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Can AI predict when I'll die? Let's find out with today's special guest, Scott Zimmerman.
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Now as expert in the world of life insurance, one of the first things we're always looking for ad to do is predict things. And we know that every time I'm making an insurance decision I'm trying to figure out what does it cost versus the odds this is going to happen. One thing that is inevitable is death. We're all going to die at some point, whether it's now or later. And I really want to get a baseline of like how has the life insurance industry changed.
Basically across your career? Is it that different now than it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago?
C
Yeah, I don't. It is. Thanks Jonathan. Life insurance I've been doing this is my 35th year of doing life insurance. When I got first got started it was. Everything was different back then. You'd see people, everything was done in person. Now very rarely do you see anybody that's on zoom and every once in a while you get to see somebody. But just as far as the underwriting process, the way it used to be used to be a paper application, go through the process, blood test first we'd have to do a blood test to get approved. Didn't matter what the size of the policy was. Getting retrieving medical records was a huge process. It was a very long process. Now with AI, the way things are happening, you can go online, do an application, get instant approval because they're running all. A lot of these companies are running your medical investment, all your medical records in the past they're running all what prescriptions you're on. And they can easily make an approval within literally minutes while you're on the phone with the person filling an application. And some of the other processes just get how they're getting things are out there on people. It's just so much easier with AI just to gather that information. So things are, things in a way have been really good because it's really fast, efficient for people. At the same time, AI is not perfect for that type of thing.
A
Yeah, you brought up something really interesting to me, which is I remember when I was younger and you would switch doctors, you'd have to go to the first doctor, get a copy of your records and bring it to the new doctor. And I've lived around the world a lot of different places, so I had to do this a few times or fax your records or what have you done here? And it was like really hard. And now it's like everything's much more organized. Everything's digital. So it's so instant. So for the person who's. I know in certain industries there's this risk that like, you could, if you're uncertain if you have depression or certain things, or you go to the doctor, you could lose your career. And so there's this trend, especially in like military and police and different public service areas where they're like, I go to the doctor and they say, I have this. I can lose my job. Which kind of makes the cycle worse. And that's a thing that needs to get solved as well. But I know for a long time people have always tried to like, stay one step ahead of life insurance. You get a diagnosis, you go, I better get the insurance before they figure it out. Now that loophole seems to have closed. I guess the next really bigger area I kind of wonder about is that exactly that is the accuracy of AI. Because one of the challenges is that you could put your thumb on the scale with the way you ask a question can affect how the AI answers it. Because AIs seek affirmation, not honesty. Like, it's never going to give you a hard truth. If you ask the same question in different ways, it's going to give you two different answers. So have you seen that it's been a net positive or a net negative in recent time?
C
Just as the. What I do with would help. I'm a. I have an agency here, but we. I still, I'm a producer. I help people with insurance. I feel it's a positive over the long, positive over negative. Just meaning.
How fast you can get somebody approved. That's if somebody's interested in life insurance use because they love somebody, they want to take care of somebody. There's usually a reason just giving people peace of mind of how quick it can be done. I would say total positive. The negative is it's fixable. The negative is when you're running these prescription who, who's these companies are running who what prescriptions are being taken. It doesn't really say the full picture. Meaning maybe someone had anxiety, totally making stuff up and the doctor prescribed it, but the person never took it. So it doesn't the that doesn't show anything. So that could be a negative effect on getting somebody approved because they're seeing these records that, that don't give the full picture. But overall as a positive, how fast things are done. It's been amazing. Amazing. You used to be like, as I was saying before you if somebody was buying $25,000 of life insurance, they'd have to do the full medical exam, everything. Now some people can get up to 2 million, a lot of companies up to $2 million, instant approval. Some companies are much higher. So just it's pretty amazing.
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Has AI become a part of the claims process as well? Like you always hear these stories and I certainly with every health insurance company I've ever worked with, it's always been a nightmare getting payouts. They go, oh actually this and this actually. So we constantly deal with that challenge. Nobody ever says, oh I had an amazing experience with my insurance company. It's always like a negative experience. Like it's positive at the beginning, negative at the end of the payout. And then how much is AI getting involved in? Like different parts of insurance? Like I'm more familiar with, let's say you have like renters insurance, which is like where people always, let's just say massage the numbers about how much stuff was in the house when something happened. Is AI getting involved in kind of that part of the process as well as going did you really have the entire collection of these DVDs and that DVDs and is it analyzing to look for inconsistencies and things?
C
There's not on a debt, not on a claim. The claims I'm dealing with are usually a death claim or long term care claim. And so when it comes down to it, it's like finite. Like somebody passed away. The rules are within with life insurance there's a two year contestability period. First two years. If someone passed away, they have the right to look and see if there's anything somebody was not sharing. So if there's any fraud or if somebody commits suicide in the first two years they just refund the premium. But other than that that a lot of claims and I haven't had any issues with AI who's got involved the claims part yet. I don't even think it's involved.
