This blog post is part of a series covering the five pillars of the Intelligent Insurer Operating Model. Click the links here to read the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth posts in the series.
I want to return, in this final post, to the agent from the opening of this series—the one whose client had a bound policy in 35 to 45 minutes. I used that example to open the keynote in Boston, and my colleague Jack referred to it last week in Chicago because it makes a point that raw data does not: When that kind of speed becomes the expectation, the carriers that cannot match it are not slower competitors. They are absent from the contest.
Speed is not an operational metric. It is a strategic weapon.
The Slow Don’t Just Lose the Race
In a market where a carrier can respond to an agent submission in minutes instead of days, which carrier captures the best risks? The fast one. The agent has other options and will place the business with whoever responds first. An organization tethered to legacy processing timelines is not slower at winning the same risks as a faster competitor—it is largely absent from the conversation.
I also want to be direct about the urgency this creates. Speed without design discipline is exactly how organizations fall into the Pioneer’s Paradox I described in Pillar Two. The goal is urgency with intentionality—moving fast on the right things, built the right way, with the governance in place to sustain it. As one insurance software founder put it to me: Act with urgency but not carelessness.
Speed Is Built Together
Speed at scale is not something IT delivers to the business. It is not something the business achieves by working around IT. It is built together, from the beginning, with shared ownership of the outcome—which connects directly back to Pillar Four (on business as the orchestra’s “composer” and IT as the “conductor”).
My practical recommendation for getting started: Identify one high-value workflow in submissions or claims and staff it with a genuinely joint IT and business team from day one. Not IT building something to hand over. Not the business defining requirements for IT to execute. A joint team, accountable together for a single measurable result. That first win builds the organizational muscle memory needed for everything that comes after—including the change management credibility to move faster on the next initiative.
The Structural Difference
The organizations that master the Intelligent Insurer Operating Model will not simply be more efficient. They will be structurally different. Their capacity scales without proportional headcount growth. Their AI initiatives reach production instead of stalling in proof-of-concept. Their workflows are designed for what digital and biological workers can do together. And they respond to the market at a speed that changes the competitive dynamics of every segment they compete in.
Structural advantage in insurance is a durable advantage. The carriers and agents who figure this out first will not just outperform—they will reshape expectations across the market. And the organizations that wait for a clear signal to act will find, when it finally arrives, that the ground has already shifted underneath them.
The world is arriving on mouse time. When an agent hits submit, will your invisible team already be working?
Discuss the Intelligent Insurer Operating Model in Person!
We just had our Regional Property Casualty Insurance Forum on Agentic AI last week in Chicago. If you’re in the life space, join us on June 16th in Des Moines for our Regional Life Insurance, Annuities, and Group Benefits Forum on Agentic AI. Designed for senior technology, operations, strategy, data, analytics, and line-of-business leaders, the forums will explore how AI-driven intelligence is being embedded across underwriting, new business, policy administration, claims, enrollment, and customer servicing and feature numerous innovative service providers implementing agentic AI in production.
