David King: Using AI for algorithmic underwriting

On this episode, Sabine VdL interviews David King, Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of fast-growing InsurTech startup, Artificial Labs or Artificial.io to discuss the company's strengths and how sport influences David's choices and business outlook. KEY TAKEAWAYS Artificial is focused on facilitating algorithmic underwriting in the insurance sector. That means the Artificial team works with brokers and underwriters to get the data into the right format so it can be shared between the two and, once it’s been shared, define the process, pipeline, and fundamentals to improve decision-making and customer experiences and interactions.   Insurance is an industry where data AND relationships are really important. We use technology (and algorithms) to help automate the decision-making process. The number of variables a human can take into account to make a decision is between 5 and 7. If you keep adding more to the decision-making process, then the accuracy of models and algorithms starts to decrease. If a business is supported by the right technology, one can make a decision that’s either automated or informed by a detailed, risk-based assessment. This enables human actors who would make key decisions to make the right commercial risk decisions, even if partly automated.  It’s not just about the ability to train a model to assess risks to improve your underwriting performance and make it efficient; it is also about the ability to operate within ecosystems. Part of our secret sauce is a domain-specific programming language that allows us to codify an underwriter’s appetite and leverage and integrate with any data source or service to make a decision.  More data will be available in the future. It is a fact. Are underwriters going to have to be more sophisticated in the way they make decisions? Definitely. Is the market going to become more efficient, and therefore, does the operational cost ratio need to be lower? Even more... Yes. I think underwriters will need to work closely with portfolio managers, people with more maths skills – I don’t necessarily think that means machine learning/ data scientist type skills will become closer to the underwriting decisions on a day-to-day basis, but I do think that you may have a multi-disciplinary team that understands where the data is coming from and what’s driving true decisions. BEST MOMENTS ‘I’ve always been quite competitive and love "sport." I like team sports probably because my own abilities are quite poor. If you’re a team player, you can leverage the abilities of other people, and I look to elite sport to understand what cultures drive performance and how people operate too.’ ‘Technology won’t take over and make all the decisions. Still, you’ll have strategies that are set by very data-informed people, and you can execute that across a broad spectrum of products, services, and classes.’ ‘The models are only as good as the data you provide to them, but the models don’t exist in isolation; they also exist in a business that needs to be operationally efficient.’ ‘You now need to operate while understanding that you’re not going to have all the components end-to-end, so you need to be able to play nicely with others. This will lead to greater efficiency, providing a better experience for customers. This also means you keep them longer and can then sell them more things.’ ABOUT THE GUEST David King has worked in digital media and technology since graduating from Nottingham University Business School with a degree in Industrial Economics in 2005. After a gap year as a troop commander in the British Army, King worked as a Digital Planner at Carat, where he worked with global brands such as Yahoo!, British Gas, and Santander. King moved on to become Director at Sure Insurance Services in 2009, where his knowledge of the digital space helped to bring innovative insurance products to market in the medical and health insurance sectors. It was here that his understanding of the insurance market grew, setting the stage for his later foray into space with Artificial Labs.  Following his time at Sure, King founded his own digital services company, Data Stripes, in 2011. The company delivered highly polished, data-intensive, digital applications for some of the world's biggest brands.  In 2013, the success of Data Stripes led King to merge with Johnny Bridges' company, ConceptMill, to create Artificial Labs. The company provided high-quality, data-led design to global clients such as BMW, Levi's, and Betfair.  In 2016, Artificial pivoted into the insurance space, building partnerships with firms such as AXIS and Ambris. King's existing industry experience, combined with Bridges' previous work in insurance companies, enabled the company to capitalize on a growing need for high-quality data and digital platforms within the insurance industry.  Since 2017, King has been steering the commercial ship at Artificial, helping to develop partnerships with global insurance brands such as Convex, Chaucer, Aon, and TMHCC. With years of experience in technological innovation now under its belt, the company is prospering as a provider of algorithmic underwriting technology to the London market and beyond. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet. If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights. And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]