurance carriers--are investing in establishing data lakes, optimizing for cloud-based operations and activating AI for targeted analytics. Insurers are seeing tangible results from their current AI initiatives. Our AI maturity research shows that carriers' share of cost savings generated through AI more than doubled between 2018 and 2021.

Igloo, a Singapore-based insurtech focused on underserved communities in Southeast Asia, announced it has raised a Series B extension of $27 million, bringing the round's total to $46 million. The first tranche of $19 million was announced in March, and led by Cathay Innovation, with participation from ACA and returning investors OpenSpace. The newest round was led by the InsuResilience Investment Fund II, which was launched by the German development bank KfW for the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and is managed by impact investor BlueOrchard. Other lead investors were the Women's World Banking Asset Management (WAM), FinnFund, La Maison and returning investors Cathay Innovation. Igloo develops its insurance products and then partners with insurers who underwrite their policies.

The Indian insuretech segment has been advancing rapidly in the past few years and will grow at an exponential pace in the coming years. Technology can play a key role in tackling the challenges being faced by the insurance industry in India today. In this exclusive interaction with CXOToday, Vishal Shah, Head of Data Science, Go Digit General Insurance talks about how technology has been pivotal in helping Digit Insurance stay ahead of the Indian insurance market. How has technology helped you in reducing the overall turnaround time in insurance? Technology and digital analytics are at the core of our business, and it is one of our key differentiators.

ChAI, a London-based startup that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to predict commodity prices, has secured a seed round to help expand its industry-leading services into new markets, including raw-material businesses and key supply chain providers. The funding will enable them to invest in developing commodity risk insurance products that will enable smaller companies that are underserved by existing risk transfer solutions, such as options or futures markets, to transfer commodity price risks and derivatives. It will also enable larger companies and material providers to transfer financial risk for a variety of raw materials, including plastic and steel. ChAI employs unique data sets, such as satellite imagery and maritime transport data, to provide unprecedented visibility and confidence in price fluctuations and movements of the world's key raw materials, such as oil, aluminium, copper, and others. Founded by Marcus Dixon, Michael Button, Silvi Wompa, Stephen Butler, Tristan Fletcher in 2019, ChAI is democratising tools, techniques, and data while combining cutting-edge AI techniques with new alternative data sources to eliminate risk in physical supply chains.

Commodities AI Ltd (ChAI), an AI-driven commodity intelligence company, has completed a seed round to expand its industry-leading services into new markets and provide real-time commodity price forecasts to new global audiences, including commodity companies and key supply chain providers. The funding announcement marks an important milestone in ChAI's product development and ability to provide important information to a range of stakeholders as commodity markets continue to experience significant volatility. Under current market conditions, supply chain providers need long-term forecasts to address global food security challenges. ChAI uses purpose-built AI technology to analyze thousands of data sets to determine what variables are driving market prices. At the same time, through the use of AI technology, the company is able to predict raw material costs, identify risks and help its customers to effectively purchase the necessary raw material products.