Sapiens International Corporation N.V. has launched the inaugural Sapiens Insurance AI Maturity Index, an industry-wide study and annual benchmarking tool designed to evaluate the current landscape, adoption progress, and future aspirations for artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous decision-making across insurance carriers of all sizes.
Conducted by Research in Finance (RiF) and launched at Sapiens Ignite 2026, the Index will help insurers plot their progression pathway from automation through to AI and agentic AI adoption.
RiF surveyed 475 senior insurance professionals across the United Kingdom & Ireland, the Nordics, Benelux, South Africa, and North America, who work for insurance providers and operate within life and/or P&C.
95 senior insurance professionals are surveyed across each geographical region, which are split into 45 Transformation Leaders and 50 Business Users.
The first results revealed that 67% of the respondents believe AI in insurance will be fully autonomous within the next two to three years, underlining that this is an urgent priority for the whole industry.
To quantify progress, the Index uses a set of criteria to place insurers in one of four categories: Reactive, Enabled, Operational, and Autonomous.
Insurers were scored on their progression in four key areas: cloud adoption, master data strategy, AI governance policy, and HR strategy and policy.
Operational insurers make up the largest segment at 28%, characterised by cloud infrastructure with some SaaS, HR initiatives and governance policy in planning or implemented.
Autonomous Leaders represent 25% of the market, having achieved mature cloud and SaaS deployments, robust master data and HR strategies, as well as establishing governance policy strategies.
Meanwhile, Reactive only reached 24%, with early stages of cloud adoption, as well as of master data strategy, governance policy and some HR initiatives being in place
The remaining 23% fall into the Enabled tier, operating on non SaaS cloud infrastructure, being in early stages of master data strategy and having governance policy with HR initiatives in planning.
Paul Wheeler, CEO, Sapiens, commented: “The Sapiens Insurance AI Maturity Index highlights a clear, industry-wide imperative for AI and agentic AI adoption, though insurers must accelerate their timelines or risk being left behind.
“We see firsthand what is possible when these technologies are deployed at scale, particularly with agentic AI. By implementing the right strategies today, insurers can leverage AI not just as a tool, but as a catalyst to build deeper customer trust, launch products faster, and deliver superior digital user experiences.”
Among the countries surveyed, Benelux (33%) and Nordics (28%) have the highest proportion of Autonomous Leaders, while the US, UK and South Africa lag with 25%, 23%, and 18%, respectively.
The survey revealed that 30% of P&C insurers are Autonomous Leaders, compared to only 25% of Life insurers. By company size, 39% of global insurers (with more than 20,000 employees), 30% of P&C insurers, and 25% of Life Insurers are Autonomous Leaders.
Moreover, 21% of specialist or mid-sized firms, those with less than 1,000 employees, are Autonomous Leaders.
The study also revealed that agentic AI is not yet delivering benefits to the same extent as AI. Internationally, 61% of insurers say AI is a key business strategy for the future, and 51% believe it will give them a competitive advantage.
The Nordics place the most importance on agentic AI and are more ready to adopt, while the UK is the lowest ranking geography for importance and adoption readiness.
Autonomous Leaders are furthest ahead in their use of agentic AI in contrast to only 16% of Reactive insurers, but across all countries surveyed, more respondents say they are, on average, using automation (40%) and AI (42%) compared to agentic AI (24%).
Additionally, while there is high confidence in AI, insurers still want human oversight. The survey revealed that 86% of AI and agentic AI users are very or somewhat confident in the tool’s decisions, yet 53% of AI work is being checked by a human, and 15% of decisions made by AI or agentic AI are overridden by a human.
Though the Nordics and South Africa feel most confident in their checks (89%), they override over 20% of decisions most frequently (35% and 48%, respectively), compared to North America (32%) and the UK (29%).
Finally, the survey highlights that leaders are prioritising people-focused strategies to overcome barriers to AI adoption.
Non-users said the biggest areas for support are governance, skills development and improving their data strategies. Autonomous Leaders place significant emphasis on upskilling their workforces (71%) compared to the international average (53%) and Reactive firms (35%).
They are also moving faster to hire AI-savvy talent (57%) compared to the international average (38%) and Reactive firms (20%). The Nordics also appear to be further ahead in embracing agentic AI and is mandating the use of AI for all employees (49%) compared to the UK (25%) and North America (17%).
