The news: Many insurance customers struggle to understand premium increases, coverage options, and underwriting decisions, per Earnix’s “Insurance 2026 Trends Report.” Meanwhile, agents and service representatives often lack visibility into the logic behind those decisions, leading to inconsistent answers, more escalations, and higher service costs.

Why this matters: Poor customer experiences can limit the value of insurers' investments in AI and decisioning technologies. While many carriers use AI in pricing, underwriting, and claims, the reasoning behind their outputs often remains trapped in back-end systems, leaving agents and customers without clear explanations. This can create new customer and service challenges rather than solving existing ones.

Recommendations for insurers: To close the customer experience gap, insurers must:

• Make decisions more transparent. Customers want clear explanations—not generic notices or frustrating handoffs between channels.
• Bring AI insights to the point of interaction. Equip agents, service teams, and digital channels with the context and recommendations needed to explain decisions, resolve issues, and guide customers in real time.

Implications for insurers: While carriers continue to improve pricing and underwriting sophistication, nearly half (48%) of policyholders report frustration with their insurer, according to a CSG study conducted by The Harris Poll. But satisfaction is significantly higher among customers who receive a rate increase yet fully understand the reason behind it. 

The next phase of insurance transformation will shift from generating better decisions to making those decisions transparent and actionable. Insurers that connect decision intelligence with customer communication can improve the customer experience. 

Those that fail to do so risk limiting the return on their AI investments. Even the most sophisticated models deliver little value when customers and frontline employees can’t understand, trust, or act on their outputs.

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