3.1TB of NAIC data dumped on to the dark web  June 29th 2026

3 Key Questions for Boards on AI | Insurance Thought Leadership

In the past two years, I have sat in on more board-level reviews of AI deployment proposals than in the previous 10 combined. The dollar amounts have gone up, as have the strategic stakes. What has not gone up enough is the quality of the questions board members ask before approving these proposals.

Most board reviews follow a predictable script. Management presents a use case, a vendor, a timeline, and an ROI model. Board members ask about the vendor's track record, the integration risk, and the projected savings. The proposal gets approved or sent back for revisions on the basis of those answers.

Those questions are not wrong. They are insufficient.

Across 20 years of building insurance software and watching deployments succeed or fail, I've seen three other questions matter more for the long-term success of an AI decision-making deployment. Most board members are not asking them yet. The ones who do are the ones whose organizations end up with AI in production rather than stuck in pilot.

QUESTION 1: WHAT IS THE DATA FOUNDATION WE ARE BUILDING THIS ON? CONTINUES HERE

Piotr Biedacha is the CEO and head of delivery at Decerto

The Insurance Crisis Is Quietly Killing Performance Car Ownership

Rising and more restrictive insurance quotes are really starting to affect the performance market. This may be bad news for future enthusiasts.From a purely practical, transportation-led point of view, it’s always been a bit of a stretch to justify a performance car. After all, buyers have to accept additional costs and complications right from the start. They’d need to deal with worse fuel economy, pricier consumables, more expensive tires, and the occasional repair bill that made a middling crossover look like the more sensible pick.

Insurance costs have always factored into the equation, but they are now starting to get out of hand for aspiring performance car owners. Insurers aren’t formally removing the likes of a Corvette Z06 or a Mustang GT from their rate sheets, but they’re increasingly looking at high-performance trims as a more concentrated risk.

Across the US, automobile insurance costs have been rising steadily. Insurance data sets suggest that average full-coverage premiums now range from $2,300 to $2,500 annually. That’s starting to make buyers look more closely at performance cars, wary of those rising baselines and steeper premiums. Now the conversation extends beyond the vehicle's purchase price and whether a particular buyer could justify the jump from a "sensible" 330i to an M3.

The False Economies in Insurance Claims

Sometimes an industry paper comes along that simply confirms what many of us have known for years but were never willing to say loudly enough in the boardroom.

This is one of those moments.

Claims professionals, executives, reinsurers, brokers, regulators, and every person worried about the future of this industry — we need to talk.

Chantal Roberts recently released a white paper based on claim audits I did titled The ROI of Claims Staffing and Education. The message is neither subtle nor comfortable. We did not write another polite industry memo suggesting “operational improvements.” We held up a mirror to the insurance industry and forced leadership to confront a reality many organizations have spent years rationalizing away:

• Claims staffing is not an expense line item.
• Claims staff, and their ability to resolve claims objectively and efficiently, ARE the product.
• To quote Chantal, “The claims department is the only place where the product is produced.”

To quote another colleague, Heather Blevins: Claims “is the operational engine, the reputational foundation, and the financial heartbeat of every insurance organization.”