Actuariaatcongres 2026
From Classical ML
to Agentic AI
Scaling a Data-Driven Insurer. From pioneer's dream to production
Emiel Bangert, PetSecur & Harm Mulder, TOP-Advisory
Flashback
“The actuary, a pioneer?”
Actuariaatcongres · 7 March 2017
Do you use Machine Learning in practice?
24 votes
Yes: 0%
No: 87.5% · Sometimes: 12.5%
Do you ever use GLMs?
26 votes
No: 42% · Rarely: 27%
Zero percent used ML. Today we show
what happens when you DO use it.
Introduction
TOP-Advisory
Dutch actuarial consultancy · Founded 2020
Who we are: Young and ambitious company in the actuarial field, providing actuarial support to various financial institutions.
How we work: Collaboration, alone you go faster, together you go further. People-focused, engaged and professional.
Core values: Together – different – better – more fun.
Introduction
Dutch insurer · Pet health insurance · Dogs & cats · Founded 2019
Mission: Dedicated pet insurer in the Netherlands. Fair, transparent and affordable insurance solutions.
Approach: Strong digital-first approach, enabling online policy management and fast claim processing.
AI-First Insurance
🤖
Claims
AI triage & processing
📊
Pricing
Automated GLM & ML
📝
Underwriting
Risk assessment agents
📄
Regulatory
Compliance automation
💰
Finance
Invoicing & reporting
💬
Service
Internal AI agent for helpdesk & claims
Every department powered by AI
Introduction
PetSecur
Building everything on the intersection of IT and the organization, with AI
No legacy. No steering committees. Two people from Claims and Finance, and a developer on the intersection of data and AI.
In-house
Sales · Claims · Finance · Compliance · Reporting
Smart Data Layer & Tooling
AI agents · Automated pipelines · APIs · Own intelligence layer on top of outsourced engine
Outsourced
Actuarial function · Risk & compliance (2nd line) · Core insurance engine
AI Agents
Claims Agent
Pricing Agent
Service Agent
▼
▼
Core Functions
Sales
Claims
Finance
Compliance
Reporting
▼
Outsourced Engine
Actuary · Risk · Core system
Do you use AI in your work?
In 2017 the answer was: 0% Yes, 87.5% No.
Act 1
Regulatory First
You must be compliant before you can begin
🏛️
DORA Compliance
Digital Operational Resilience Act. ICT-risk management, incident reporting, third-party risk. Not nice-to-have, a requirement.
🔧
Core Engine: outsourced
The insurance engine is outsourced. Policy admin, premium collection, claim handling. That’s what you buy.
🧠
Own intelligence layer
Own databases, APIs, MCP integration. The differentiation is in the data layer, not in the outsourced engine.
Compliance is not an impediment. It is the foundation upon which you can build AI.
Currently piloting
www.gencompl.ai, an AI powered platform to support the full compliance risk management cycle. Turning regulatory complexity into structured and practical workflows.
May an AI system make premium decisions without an actuary?
Think: pricing, underwriting, reserving
Implementation
Where AI meets the policy lifecycle
0. Premium Review
Market analysis
Set premiums
Policy conditions
▼
Pricing Agent
▶
1. Underwriting
Application
Risk assessment
Accept / decline
▼
Risk Agent
▶
2. Policy Issuance
Policy info
Draft contract
Customer receives
▼
API Pipeline
▶
3. Claim Handling
Report claim
Assess & process
Payout / denial
▼
Claims Agent
▶
4. Reporting
Management reports
Risk analysis
Performance
▼
Data Pipeline
AI agents and
smart pipelines power every stage.
From the architecture into the process
Core Philosophy
Human in the Loop
AI performs the heavy work. Humans validate!
AI processes
claims, invoices, data
→
Human validates
control, decision
→
AI reports
Excel, dashboard
→
Human decides
action, escalation
🤖
Harry Claims Assistant
Automated claim processing + weekly review.
🧠
PetSecur AI Agent
Local model for simple queries, own memory and database. Complex queries routed to frontier models with privacy protection.
📊
Workflow & Process
Process documentation, workflow automation, process mining and optimization. Initial pricing automation framework in place.
AI First in Action · 1/2
Pricing Automation & Invoice Classifier
📈
Pricing Automation
Claims data in, pricing advice out. GLM Tweedie calculates loss ratios per cell (~340 cells for pets). LLM generates management summary per run. Full audit trail: which data, which model, which parameters.
GLM + LLM
Reproducible
Pilot
2017: “Do you use GLMs?” → 31% Yes
2026: GLMs run, LLM explains why
🧾
Invoice Classifier
Receive veterinary invoices as PDFs, ML model automatically classifies and extracts amounts. 99% accuracy. From weeks of manual work to seconds.
Production
99% accurate
2017: Text mining case, 85K cases, 96%
2026: Same principle, now in production on our invoices
Who controls AI,
the actuary or the developer?
Or a new role?
AI First in Action · 2/2
AI assistants at work
⚡
Claims processing automation
RPA processes claims automatically, retrieving data, matching, reporting. Humans handle the assessment and four-eyes check through a weekly review.
