Broker Expo 2026 countdown: Advice in the age of AI – why expertise matters more than ever

Elmore Insurance Brokers has recently been involved in a directors’ and officers’ claim worth around €7m (£6m).

For the directors involved, the key question was simple: will the policy respond?

Founder Simon Gilbert says his team is confident that the decisions taken over wording, terms and conditions long before the claim arose mean the client has the right protection in place when it matters most.

Funny product?

“This is a funny product, isn’t it? Because it’s one you never want to use, and that’s why it’s built on trust from the beginning,” Gilbert says. “But when you do want to use it, by God, do you want to use it.”

Used well, it takes the assembly work off our people, so brokers can spend more time, and better-informed time, with clients, or concentrate on getting the market placement right and articulating the risk clearly to underwriters.

John Warburton, Konsileo

Automation and artificial intelligence may have major benefits, but navigating a claim like the one being handled by Elmore’s brokers ultimately comes down to a client trusting their experience, judgement and skill.

It is these kinds of moments that reinforce the perception that there is a major role for humans despite the blistering pace of AI advancement.

Human expertise versus AI

Nonetheless, brokers are asking themselves where their experience is best placed and which tasks AI can do.

The general view is that AI can do a lot of the heavy lifting so that a broker’s experience and expertise can pack a greater punch.

Steve Smith, sales and marketing director at SSP UK&I, says: “Clients now expect speed and accessibility, and brokers who use AI well can meet that expectation when it’s used for drafting, data enrichment, triage and freeing up time for higher-value conversations. But automation should support the advice process, not replace it.”

Meaningful human broking

John Warburton, CEO of Konsileo, agrees that AI can pave the way for more meaningful human broking.

“Used well, it takes the assembly work off our people, so brokers can spend more time, and better-informed time, with clients, or concentrate on getting the market placement right and articulating the risk clearly to underwriters.

“That’s a return to the essence of good broking: risk advice that properly helps a client succeed, and mitigation programmes that make sure the insurable and non-insurable risks a business faces are properly mitigated, transferred or managed.”

Gilbert stresses the need for humans to hold the context. For example, you can ask an AI for definitions of wordings and language. Other times it can generate a swathe of potentially helpful perspectives.

He asks: “Can that be put into context to a wider consideration regarding claims, regarding what’s possible to be achieved commercially? And I think that is where we see the value in human contact and experience.”

The technology trap

The idea that AI can free people from routine work is well understood. But there may be another reason human expertise is becoming more important: to navigate the new problems AI itself creates, and make the judgement calls technology cannot.

Robert Brown, director at Brown & Brown, warns of an overload of AI-generated material which adds little value.

“We’re already seeing a huge increase in generic, AI-generated content and the question for brokers is whether they are adding to the noise or actually giving clients something useful to think about. Your experience, knowledge of your clients and your own expertise are what make your content and brand different and relevant.”

That makes the ability to challenge AI output increasingly important – particularly for junior staff still developing their judgement, Gilbert argues.

“Without sufficient training, you cannot allow junior staff to be let loose with accepting every output a model might give without them having suitable training and context to those decisions.”

Pace of adoption

There is also a risk that brokers go hurtling down the AI and automation route ahead of the wider market. Human judgement is therefore needed in how to use the technology and the pace of adoption.

“You can automate all your processes, but if your counterparties are not, it’s going to be a challenge,” Gilbert explains.

Warburton agrees that brokers can get caught offside when their systems and data are not ready.

“Because we built the platform, we can make more extensive, and crucially safer, use of AI across all our data. Most brokers are stuck with data silos, or left experimenting unsafely at the edges. That’s the difference between AI as a gimmick and AI that actually raises the quality of advice.”

The overall message from the market is loud and clear, and it’s a reassuring one: AI is moving rapidly but human expertise is needed across complex tasks, judgement calls about technology and client-facing situations. 

You can build the bot, but you can’t build the experience and intuition.

Join the debate: Sign up to attend the Broker Expo on 8 October at the Birmingham NEC

The session ‘Advice in the age of AI – why expertise matters more than ever’ takes place at 11:45 AM – 12:15 PM on the Business Placing Broker Stage