As my familiarity with the UK’s protection insurance sector keeps developing, I keep noticing a gap between the general conversation about artificial intelligence (AI) in insurance and what seems to be changing day to day.
Last month I attended the Amazon Web Services Summit (AWS) in London, and one number kept coming up: 64% of UK organisations are now using AI, up from 52% the year before. In insurance, the Bank of England and The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) 2024 survey puts AI adoption among insurance respondents at 95%. Insurance “leads” financial services — at least if you stop at the headline.
But that 95% covers a very wide spectrum. It can mean a fraud-scoring model running quietly in the background, or a generative AI tool materially changing how an underwriter spends their day. Those are not the same thing.
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) and University of Essex working paper published in March 2026 draws a useful distinction here. Roughly nine in ten AI adopters are using generic tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and the kinds of applications that can sit on almost any laptop. Only around one in ten have built bespoke systems that are genuinely integrated into how the business runs. That second group is where operational change starts to become meaningful. Much of the headline adoption figure sits in the first.
The AWS data also contained another figure that received less attention: only 24% of UK organisations have reached advanced AI maturity, where AI is embedded in core processes and decision-making. That figure increased by just one percentage point year on year.
So, adoption is wide, but the depth of adoption is another matter.
In the protection market, the most visible developments over the last year have been relatively cautious. Aviva launched what it described as the first AI summarisation tool for life underwriting in November 2025 and extended it to Critical Illness in March 2026. Aviva reports that the tool reviews GP reports, which at times can be ninety pages or more, providing the underwriter with a structured digest. Aviva has reported around a 50% reduction in review time per case.
Vitality has taken a similar direction for Life and Serious Illness. Scottish Widows reported a partnership with Sprout.ai on protection claims and was explicit that the aim was to free up handlers to spend more time being human with customers, not less.
They are examples of AI being used to reduce administrative load, saving precious time, whilst also improving consistency in decisions.
Where AI is gaining traction?
The immediate opportunities appear to be around the edges: document summarisation, fraud detection, call quality, vulnerability flags, triage, and operational support. The cautious approach seems to make sense. The Treasury Committee’s January 2026 report on AI in financial services highlighted the legal and accountability risk uncertainty created by less explainable AI models. For higher-stakes decisions, that uncertainty creates a rational brake on adoption.
So what next
Governance and explainable AI models need to be at the core of any new initiative, reporting on the value being created, using a complementarity approach between human capabilities and AI.
We are excited to be focusing on the areas where AI can be safely implemented within the insurance space.
Pawel Dobrzynski, MGC’s CTO
References
General AI adoption
- AWS / ITPro / Resultsense, April 2026 — UK AI adoption at 64%, advanced maturity at 24%. resultsense.com
- British Chambers of Commerce & Atos, March 2026. Powering Productivity: AI and the Future of UK Work. britishchambers.org.uk
- British Chambers of Commerce press release, March 2026. Half of SMEs Using AI — With Limited Headcount Impact So Far. britishchambers.org.uk
UK insurance — adoption
- Bank of England & Financial Conduct Authority, November 2024. Artificial Intelligence in UK Financial Services 2024. bankofengland.co.uk
UK protection and income protection deployments
- Aviva, March 2026. AI underwriting tool extended to Critical Illness cover. aviva.com
- Aviva, November 2025. Original life insurance AI summarisation tool launch. aviva.com
- Fintech Global, April 2026. Aviva AI underwriting review time reduction. fintech.global
- Lloyds Banking Group / Scottish Widows + Sprout.ai, 2025. Protection claims partnership. lloydsbankinggroup.com
- IFA Magazine / Equisoft, April 2026. Vitality AI underwriting; mental health as a key IP claims driver. ifamagazine.com