Artificial intelligence may be dominating boardroom conversations, but India’s insurance industry believes the real challenge lies in translating the technology into faster claims settlement, smarter underwriting and stronger fraud detection rather than chasing the latest AI buzz.
That was the key takeaway from the inaugural edition of Insurance CoLabs, a closed-door forum jointly hosted by Spocto X and YuVerse in Mumbai, where more than 25 senior executives from life, general, health and reinsurance companies debated how AI can move from pilot projects to everyday business operations.
Organised under the theme “Insure with Intelligence: The AI-Native Insurer’s Playbook,” the discussions centred on a fundamental question: why are critical insurance processes such as claims processing, underwriting and customer servicing still heavily dependent on manual intervention despite rapid advances in AI?
“There are great models being launched. What’s missing is the engineering to make them work for on ground insurance use cases; with the right governance in place”, said Mathangi Sri Ramachandran, Founder & CEO, YuVerse.
Participants identified claims management as the sector’s biggest opportunity for AI-led transformation. Executives argued that motor insurance claims, which typically take 10-15 days to process, could potentially be settled within hours through AI-assisted desktop verification, automated document extraction and intelligent cross-validation.
“Can AI help get the verification done — at least to know which case to take to the field and which can be completed on desktop only? That is the use case,” said Sanjay Goel, VP – Motor Investigation, Bajaj General Insurance.
The conversation also highlighted the continued reliance on paper-based processes. Delegates questioned why patients admitted to hospitals in India still need to manually fill lengthy pre-authorisation forms when chip-enabled digital systems are commonplace in several overseas markets, concluding that the barrier is one of organisational readiness rather than technological capability.
Fraud detection emerged as another major focus area. Industry leaders pointed to increasingly sophisticated fraud patterns, including manipulated boarding passes, altered bank statements, duplicate medical-implant barcodes and even livestock insurance claims involving substituted animals. AI-powered forensic tools, they said, are now capable of identifying document tampering through font inconsistencies, visual overlays, pixel-level anomalies and statistical analysis, although multiple layers of verification remain essential.
The forum also stressed that successful AI deployment requires purpose-built models trained for insurance workflows instead of generic applications. Participants argued that achieving near-perfect accuracy is critical in an industry where even a one per cent error rate can have significant financial and regulatory implications.
The discussions come as insurers accelerate digital transformation amid rising claims volumes, growing fraud risks and increasing customer expectations for faster settlements. Organisers said future editions of Insurance CoLabs will aim to foster industry-wide collaboration and practical AI adoption, shifting the conversation from experimentation to measurable business outcomes.
“Every insurer we speak to has an AI story. Very few have an AI outcome. Insurance CoLabs exists to change that ratio,” said Moshe Samuel, Head of Sales at Spocto X.