A
So is the main type of fraud either they hit a disease or they fake their own death. Are those the types of things that used to happen? It seems like that's harder now.
C
I haven't had any fake their own death stuff but yeah people if somebody were to pass away in the first two years and they and they checked off I don't have any heart issues and maybe something wasn't seen in the by doing running the mib the medical investigator bureau where they're looking at the medical record if somebody passed away and somebody had a heart attack in the first years the insurance company does have the right to investigate to make sure there's nothing hidden. So those are the type of things that would normally come. Someone hid that or they hid a cancer. They hid things of that nature. Those are things that they're looking for.
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So as long as you live for two years after you start a policy you're pretty much golden.
C
Let's just. Total fraud. Yeah, total us total. There's a two year contestability period but there's other things. There's other things they look for also. But that's the rules about this two year contestability period. Look, I haven't had anybody my business partner I have worked thousands of policies. We haven't had anything weird happen where they question like missing did somebody really die? They're missing maybe thousand thousand claims over our time maybe I'm not sure but nothing bad. And truth the matter is I've had some. We've had so a very few claims that were denied Those were with the first two years or so on that type of situation. They had heart disease. They hid that they had someone had a mental illness disease a total mental illness disease where the insurance company would never have given them life insurance. They ended up finding out through that they went through their own psychologist, psychiatrist. They didn't put it through insurance but they ended up finding it things that nature but we haven't had any things happen. We know it's out there. I would say this also Jonathan. You would see if there's claims not being paid there'd be in the news every single day because you almost never see things like that. But when you do hear the negatives on Health insurance with claims are being done that way when it comes to life insurance, things are really paid.
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So we see that there's a lot of different types of products get developed as markets shift. And now that we're seeing a shift towards more working from home and more remote working, more AI working more technological working. Like we used to have just life insurance and there's term life insurance. And are you seeing that there's more different types of products like now? We've definitely seen the thing where it's oh, you can get insurance from an app. And we've seen a lot of those companies that have shifted to really fast decision making and.
Rather than the kind of having a relationship with your insurance person where it's like someone you know when you go to a summer barbecue and like you always go back to the same person, now it's really shifted and become much more of an impersonal industry. I think that's seems to be the direction it's going in from my experience. So for like when people are making decisions, are you seeing there's new types of products getting developed or people are making using a different decision making process?
C
Totally. I will say most of our business is based on relationships. But we do see you can see it on social media, just ads being put out, a lot of ads on tv, just things of instant approval. Yeah. So they usually, I'm not saying this for 100% fact, usually what I see happening on those type of policies, somebody doesn't know an agent, somebody sees something like oh, I'm interested, they're buying something without a relationship. And usually those are just one trick point. I don't want to say, not in a negative way, but it's like one company where you go with a broker, they're able to shut the market based on someone's health or each situation. It's just one company sign up here and get instant approval. It's amazing because they're bringing the these ads and say is bringing insurance to people who probably haven't not thought about it or they don't have a relationship with somebody, they're able to see it and go oh my gosh, I'm interested. Sign up and apply and get approved.
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So I guess my question is does that change the product? Because usually if something's faster, there's a either costs you more in the long run. Is it because it changes their algorithm? Like when they do the blood test and they have those other elements, they have a little bit more of data. So they're I think the actuarial tables are more accurate. Are they still able to maintain that accuracy or does it mean you're going to. You do the instant approval company, you're going to end up paying a little bit more for that convenience.
C
A lot of those companies, if you were to shop the market, they are more expensive and you're not having a somebody to walk you through the right type of policy. People are maybe buying the wrong policies when they should be buying different policies. That would be the part where I think it. It's not maybe not helpful for people. It's helpful for get people insurance where they never thought about getting insurance or they make it super simple. I don't feel as a fiduciary guidance giving the right people the guidance. It's not fully there yet.
A
So I think one of the areas that's really murky is you see if you try to do research, then you're going to end up going through like a comparison website or someone who's reviewing programs, but they have a financial interest because they get an affiliate payment or some type of commission. So they're financially motivated to whoever pays them the largest commission. And maybe it's the same for any type of insurance broker. So for someone who wants to find the right information, because even AI is just trained on the information on the Internet and what's publicly available, like you're going to get murky answers. I think that's what's really challenging is that how can you tell if a company is handling claims directly or they're a reseller? Even like some of the banks I work with, like the bank is actually just part of another bank with a different name. And it just can get really confusing. And so sometimes you're buying insurance from a company, then they resell all their insurances is like part of a larger package to another company, to a secondary insurer. So what all of that murkiness, what's the right way or how can someone start to navigate.
