Markel says its AI agent reviews M&A data rooms in under 10 minutes

Markel Insurance uses an AI agent to review M&A data rooms in under 10 minutes, cutting a process that took most of a week, chief executive Simon Wilson told Bain & Company.

In the interview published on 14 October, Wilson said the warranty and indemnity business grew more than 75% on a top-line basis over the past 12 months. Its loss pick fell by 5 percentage points over that period, he said.

Wilson said Markel's W&I underwriters, a group of buy-side lawyers, previously spent about a week examining a data room containing thousands of documents. They gave perhaps one document in 10 a fair read, produced about four quotes a month and won roughly one in four.

The AI agent now reads every document and relevant information outside the data room, then produces a report on whether Markel should underwrite the risk, Wilson said. The process takes under 10 minutes.

The change has allowed the business to pursue smaller transactions. Wilson said a 5 percentage point reduction in the loss pick would save $5m on $100m written. Markel added three people to a team of 10 during the year.

Wilson also discussed Cortex by Markel, an AI-enabled business unit built with Bain for hard-to-place US casualty risks. He cited hotels and restaurants in higher-crime areas as examples and estimated the opportunity at $10bn.

The previous process took one to two days, while market leaders responded within four hours, Wilson said. Cortex can prepare a quote in 5 to 10 minutes and return it to the broker in less than half an hour.

In its first four weeks, the unit quoted risks representing more than $1m a week in gross premium. Wilson said Markel writes about $10bn in premium and is almost 100 years old.

The W&I account gives underwriters a specific comparison between the old and new processes. Markel says the agent reads the full data room, turnaround has fallen from most of a week to minutes, the business can consider smaller deals and its loss pick has improved.

The results were reported by Wilson in an interview conducted by Bain partner Kyle Kinsell. Bain is also Markel's commercial partner on Cortex.

Related coverage: Insurify opens its marketplace to personal AI agents with an MCP gateway and Opterrix launches AI tool for portfolio exposure and accumulation.

Sources

• Bain & Company: Scaling AI in specialty insurance, a conversation with Markel's Simon Wilson
• Bain & Company on LinkedIn: Cortex by Markel

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