Commercial property insurance is being reshaped by forces no carrier can ignore: climate volatility, supply chain fragility, inflation, and the explosion of connected devices. At Insurtech Insights, our CEO Aman Gour joined industry leaders at the purple stage to explore how these shifts are redefining underwriting, claims, and strategy.

Property risk is broader than ever

Traditional underwriting focused on physical damage. Today, losses often stem from indirect business interruption, even when no building is physically touched. CAT events are more frequent and severe, and exposures are increasingly interconnected across supply chains.

Data is the difference. Underwriters once priced around broad unknowns; now, richer datasets and faster analytics shrink those blind spots. But challenges remain: flood risk continues to surprise carriers, and smart buildings create cyber-physical exposures that models weren’t designed for.

Transformation means more than digitization

Digitization gave us portals on top of legacy workflows. Transformation rethinks the process end-to-end. That means meeting brokers where they already work — in email and spreadsheets — and using AI to process submissions, map large SOVs, enrich data, and flag appetite issues automatically.

The shift is toward composable platforms: core systems with shared data and controls, extended through APIs and microservices. AI accelerates this model further, because teams can now generate custom workflows and applications on demand, without waiting for IT bottlenecks.

Technology that matters right now

• SOV automation: Standardizes and enriches messy spreadsheets, turning days of work into minutes and freeing underwriters to focus on judgment.
  
  
• Guideline checks: Front-loads appetite and exception analysis so humans spend time where judgment matters.
  
  
• IoT and prevention: Connected devices, when paired with business logic, shift carriers from risk transfer to risk prevention.
  
  
• Parametric products: Triggered payouts and anticipatory claims handling shorten the cycle and improve customer trust.
  
  

Adoption requires more than tools

Change management is as critical as the technology itself. Defining “what success looks like” across underwriting, operations, and distribution prevents misalignment. And knowing when to keep a human in the loop matters: AI can handle intake and mapping, but empathy at FNOL should remain human.

Regulation and IP: the next frontier

Carriers will need clarity on two fronts: guardrails for outbound AI systems, and ownership of intellectual property generated from proprietary data. Outputs created from a carrier’s inputs should belong to the carrier, not the model provider.

What leaders should do next

1. Be transparent. Share not just prices but the why behind them. Position your organization as a knowledge partner, not only a risk taker.
   
   
2. Pick a high-value use case and deliver it. Start with submission intake or SOV mapping, where the ROI is undeniable, then expand.
   
   
3. Build a composable backbone. Invest in data platforms and APIs so capabilities scale across workflows.
   
   
4. Design for prevention. Align IoT data, analytics, and parametric products toward loss avoidance, not just reimbursement.
   
   
5. Keep explainability visible. Every automated step should be auditable, with clear lineage back to the source.
   
   

Commercial property is no longer just about paying for loss. It’s about anticipating, preventing, and communicating risk in ways that deliver tangible value to customers. The carriers that win will operate on composable platforms, move insight to the front of workflows, and share that knowledge transparently.