The information that's out there to separate the and find the most accurate information.
C
We're talking AI using AI or just.
A
Or even not like whatever the method is.
C
It is an opinion, strictly an opinion. My opinion is dealing with a broker or somebody represents most, most of the companies out there. It gives somebody a fair chance of getting the right insurance. What's the right type of insurance to get? What, what, how much insurance should you have? Somebody's got health issues or certain companies that are best than other companies. Somebody's heavy. This company is usually the right one. A broker can usually do the work to find the right company, the right plan to fit each person's needs. Interesting jobs when you rod like I'm giving an example, I was running $1 million of term life insurance, which is an inexpensive type of policy to buy. It's like the least expensive type of policy to buy. You can go into a program and I can say, Jonathan age this spill almost every single company. And I'm looking at it going, I want to do the right thing for the right person. And there's different reasons why you use other companies. Conversion options, guarantees, strength of the company, etc. But.
I'm able to do that. So I think using a broker, you're able to find the right company for each purpose needs instead of just going to one company where you're just buying their own company. I see a lot of people doing that. That's one thing. Just having the experience of an advisor to help you, I think makes more sense. Unless it was just something really small, it wasn't a big deal.
A
Yeah, it's really hard to see a lot of these shifts where we always think that technology is the answer. So we've seen it happen in the travel industry. It used to be you'd go to a travel agent that would help you plan the trip and it was like everything was really organized. I could tell you now that traveling is a Nightmare compared to 20 years ago. Like it's so much worse. There's nobody out there who says, oh yeah, flying's way better now. Nobody says that. No one says traveling is better than you. It was like one website to book these types. And even when I book flights directly with an airline, they always mess up their own connecting flight. So I have to book two sets of separate flights because they can't. They'll charge you like double to make the flights connecting and all of this stuff. So it's always a hassle. When I travel, I always have to do two buffer days in each direction because of flight cancellations are so common. And I think that has it actually made things better. Yeah, I guess you're not paying the travel agent whatever their fee was, but I don't know. I wish those that industry would come back. And I wonder if it's the same for insurance because as you see commercials, then you think they're running a lot of commercials. They must be paying to run those commercials. There's something else going on. And that these shifts and it's. It is very complicated. Like we're in the middle of actually doing a cybersecurity Insurance policy, the main company I work for. And it's a whole thing. And it's. First, we asked our lawyers and lawyers, as you never want to give you a real answer. And I was like, you're talking hundreds of dollars a month, thousands of dollars a month, $10,000 a month. I couldn't really say. I was like, I feel like you could. You can't be that vague. And it's like you. It's very hard to either get really vague recommendations or you get, like, something that someone's personal experience. And the problem is that people always tell the story where they're the hero. No one ever said, I messed up, so that's why they canceled my policy. No one ever tells it that way. I can see there's a big value because there are so many vendors. Even with these new vendors in the market, there's always a downside. It's when you're in Las Vegas and they have a new version of blackjack where, oh, you could see the dealer's cards. It's like, whenever they've changed the rules, the one thing I know is that my odds have gone down, like, for whenever it's happening. And I don't understand it. Right. They're like, oh, this is a different version. Or you could do this and that. Oh, cool. They're never going to bring out a new version. That increases my odds as the player. Right. There's a reason they have really big buildings with lots of lights and air conditioning for a million people and no clock. Like, they can afford all that stuff. So it's all of these offers that kind of seem too good to be true. And it's like, I always say that we look at something and, oh, this is free. I'm like, it just seems like it's free. You're probably paying with your personal information or something else. If you're not paying, then they're selling your data. It seems to be the case. So when you're. I guess this is a big question is like, when you're analyzing, like, a policy, what are some of the big things you look for from a company or from. Or when a new company enters the market? What is something? You see an ad, it makes you go, something's not right here. Like your sniff test. What are some things you might see in an ad that makes you go, wait a minute.
