Uinsure cuts planning cycle to six weeks after launching AI lab

Uinsure has cut its planning cycle from 90 days to six weeks after launching an AI lab, as the home insurance distributor also challenges comparison sites with more frequent cover checks.

"We used to set quarterly 90-day objectives and key results. We have now moved from 90 days to six weeks," Martin Schultheiss, Uinsure's group managing director, told Insurance Times in an interview published on 16 October.

Schultheiss said the faster cycle had changed how Uinsure measures the business. The company launched its AI lab earlier in 2026 and is training all staff to use the technology.

Schultheiss said the lab had delivered a "significant productivity gain", while rejecting the assumption that AI would remove every job.

"We've seen a significant productivity gain and what we've learnt is that [while] the underlying assumption people still have is [AI] is going to take everyone's job, that's not what our experience has been," he said.

He said the tools allow subject matter experts to work significantly faster. Uinsure has also recast its internal description of its culture from "suits and trainers" to "suits, trainers and cool tools".

Schultheiss did, however, identify a risk for staff who do not adopt the tools. "There will be a group of people that won't move across to AI and that's where, potentially, the job losses might happen," he said.

Uinsure is also launching a home insurance monitoring service, which it claims is a UK first. The service compares a customer's policy with live quotes from a panel of seven UK insurers several times a year, rather than only at renewal.

It alerts customers when similar cover is available for less, or better cover for a similar price. Quotes are matched to existing cover, including add-ons and specified items.

"They are not guessing what the customer might be on, they know what the customer is on," Schultheiss said.

Schultheiss called price comparison websites the "dominant force" in the UK market. He said it would be naive to expect consumer behaviour to change overnight, but noted that those sites require customers to answer about 60 questions.

Uinsure's assessment of its productivity gain is its own. Insurance Times also cited a September report from Mea Platform in which 61% of respondents using AI in operations reported productivity improvements and 51% reported faster cycle times.

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

• Insurance Times: Martin Schultheiss: Uinsure redefines culture as AI produces significant productivity gain

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