AI will transform the future of risk faster than insurers can adapt: futurist Amy Webb

Webb warns that the nature of risk could change significantly within the next 5-10 years.

As artificial intelligence reshapes the global economy, insurers face a fundamental shift in how risk is created, measured, and transferred. Speaking at an event hosted by MS Re during Miami Reinsurance Week, futurist Amy Webb outlined why the next decade will demand a new approach to risk.

The session, hosted by MS Re and attended by almost 200 insurance professionals, reflected growing industry focus on how emerging technologies could reshape risk over the coming decade.

Robots with human skin that can feel pain and pleasure, and computers made from human brain cells may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie. But they are already being developed and illustrate how artificial intelligence (AI) could profoundly reshape the insurance industry, according to futurist and founder of FTSG Amy Webb at Miami Reinsurance Week at a talk hosted by MS Re.

The re/insurance industry traditionally relies heavily on historical data and actuarial tables, leading to a fixed mindset. Webb warned that AI is evolving far faster than many insurers’ existing risk frameworks, and that the nature of risk could change significantly within the next five to 10 years.

As a result, she said, insurance leaders need to invest in what she described as “strategic foresight”, a structured approach to predicting future developments by analysing emerging trends and signals, to better anticipate and prepare for emerging risks.

“Insurance companies are tech laggards,” Webb said. “You think a lot about the future but deploy capital too slowly when it comes to technology.”

Webb compared the current AI revolution to the rise of the internet in the late 1990s, describing it as a new wave of “creative destruction”, in which emerging technologies and external forces combine to create entirely new systems while rendering others obsolete.

As an example, Webb pointed to Amazon’s transformation of the retail sector, which she said was driven not by a single innovation but by the convergence of multiple technologies and external forces. These included cheap capital, existing payment and logistics infrastructure and globalisation, cultural readiness for digital transfer, digital transactions, and a regulatory environment that favoured scale.

Today, there are dozens of convergences happening that are not being tracked by insurance companies and that will lead to even more seismic changes. Webb stressed the importance of continuous risk monitoring and adapting to these changes and introduced the concept of ‘strategic foresight’. She outlined three major convergences that will lead to the next creative destruction – the future of work, living intelligence and energy use.

Webb argued that these convergences could have far-reaching implications for the insurance and reinsurance sector.

The prospect of effectively unlimited labour driven by AI, for example, could undermine demand in labour‑dependent products such as workers’ compensation and employment liability, while accelerating disruption across global reinsurance markets. Insurers must begin to develop products that account for the risks associated with AI and machine-driven labor, transitioning away from models that rely on human workforces.

She also warned of increasing demand for computational power, particularly from AI systems, which creates a strain on resources. Insurers need to start factoring in energy reliability and access to power as key variables in their underwriting models. As locations become critical for AI data centres, understanding the implications for re/insurers is vital for future readiness.

Meanwhile, the emergence of what Webb described as “living intelligence”—systems that blend artificial intelligence with advances in biology—could give rise to entirely new categories of loss, forcing insurers to rethink how responsibility and accountability are defined and to develop frameworks to assess and underwrite these unconventional risks.

Steps to future proof business

Webb urged insurers to take a harder look at their reliance on computing power and factor energy and infrastructure constraints more explicitly into underwriting. She also encouraged reinsurers to start modelling the risks associated with living intelligence, while thinking more broadly about how emerging technologies could reshape their future role in the value chain.

“There are three no-regrets moves you could make right away,” Webb said. “First, partner with reinsurers to begin modelling risk in more experimental ways. You could start codesigning guardrails for emerging technologies. Second, pilot frameworks that evaluate how systems sense, decide, learn, and fail. Third, map the future of your value network.”

Did you get value from this story?  Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.