Eric Rentsch, Zywave's chief product officer and head of emerging markets, talks with Leader's Edge on-site at the 2026 Employee Benefits Leadership Forum about putting AI to work across insurance operations.
Description
The conversation centers on AI use in insurance operations — embedding AI more effectively into existing workflows, the roadblocks to implementation and strategies for overcoming them, how to measure AI ROI, and the recent industry debate over AI in personal lines distribution.
Rather than framing AI as a replacement for people, Eric explains why the bigger opportunity is capacity: giving teams time back, helping producers scale outreach, and enabling brokers to serve growing books of business without burning out.
Show Notes
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Insights
Prioritize Workflow Integrations
Stop bolting chatbots onto your website. The real work is agentic. The software does the job inside the apps your team already runs. It pulls data from last year's renewal. It builds the new contribution model. It drafts the open enrollment packet. Six hours of work, done in twenty minutes. That time goes back into the business. But it only works on clean, structured data and a workflow you understand. Get those right first. Then point the AI at the work. Watch the capacity come back.
Measuring Metrics Matter
You want proof before you scale. Fair. The proof is showing up. Zywave's Producer Agent finds the leads. It researches the prospect. It writes the outreach. It preps the producer. It does all of it at scale. Open rates climbed. Response rates climbed. Meetings climbed. Higher than the team expected. This matters because one in two new producers washes out within a year. That is the talent gap. Effectiveness closes it. So don't measure activity. Measure growth. Measure the meetings.
Avoiding Adoption Roadblocks
Most firms are stuck. They pilot. They explore. They never ship. And many are faking it. They say, we're doing AI things. That is me-too noise, not a strategy. Here is the fix. Find your tightest constraint. Name the role you can't hire fast enough. That is where AI starts. Pick one real task. Pull the renewal data. Draft the enrollment notes. Aim the effort there. Carriers already do this in claims. The front office is still early. That gap is your opening. Have an opinion. Then move.
AI in Insurance Distribuition
Coverage is an exchange of information to form a contract. AI makes it faster and cleaner. That part is real. It will happen. But it won't bind the policy. People panicked about that. They missed this. Friction exists for a reason. A carrier needs good information to underwrite. I need insurance now is a red flag, not a sale. The broker advises. The broker is trusted. The product is bought rarely, understood poorly. That role holds. Buyers arrive smarter. The producer must be sharper.
MAKE THE CONNECTION
The Talent Gap Forcing Insurance to Rethink AI
The biggest challenge facing insurance isn't AI. It's math.
Premium volume is growing 7–8% each year, and risk becomes more complex.... yet the pool grows 1-2%. Now add the ~50% of the industry's most experienced professionals are expected to retire over the next 10–15 years.
That is the talent gap. Insurance isn't losing jobs to AI. It's running out of people.
Established in 2004, Leader’s Edge is the award-winning content platform for The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, covering legal and legislative issues, international business and regulation, management trends and best practices, technology, and more. Leader’s Edge is written for large and mid-sized commercial insurance and employee benefit executives around the globe.
