The roundtable was the first in a series of Future Finance Innovation Lab sprints exploring how AI is changing the way consumers research, compare and purchase insurance products
Future Finance, AI Wales and FinTech Wales have brought together experts from across the insurance, fintech, technology and AI sectors for a roundtable examining how AI is changing the way consumers research, compare and purchase insurance products.
The roundtable, which took place on 22nd September, formed the first of the latest Future Finance Innovation Lab sprints, focusing on how the insurance ecosystem can respond to changing customer behaviour. This comes as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published The Mills Review looking into AI and the future of retail financial services. The review revealed that 1 in 5 UK adults are already open to AI making decisions for them, with this number expected to rise.*
The challenge brief was: “How might the insurance ecosystem respond to changing customer behaviour as consumers increasingly use LLMs to research and compare products, shaping expectations and decisions before they reach comparison platforms or insurers?”
The session focused on life insurance and income protection and brought together experts from Go.Compare, Howden Insurance, Confused.com, Wealthify, Acuity Law and Taught by Humans.
Participants examined the traditional customer journey – from recognising a need for cover through to research, comparison and purchase – and how the growing use of AI-powered tools and LLMs may be changing those behaviours and influencing decision-making.
Insights from experts from Confused.com, Go.Compare and insurance brokers participating in the roundtable suggested that consumers are still using price comparison websites and brokers. However, AI is accelerating the traditional customer journey, enabling consumers to make decisions about policies more quickly and potentially giving some users an inflated sense of understanding about complex financial products.
Participants also discussed concerns around the use of large language models (LLMs), noting that many are general-purpose models that may not be tailored to specific regulatory or market contexts. As a result, insurers often have limited visibility over the information sources and training data that underpin AI-generated responses.
The group agreed that while AI can help consumers access information more quickly, it does not replace specialist advice or product-specific expertise, particularly when making important decisions about life insurance and income protection products.
As part of the discovery and definition stages of the Future Finance Innovation Lab process, the session concluded with the group identifying a series of challenge statements that will now form the basis of the next stage of the sprint. AI Wales and FinTech Wales will now take these briefs forward into a hackathon to explore potential solutions.
Sarah Jones, CEO of FinTech Wales, said:
“AI is changing how consumers discover, compare and engage with financial products, creating both opportunities and challenges for the insurance sector. We know these are questions and issues that our community is grappling with, so it makes sense to bring together the fantastic expertise we have to explore these changes from multiple perspectives and better understand how customer expectations are evolving.
“Working together on these challenges ultimately benefits the wider community and this roundtable is a great example of organisations coming together to share knowledge, identify real-world problems and develop practical solutions that can ultimately improve outcomes for customers and strengthen the wider financial services ecosystem.”
Jack Stanbury at Future Finance, said:
“We see AI disrupting customer journeys across the range of financial services subsectors, and the insurance buying journey has significant potential to be improved in the future. However that’s not what we see now, with complex products, terminology, and a multitude of stakeholders. This means throwing an LLM into the mix can cause additional complexity and misinformation due to data gathered from multiple sources. Future Finance Innovation Lab strip it all back through these sprints, convening diverse expertise related to the challenge and focusing on the customer journey to identify where best to focus attention to improve customer outcomes.
Jaymie Thomas at AI Wales said of the discussion:
“Artificial intelligence is already influencing the way people access information and make decisions, including when researching financial products. We’re already having plenty of discussions about how AI can support businesses, but it’s important to take a step back and think about both the opportunities they create and the potential impact on consumer behaviour.
“By bringing together expertise from across AI, fintech and insurance, this Innovation Lab provides a valuable opportunity to explore how organisations can respond responsibly and effectively to this changing landscape while continuing to deliver trust, transparency and value for customers.”
The findings from the roundtable will now be used to shape the next stage of the Innovation Lab. On 20th October, participants will come together at the Future Finance Hackathon: Can AI Give Better Insurance Answers? to explore how consumers can access more accurate, useful and trustworthy insurance information when using AI tools. Bringing together experts from insurance, fintech, technology and design, the event will develop and test practical solutions to the challenges identified during the session.
Further research will then be used to examine the issues in greater depth and assess the implications for consumers, insurers and the wider financial services ecosystem.
To find out more, or get involved with the hackathon, you can visit: https://meetup.com/ai-wales