Denise Garth: The Frontier Insurer, One Year In

Denise Garth: The Frontier Insurer, One Year In

Denise Garth returns to Scouting for Growth one year after the Frontier Firm idea began to move from a strategic aspiration into insurer operating models, technology roadmaps, and boardroom priorities.

As Chief Strategy Officer at Majesco, Denise offers a sharper test for the Frontier Insurer: Is the organization simply using AI? Is it redesigning selected processes around AI? Or is it rebuilding the enterprise around intelligence, connecting its data, core platforms, people, partners, and decisions? Only the third represents genuine transformation.

The uncomfortable truth is that most carriers now have AI enthusiasm, pilots, and isolated productivity gains. Far fewer have the intelligent core, embedded governance, and human-agent operating model required to scale them. Majesco’s research captures the disconnect: 82% of insurance leaders believe AI will define the industry’s future, yet only 14% have integrated it into their operations.

Sabine and Denise explore what has changed over the past twelve months, why intelligent orchestration now matters more than another point solution, and how insurers can move from experimentation towards a genuinely redefined operating model.

The conversation is for insurance CEOs, COOs, CROs, CDOs, transformation leaders, and technology founders navigating the move from AI experimentation to an intelligent, governable operating model.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

One year on, I see the conversation around AI in insurance moving from “What is this technology?” to a much more consequential question: “What does this mean for the business?” The 82%-14% gap tells us that the challenge is no longer access to technology. It is leadership. Most insurers are experimenting, but experimentation alone will not create a Frontier Insurer. The real opportunity is to rethink the business around the outcomes we want to create for customers, employees, and shareholders.

I also believe we need to stop thinking about AI as something we bolt onto existing workflows. The Frontier Insurer embeds intelligence into its core, connects high-quality, accessible data with workflows and agents, and builds governance and auditability into its architecture. This changes what people actually do. Claims professionals can move from repetitive adjustment towards risk reduction and customer empathy; underwriters can become more focused on portfolio management and judgment; and employees can spend more time on knowledge-based work rather than manual processing.

The biggest shift, however, is towards orchestration. I am increasingly convinced that the winners will not be the insurers with the most AI pilots or the biggest AI budgets. They will be the organizations that can bring together intelligence, governance, and core systems into a coherent operating model, while building trust along the way. Becoming a Frontier Insurer means being bold enough to rethink organizational structures, jobs, processes, technology partnerships, and ultimately the economics of insurance. The question is no longer whether AI will change insurance. It is whether leaders are prepared to redesign their businesses around it.

BEST MOMENTS

“Every insurer in 2026 will tell you that they are doing AI. Ask your harder question. Who has rebuilt the business or operating model around it?” – Sabine VanderLinden [00:16]