Transparency and insurance professionals: a study of Swedish insurance practice attitudes and future development

Abstract

The insurance industry is being challenged by increased adoption of automated decision-making. AI advances could conceivably automate everything: marketing, customer service, underwriting and claims management alike. However, such automation challenges consumer trust, as there is considerable public and scholarly debate over the ‘black box’ character of many algorithms. Insurance being a business of trust, this suggests a dilemma. One suggested solution involves adopting algorithms in a transparent manner. This article reports a study of how Swedish insurers deal with this dilemma, based on (i) eight interviews with insurance professionals representing four companies with a joint market share of 45–50% of the Swedish property insurance market and (ii) a questionnaire answered by 71 professionals in a Swedish insurance company. The results show that while transparency is seen as potentially valuable, most Swedish insurers do not use it to gain a competitive advantage or identify clear limits to transparency and are not using AI extensively.