The last several years have been called by many ‘the decade of data.’ As investor Tomasz Tunguz put it:
We are living in a decade of data. Every company leverages insight from data for competitive advantage. Data movement, transformation, analysis, & observability software will underpin data applications used by every part of modern organizations.
Indeed, data has the potential to be our greatest asset—a tool for smarter decisions, deeper insights, and a more connected world. The key is not just in collecting data but in using it effectively to unlock new opportunities.
In insurance, these opportunities are especially promising. Insurance has always been a business of judgment. What’s changing is the basis for that judgment. In an increasingly complex and fragmented world, data—not just pattern matching—is becoming the foundation of underwriting, capital deployment, and portfolio management.
The data surge
In 2020, humanity created 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. By 2025, global data is projected to reach 175 zettabytes—a nearly incomprehensible figure. It isn’t just that we’re producing more emails, social media posts, or online transactions. Instead, the way we live is changing too, thanks to the proliferation of smart devices, IoT sensors, machine learning models, and AI systems that generate and consume data at an unprecedented rate.
It’s also an operational reality for insurers. Sure, every submission, claim, and adjustment creates new information — but it also adds complexity. Traditional systems weren’t designed for this scale or velocity. And for the most part, data remains trapped in silos, inconsistently formatted, and rarely shared in a way that enables joint decision-making.
It’s why our ingestion engine represented such a massive step forward. Built on modern cloud infrastructure and leveraging proprietary machine learning models, it continuously ingests and standardizes over a million records per month from our Members—mapping, validating, and enriching thousands of unique data attributes. This creates the high-quality foundation our partners need to make accurate, confident decisions. And in a two-sided marketplace like the Risk Exchange, where specialty underwriters and capital providers rely on a shared view of risk, that fidelity makes all the difference.
The AI opportunity
The opportunity, obviously, is data that can fuel better decision-making, innovation, and efficiency. This is where artificial intelligence is playing a growing role. When thoughtfully deployed, AI can help uncover insights, automate repetitive processes, and respond to changing risk signals more quickly than traditional approaches. This isn’t new; algorithms power our search engines, recommend our next purchases, filter job applications, and even influence legal decisions.
But there are risks. Algorithms are only as good as the data they’re trained on. Without visibility into how models make decisions—and without access to shared, structured data—AI can amplify opacity instead of reducing it.
That’s why explainability and transparency are increasingly critical. AI that supports rather than replaces underwriter judgment, that invites capital providers into the performance conversation, and that adapts to changes in the portfolio.
- Shift from data hoarding to strategic collection. More data doesn’t always mean better insights—focus on quality over quantity.
- Emphasize transparency. Customers and partners deserve to know how their data is used and have real options to opt out.
- Audit AI and algorithms regularly. Ensure AI-driven decisions are explainable and ethical.
- AI models trained on high-quality data can enhance accuracy, efficiency, and innovation.
- Ethical AI practices help differentiate truth from misinformation, ensuring reliability.
- Transparent algorithmic decision-making in hiring, credit scoring, and risk assessment fosters fairness and trust.
The road ahead
Our industry is under increasing pressure to make faster, more accurate decisions amid rising claims costs, persistent inflation, and the growing complexity of risks. At Accelerant, we think this challenge actually presents an opportunity: not just to improve margins, but to re-architect how specialty insurance operates, with good data and a transparent mindset at the center.
Want to see how smarter data use is transforming specialty insurance? Learn more at Accelerant.ai.