Zywave launches Apex AI platform for insurance sales

Zywave has launched Zywave Apex, an artificial intelligence platform for insurance distribution aimed at front-office growth.

The platform combines three elements: an insurance-focused Model Context Protocol server, a new Advisor Agent and the existing Producer Agent. It is designed for carriers, managing general agents, brokers and insurance agents using artificial intelligence systems such as Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot.

The launch comes as insurers and intermediaries look for ways to apply artificial intelligence to sales, quoting, renewals and client service rather than limiting automation to finance and administration. Zywave argues that producers still spend more than 60 per cent of their time on back-office work, even as agencies face pressure to hire and retain experienced staff.

Martin Simoncic, Chief Executive Officer of Zywave, said the industry had spent years directing technology investment away from revenue-generating teams.

"For years the industry has poured investment into the back office, but a balanced general ledger has never won a client, placed a policy or grown a book of business," Simoncic said.

"Zywave Apex is built to deliver real results, right now. We are embedding our intelligence - more than 1,000 carrier connections, proprietary data and workflows - directly inside the AI tools that are increasingly being adopted by forward-thinking brokers and agents. This helps our clients unlock true systems of action for the front office that grow their business," he said.

How it works

Zywave describes its MCP server as the platform's underlying connectivity layer. MCP has emerged as a way for artificial intelligence systems to connect with external tools and data sources, and Zywave says its server is the first version built specifically for insurance distribution.

The server gives users access to prospect research, expert content, account management tasks and marketing workflows inside general-purpose AI assistants. A producer, for example, could ask an AI assistant to identify target prospects, prepare a research brief or generate personalised outreach, with Apex carrying out the task.

The platform also draws on Zywave's regulatory content and insurance data to improve the accuracy of compliance and coverage analysis. In insurance, where client-facing recommendations and policy details can create errors and omissions risks, accuracy is a central issue for firms testing generative AI in customer work.

Renewals focus

The new Advisor Agent is aimed at agencies seeking to retain and expand existing business. It reviews books of policies, scores upcoming renewals by opportunity and produces a prioritised action queue 90 days before each renewal date.

It also uses market trend analysis from Zywave TurboRater, the company's comparative insurance rating product, to run predictive quotes automatically. The aim is to help account teams prepare for renewal discussions earlier and identify opportunities to increase cover or retain clients who may be at risk of leaving.

Producer Agent, already on the market, focuses on new business development. It conducts primary research on prospects, drafts outreach messages and sends them through Microsoft Office 365 integration from the producer's own account.

Across early-adopter customers, Producer Agent has been used in more than 20,000 sequences. Zywave reported email open rates 1.7 times the industry average and click-through rates 20 times industry averages.

Chris Whitney, Partner at Sterling Benefits, said the tool had reduced administrative work for producers.

"Do you want producers writing cold emails, or out building relationships?" Whitney said.

"With the Zywave Apex Producer Agent, we're seeing producers save 10 hours a week in administrative tasks and putting that time where it counts - growing our business," he said.

Industry pressure

Zywave is positioning the launch against a backdrop of labour constraints and changing technology adoption across the insurance market. More than 400,000 new positions will open in the sector over the next 15 years, the company said, increasing pressure on agencies to use software to support less experienced teams and free senior producers to focus on client relationships.

Insurance has been a more cautious adopter of generative AI than some other sectors because of its regulatory obligations, fragmented data and the risks attached to inaccurate advice. Vendors have increasingly tried to address those concerns by building sector-specific tools rather than relying solely on general large language models.

Zywave says it supports insurance distribution through more than 1,000 live carrier application programming interface connections, along with syndicated data, regulatory information and product content. With Apex, it is trying to turn that network and content base into an intelligence layer that can sit inside the AI tools used by insurance staff.

The platform is available immediately. Zywave says its customer and partner ecosystem spans 15,000 organisations worldwide.