Practical AI and automation for London Market claims
Reflections from the LMA’s recent Innovation Panel Discussion
On the afternoon of Thursday 4 December 2025, the LMA’s Claims Operations Leadership Group hosted a hybrid AI and Automation Innovation Panel. With a panel comprising leading claims software providers, the session was aimed at claims management, claims operations, and claims professionals across multiple classes. Rather than providing a technical showcase for the technology providers represented on the panel, the focus was on delivering practical insights for carriers looking to implement AI and automation within their claims operations.
Ian Gibbard, Head of London Market at DOCOsoft, was one of three panellists in the room. The session quickly became more conversational than formal, with panellists taking turns to respond to questions and occasionally drawing on audience member’s experiences to ground the discussion in everyday operational practice.
DOCOsoft’s Ian Gibbard opened the session, by responding to a question about what is most likely to drive change in London Market claims over the next three to five years. He highlighted the interaction between three key factors: technology, market dynamics, and people, establishing a theme that would run through much of the discussion. Ian suggested that technology innovations should be focused on helping claims teams address genuine operational challenges, like improving data quality at intake, prioritising workloads more intelligently, and supporting more consistent decision-making. He stressed that, in a London Market context, automation should always be applied to support human judgement, not replace it.
Market structure and governance were also among the topics Ian highlighted. He explicitly linked the role of claims tech to Lloyd’s fifth Core Hurdle principle, noting that claims functions are increasingly expected to operate at the same strategic level as underwriting, reserving, and governance. In that context, claims data and claims insight are unambiguously identified as assets that can and should inform risk selection, pricing and portfolio management, rather than simply outputs relevant only to post-loss administration. This shift, he suggested, places new demands on systems and processes, particularly around data quality, transparency and the ability to share insights across functions.
Turning to the third strand in his opening remarks, Ian emphasised that talent constraints and generational changes are already reshaping expectations within claims teams. Younger professionals entering the market are far less tolerant of manual rekeying and repetitive tasks, while experienced handlers are under pressure to focus their time where they add the most value. In Ian’s view, AI and automation should be judged primarily on their ability to strip out low-value admin tasks and give claims professionals more bandwidth to communicate, negotiate and apply their expert judgement to more complex tasks.
As the discussion turned to AI adoption, the tone across the panel was notably candid. Ian directly canvassed the room on who, if anyone, was fully live at scale with AI tools in a production claims environment. The general consensus, among panellists and audience alike, was that the market is still in a transitional phase, with many different proofs of concept at various stages, but few mature deployments. This candour kept the conversation firmly anchored current realities.
Where value is being realised today, Ian argued, is in specifically focused use cases. He pointed to areas like prioritisation and triage, the extraction and structuring of data from emails and documents, and decision-support tools that surface relevant information fast. We’re already at the point, he said, where DOCOsoft can leverage these capabilities to deliver tangible benefits for its clients by reducing friction, improving consistency, and helping claims teams manage volume without overloading experienced handlers.
Governance and explainability were also recurring themes. Ian emphasised that, in the London Market, any AI-driven recommendation needs to be accompanied by a clear audit trail. Claims teams must be able to understand, for example, why a particular claim was prioritised, or why a particular course of action was suggested, and be able to challenge those suggestions where necessary. Trust in AI, he said, will only develop when human oversight and traceability are built in by design rather than added as an afterthought.
Implementation experience also featured prominently in Ian’s contributions. He stressed that successful change in the London Market depends less on ambitious technological innovations, and more on alignment, openness and partnership. In terms of practical lessons drawn from past experience, he cited carriers and technology providers working together as a single team, engaging early on integration dependencies, and delivering change incrementally.
As the session drew to a close, the discussion returned to the evolving role of the claims professional. Ian outlined his vision for a future in which claims handlers are increasingly ‘augmented’ by AI, not displaced by it, spending less time gathering information from multiple sources, and more time interpreting that information, advising underwriters and managing relationships with clients and brokers. In that not-too-far-off future, he accepted, technical literacy will certainly be helpful for claims professionals. But communication skills, judgement, and a ready ability to grasp context and nuance will be crucial.
Overall, the panel reflected a pragmatic, distinctly London Market, view of AI and automation. Rather than focusing on abstract innovation narratives, the conversation centred on the market making steady, collaborative progress, while grounding all initiatives undertaken in a deep knowledge of how claims actually work. The key takeaway was that AI will deliver maximum value when it becomes part of everyday claims infrastructure, embedded in trusted platforms, supported by long-term technology partnerships, and used to elevate the role of claims within the wider market.