Published on the 24/02/2026 | Written by Heather Wright
Making insurance more accessible – and business more profitable…
Suncorp is underwriting a future where AI goes well beyond improving efficiency, with the insurer saying smarter automation and hyper-personalised products will help make insurance more accessible for customers, including those currently priced out of the market.
The company is positioning agentic AI as a breakthrough capability, enabling Suncorp to ‘reimagine’ customer service, transform claims from end-to-end and redesign products.
“We see AI… as a net opportunity.”
Suncorp, which became a pure-play general insurer across Australia and New Zealand in 2024 when it completed the sale of its banking arm to ANZ, is deep into its multi-year ‘Digital Insurer’ modernisation program.
Steve Johnston, Suncorp CEO and managing director, says the company’s agentic program is now ‘in full scale delivery’, with initial deployments across the claims and customer services processes on track. “We see opportunities right across the value chain of insurance to enhance the customer experience and transform end-to-end processes,” Johnston said during the company’s latest half-year earnings call.
Platform modernisation sets the foundation
Suncorp’s broader tech road map sees the company re-platforming onto SaaS-based, cloud-enabled core systems, where AI is embedded into the stack.
That includes the first release of Suncorp’s new Duck Creek policy administration system, which went live last April for new home and motor portfolios across its AA Insure New Zealand joint venture. Johnston says the system is already delivering more simplified underwriting and greater automation. The next major release is now being delivered for AAMI Home and Motor in Australia.
Suncorp’s tech modernisation, as previously reported by iStart, has included its ERP systems, along with a new human capital management platform and payroll managed service, and consolidated financial management systems to streamline backend processes.
Johnston says AI is embedded in the core re-platforming program of work. In customer experience – where Suncorp uses Genesys, Adobe and Salesforce – AI supports call summarisation, real-time agent assist, virtual agent (chat and voice) and automated quality assurance.
In policy operations, where the company is progressively implementing the Duck Creek policy administration system, AI comes into play through automated underwriting, quote pre-population and document and email ingestion, and is increasingly shaping dynamic pricing and pricing modelling and simulation, harnessing the Earnix decisioning platform.
Across the enterprise, AI supports employee lifecycle management support, self-service reporting and analytics and software engineering and testing, while in claims, automated accident detection, image capture, claims lodgement and triage, and enhanced fraud detection are available.
“AI will significantly improve our capabilities and efficiency in both manufacturing and distribution, but over time it will allow us to carefully and selectively assess other opportunities across the insurance value chain.”
Johnston says more than 20 GenAI use cases were delivered in FY25, with 1.6 million customer interactions handled by 15 AI chatbots in the half year, up 28 percent. Over 100 AI/ML models are in production.
The affordability issue
At the centre of the shift is the view that AI will not only transform internal processes, but also help solve pressures customers increasingly face. Johnston says Suncorp’s AI capabilities will improve product design ‘in a hyper-personalised insurance future’, transform claims processes for customers and enable pricing and underwriting systems that address insurance affordability. He notes two to four percent of the population are currently priced out of insurance.
That issue of affordability has become a national concern. Insurance inflation is running at three to four percent higher than CPI with rising hazard costs, supply chain pressures and inflation driving premiums upwards, prompting government and regulator scrutiny. Asked about political pressure on pricing, Johnston says the industry must be ‘very conscious’ of cost-of-living pressures and emphasised that Suncorp’s AI-enabled transformation will help it design ‘new policies, new premium [structures] and new products for that subset of consumers who are really challenged’.
Johnston says the broader insurance sector is in discussion with the federal government to find an industry-wide solution but pointed to AI as one potential solution ‘over time’.
AI as margin engine
Johnston underscored that AI will support both sides of the insurer’s margin equation, reducing loss and expense ratios for the company while strengthening the effectiveness and deepening customer engagement.
Suncorp CFO Jeremy Robson says while Suncorp’s expenses were up for the half-year, driven by the investments in the digital insurer policy admin system and AI capability, total expense ratio was down 40 percent. He expects run costs to be kept ‘as low as possible’ as efficiencies from the modernisation work compound.
On the loss side, AI is improving pricing accuracy, underwriting quality and risk selection. Better hazard modelling, improved severity prediction, smarter fraud detection and faster claim assessment are all areas where AI is expected to deliver measurable financial benefit for insurers.
“We see AI… as a net opportunity… in terms of how we run the business more efficiently, more effectively, better client experiences etc,” Robson says.
Suncorp’s work sits within a wider industry shift marked. Analysts estimate the global AI market in insurance will surge to US$79 billion by 2032 as providers digitise core systems, automate claims, modernise underwiring and deploy genAI across customer channels.
KPMG’s late 2025 Advancing AI Across Insurance report describes a sector trying to balance AI’s promise with governance and capability gaps. Insurers are rolling out machine-learning tools in actuarial modelling, fraud detection and risk assessment; using AI for identity verification, chatbots and next-best-action guidance; and testing algorithms to personalise coverage or accelerate claims. Many however, face long implementation cycles tied to legacy technology, data readiness and talent shortages.
Those furthest ahead are those that have modernised core platforms and moved to cloud infrastructures capable of supporting large-scale AI deployment – a rulebook it appears Suncorp itself has adopted.
