MSIG USA is betting that AI could dramatically accelerate the development of claims professionals, potentially allowing new adjusters to acquire the equivalent of three to four years of traditional experience in just one year.
According to chief claims officer Ron Morrison (pictured), the insurer's new multi-line trainee program is designed around that ambition, using automation and predictive analytics to reduce administrative workloads and give junior adjusters more opportunities to develop investigation, negotiation and critical-thinking skills.
Morrisons believes AI could allow relatively inexperienced adjusters to perform at levels previously associated with far longer careers.
“How does a three-year adjuster perform like a 20-year adjuster? It's because of AI,” Morrison said. “AI tools allow you to predict outcomes faster based on data. You can take the history of your entire claims pool, analyze it and granulate that down to probable outcomes.
“I want people who can take that data, extrapolate it to the personality of that claim file and then create a path to get to the end.”
MSIG USA is testing its approach through a new multi-line claims trainee program designed to accelerate professional development while maintaining human oversight of claims decisions.
Rather than spending a large proportion of their early careers on data entry and administrative tasks, trainees are being trained to concentrate on investigation, negotiation, critical thinking and relationship management. They receive exposure to workers’ compensation, property, casualty and auto before eventually moving into a specialty.
“We want to utilize AI, but we don’t feel that AI is going to replace relationships,” Morrison said. “Our premise is that with the right technology, I can expedite the learning curve for a claims professional to really generate three to four years of experience for every year of actual experience.”
The insurer is also using mentorship to further develop its first five-person cohort. Line-of-business directors work with trainees on workflows, claims processes and the reasoning behind decisions.
Morrison stressed that MSIG does not intend AI to make substantive claims evaluations. “We have technology that will provide data, profiles and risk evaluations, but it won’t make an evaluation,” he said. “We want all evaluations to be humanistic, and we don’t want an overreliance on data.”
MSIG’s model keeps responsibility for evaluating exposures, he said, setting reserves and directing claims outcomes with claims professionals, while using predictive tools to identify areas requiring additional attention.
The carrier estimates that AI and other technology could shorten claim duration by 25% to 30% across roughly 40% of its book.
But removing lower-level work from claims also changes what insurers need from people entering the industry.
Morrison said communication is already one of the biggest skills gaps among younger claims professionals, particularly when it comes to speaking directly with customers, attorneys and other parties rather than relying on email or messaging.
As AI assumes more administrative work in claims, those human skills — alongside the ability to interpret data and exercise independent judgment — could become prerequisites much earlier in an adjuster’s career.
“When I started in ’96, as long as you were a good people-person, smart and intelligent, you could get hired just about anywhere in the industry,” Morrison said. “Now I think it’s going to be much more competitive to enter the industry, for sure.”
It’s creating a longer-term challenge for an insurance sector already concerned about attracting and retaining younger workers. If automation eliminates some of the routine tasks that historically gave junior adjusters their first exposure to claims, insurers will have to find other ways to build judgment before handing them more complex files.
MSIG’s answer is to combine AI-assisted workflows with broader training, mentoring and customer-facing experience. Trainees are encouraged to work with underwriting and finance leaders, learn about reinsurance and develop presentation skills alongside their technical claims training.
The goal is ultimately to produce claims professionals who can move faster without simply deferring to an algorithm.
“Every carrier is going to have a high level of automation in the future,” Morrison said. “The differential is going to be the talent that’s delivering.”