Production
💬
Internal AI Agent
Local model answers simple questions. Own memory and database, gets smarter over time. Complex questions routed to frontier models, with privacy protection for personal data.
Production
Privacy-first
Not everything belongs in the cloud. Pick the right model and protection level per query.
1 person builds what normally takes a whole team.
And at your company?
This can work at every insurer
We apply it to pet insurance. But the patterns are universally applicable.
🚗
P&C: motor, property, liability
Claims: Garage invoices, expert reports, photos. Automatically classify and extract. Same pipeline as our vet invoices.
Pricing: GLM per risk profile, rate differentiation across thousands of cells. LLM explains why the rate changes.
Fraud: Patterns in claims, photo analysis, cross-referencing. AI flags, humans decide.
Underwriting: AI-assisted, scoring risk profiles, matching terms, checking exclusions.
🏢
Life, pensions & income protection
Decision support: Benefit calculations, transitional law, scenario analysis. AI prepares, actuary decides.
Compliance automation: Solvency II, IORP II, pension agreement. Generate reports, flag deviations, maintain audit trails.
Second-line evidence: Merkle trees, verifiable AI. Cryptographic proof the model did what it should.
Automated testing: Validate calculation rules, run regression tests, run scenarios, in minutes, not weeks.
All Departments
Beyond one project: transforming the entire organization.
📋
Acceptance
Score risk profiles, summarize medical statements, match policy terms. AI provides recommendations, underwriter decides.
⚖️
Claims handling
Triage, classification, fraud scoring, document processing. From days to hours, with human oversight on every decision.
📊
Actuary
Run pricing models, validate reserves, calculate ORSA scenarios. The actuary becomes faster, not obsolete.
🛡️
Compliance & Risk
Regulatory reports generated, deviations flagged, audit trails built. Evidence for 2nd and 3rd line, automatically.
🔧
Operations
Docs, data entry, reconciliation, invoices. If it’s repetitive, an AI assistant can do it.
💬
Service desk
AI agents that understand policy terms, search internal knowledge bases, and draft answer templates. Privacy-first.
The technology exists. The question is not whether, but where to begin.
Verifiable AI
Merkle Trees + Recursive LLMs
Tamper-proof audit trails for AI in regulated sectors
Example: Pet insurance claim
H(AB)
AI processing
H(CD)
Decision + audit
A
Read invoice
B
Check policy
C
AI proposes
€340 payout
D
Human
approves
2017: “Black box problem” as a challenge
2026: Don’t open the box. Make the chain verifiable
Every step is hashed as a leaf. Pairs combine into branches, branches into a single root. If any step changes, the root hash breaks.
H(AB)
Prove the AI read the right data, without revealing patient details
H(CD)
Prove a human approved, without exposing full AI reasoning
ROOT
One hash proves the entire decision is intact
Selective disclosure: share one branch for audit, keep the rest private. Ideal for Solvency II, GDPR, and compliance reporting.
Circle of Life
From “the actuary, a pioneer?”
to “seeing what’s possible when you take action”
2017
The question
ML was 0% adopted. Fraud, telematics, pricing. The chances were there, but untouched.
2020–2024
Tools are changing, fast
GenAI, LLMs, Claude, GPT. The barrier to building is vanishing. Exponentially, not gradually.
2025–2026
What can we do today?
Pricing, claims, agents, compliance: one person can build the intelligence layer in months, not years. We went through the entire Reactive → Proactive curve in just two months.
The takeaway
No barriers remain
No more vendor lock-in. Open models, open standards. SaaS costs drops. Compute is a commodity.
“Data is the only moat left.”
– Larry Ellison, CEO Oracle
AI is commoditizing because models use the same public internet data. The true competitive edge isn’t the model itself anymore, but access to exclusive, proprietary datasets.
The data and insights created by the actuary, loss ratios, risk cells, claims patterns, reserving triangles, are the only moat left. If you capture them in your own data layer. Knowledge in spreadsheets and heads walks out the door. Knowledge in structured, versioned pipelines compounds.
“In 2017, I wondered if actuaries could be pioneers.
The answer: yes, if you take action.”
Regulatory First → AI First → Human in the Loop
PetSecur · Actuariaatcongres 2026
Interactive session
Rolling the dice
Questions for the audience
Starting an insurer with 2 people?
Without an IT department, without legacy?
Questions for the audience
“Explainable AI” or “verifiable AI”?
Merkle trees, audit trails, cryptographic evidence
Questions for the audience
How much autonomy should AI have?
Related to customer interactions and decision making?
Questions for the audience
Useful AI tools for 2nd line?
Do you know what is used in your company/industry?
Questions for the audience
Biggest risk of AI in insurance?
What’s the biggest risk of AI implementation in the insurance industry?
Questions for the audience
Can smaller companies compete?
In an AI-driven market?
Questions for the audience
If AI prices risk better than actuaries…
What remains the unique value of the actuarial profession?
Questions for the audience
Where does AI create the greatest value?
In an insurance company?