How artificial intelligence benefits brokers

We’ve all seen stories about AI and what programs like ChatGPT will mean for the future of work. The general consensus – for now at least – is that it won’t replace insurance brokers.

But as this technology becomes more powerful and sophisticated, what if it actually replaces a huge part of what brokers do today?

I’m not going to pretend to know what impact ChatGPT will have on insurance or other industries. But this platform is absolutely an accelerant tool. When it was pushed into the mainstream in late 2022, the world changed.

Ready or not, here AI comes. While ChatGPT may be getting the lion’s share of attention, many programs out there, and more on the horizon, will make AI a larger part of how we work.

A good way to future-proof your career is to learn how to use these tools. Whether you think you need them or not doesn’t matter. There’s going to be a point at which you’ll be expected to know them. Start training yourself now.

The cost to familiarize yourself with this technology is low. If you spend a few hours a week exploring ChatGPT and looking at different ways it can help increase productivity, the benefits could be huge.

Adaptation is key to success and growth. We’ve all seen companies disappear when they couldn’t or wouldn’t innovate and adapt to the pace of change. I’d rather not be one of them, and I know many competitors feel the same.

Real-world applications

Members of our team use ChatGPT in their day-to-day work and our brokerage has run competitions to find more ways to use the platform.

You can leverage ChatGPT to create clear and concise information about coverages that are difficult to explain, or with which you may be less familiar. It can help brainstorm ways to overcome objections about protections clients need. It can also be used to gather risk management ideas and generate relevant questions for clients.

One of our producers recently launched a group insurance program and used ChatGPT to pitch it to the organization and insurer and to create a business plan for the project. Our team can do these things on their own, but with ChatGPT it took a fraction of the time.

ChatGPT can strengthen sales, customer service, marketing, content creation and more. You need to experiment to find the right prompts to gain the best results, but resources on LinkedIn and TikTok can fast-track your learning.

One warning: ChatGPT quickly and confidently responds to questions, but that doesn’t mean the answers are always right. Use it as a starting point for ideas and to help you be more productive, not as your final output. You need to check and edit what it creates.

Another warning: never input sensitive or confidential information into ChatGPT. Samsung learned this the hard way after a data leak through the platform.

Insurance is a fast-changing, dynamic industry and continuous learning is vital. Investing time in ChatGPT and other AI tools will help keep you relevant as technology evolves.

Adam Mitchell is CEO of Mitch Insurance, a Whitby, Ont.-based insurance brokerage. This article is excerpted from one in the August-September print edition of Canadian Underwriter.

Feature image by iStock.com/alashi