Can AI Close India’s Insurance Protection Gap Without Losing the Human Element?

AIQ TALKS: Manu Lavanya, Chief Operating Officer, Axis Max Life Insurance

India’s insurance industry has changed rapidly, moving from traditional distribution to digital sales, automated underwriting, data-driven risk assessment and AI-enabled servicing. Yet one challenge remains: how do you scale insurance without losing the trust on which the industry depends?

In this episode of TOI AIQ Talks, Manu Lavanya, Chief Operating Officer, Axis Max Life Insurance, and Mayank, Founder & CEO, ADROSONIC, examine how technology is changing insurance across underwriting, claims, fraud prevention, customer servicing and distribution.

The conversation moves beyond AI as a technology layer. Manu shares how digital onboarding, straight-through processing, predictive analytics, voice intelligence and fraud detection are already changing insurance operations. AI and technology have also helped insurers improve speed and accuracy, while strengthening controls around impersonation, medical and financial-document fraud.

But adoption has limits. Insurance is heavily regulated, data-intensive, and built around long-term financial commitments. Human judgement, governance, and accountability remain central, particularly in complex underwriting and claims. The discussion also addresses a practical barrier to AI adoption: many organisations are still dealing with legacy technology and data structures that were never designed for AI.

For India, the bigger opportunity is reach. With insurance penetration still low, AI could help make products more understandable, vernacular, and affordable, while digital distribution and data infrastructure can extend access beyond traditional channels.

This is closely aligned with ADROSONIC’s work across the insurance value chain, from legacy modernisation and underwriting support to claims optimization, data engineering and AI-driven automation. The company’s insurance practice focuses on applying technology where it can improve operational efficiency while maintaining compliance, governance, and customer trust.

The central question from the conversation is simple: Can AI make insurance faster and more accessible while making humans more accountable for the promise behind it?

About AIQ Talks

AIQ Talks, The Times of India’s thought leadership series, brings together business and industry leaders to examine the impact of AI across sectors. As the AI Knowledge Partner, ADROSONIC contributes to the series through conversations led by Mayank, Founder & CEO.