C
Yeah, when I'm analyzing a company, I'm usually analyzing, they're big, they're safe, they're strong. Claims, how they pay, claims how they. How they are looking at most of the companies out there, most these are long stable, they've been out there for a long time. They're safe, they're strong, they're big. Otherwise again you'd see write ups nonstop with things being not working. But I do see with these new companies there's very few, there's some that have come and actually gone. We're using the AI just as far as how quick in the process of how they do things. I do feel they're actually I think it's a positive in a way just to again just to be able to help people how they price things. I don't want to say it's oh, it's more expensive but it seems like those quick companies are more expensive than the other companies are. Yeah, they really are. There's a new company that came out. There's so many AI companies coming out especially when it comes to financial, financial services. There's a company out there that just came out where they do 48. They ask 27 questions. They're looking for 48 points. Don't quite understand how they're doing it all AI showing how much somebody needs, what kind of policies they need, how much they should be saving for retirement. All these different all through AI and that's pretty amazing. And I've tested it multiple times and it's pretty odd. And so I do feel AI is going to make people or help people just say make, make really solid decisions. I think people are relying on AI right now. Just hey, I got a question for ChatGPT. They asked me questions. Oh, the answers are pretty good, right. You know, way more than I do. I'm just a, I'm a consumer myself but see I feel it's going to change the industry big time. But again some of the bigger, some people need real planning. AI may not be able to help them find the right companies just yet. I could see that happening in the future.
A
Yeah, I think that's an important thing to understand is that we're in this time of transition so there are a lot of these.
C
Cool.
A
Like everything with AI gets funding right now. Every venture capital fund will give you as soon as you add AI to your name. And I've definitely seen a lot of companies that just add AI to their stock ticker and it boosts their value even though they have no AI component. And it's the thing is do you have something that's actually unique or there's a unique value? We've seen some insurance companies that use some AI component and turned out was Working out good for them. And so we've seen that not in life insurance, but in health insurance and some other industries where. And I think it was in car insurance. We've seen all these, like, things where they go, oh, now we use AI. So one of the bigger examples is in. These companies aren't buying and selling houses online. And they go, they can offer in 20 minutes. And it's like all the companies that were doing that tanked. Like, it turned out was a terrible idea because there's a lot to a house. There's a reason you get a house inspected. There's a re. Like, there's so many things. Like, every time I move into a new house, there's always a surprise. Maybe it takes a month to find it, maybe it takes six months. So there's all. There's a lot more complexity. That speed isn't the only solution. There's other components to it. So I think you're onto something there. I just think that, like, sometimes we demand too fast of a shift from a market. We go, AI exists. AI should completely revolutionize the insurance market. AI should revolutionize this market. And it's not the answer to everything. Like, people often surprised to hear me say that. But, like, I only use AI for work. Like, I don't use it in my personal life. I don't have voice on any device I own. I don't talk to any machines most of the time. I don't have my phone with me. So I get phone calls all the time. Like, I don't even know where my phone is. I know it's in the house somewhere. I never turned the sound on. I actually turned the sound on today because one of my friends said he was going to come over to look at our roof because he wants to see about hiring the same roofing person. So I turned the sound on and I got a message later today and I was like, oh, my gosh, I left the sound on. That's so weird. I forgot that's what my phone sounds like. So, like, it is important to calibrate these things. And we are shifting towards this, like, disconnected society, which isn't always a good thing. It's like everyone lives in their house. It's almost like we live in all these tiny spaceships and we're separated from each other too much. And I think that this is a really interesting space where we're wondering, like, because everyone wants to basically get the right amount of life insurance. And I think one of the things I was thinking about is that we are Trying to factor in how long am I going to live? Do I really need to get it? Is it the right decision for me? How much should I get? And it's a very tricky thing. How much can I afford? What happens? And there's all these different insurances like I know now you can get insured for in case you get fired or you can get pet life insurance and all of these things that are big distractions from trying to figure it out. And one of the things I was thinking about is like with we've seen a bunch of fintech companies come and go, fintech banks come and go. And then the real question, it's not just how much can I get the best price, but it's will they actually pay out when the time comes or how long do they take? That's a really important factor that I think that we forget to look at because it's like you can have a really great policy at a really good price, but if they don't pay out until three years after your debt, like that's a really big problem. Like I have five kids, that's a huge problem. So that's what I find is important to factor in. Maybe if you have a good enough AI, it knows to factor all those other things. One of the things that's important for me is always tell the AI is there anything I forgot to ask? Like that's the critical component is factoring in with your math. And I think that's what's missing from.
Doing comparison research and just trying to look online. It's like unfortunately this other there's always a component that gets forgotten. Right? So you look at flights, there's whichever website is selling the flight for the cheapest price. But it's how often does this website have a customer complaint problem? How often does airline cancel their flights? There's like other factors that are really important. Like getting a great deal isn't so great if the flight gets canceled. Even worse if you get stranded in between two flights. So I think this has really been helpful and really been good for people that are thinking, oh you know what, maybe Scott can help me out. Where can they find you online? Where's the best place to find out more about the things you talk about and to find your company and all the things you're doing?
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Yeah, no, I appreciate Jonathan, it's been great. They can reach out to me anytime. Scott Zimmerman, any of my company's called Corps Strat. You can reach me@scottorpstrat.com my number is 818-481-9342 and I appreciate the opportunity to be on the show.
A
No, this was great. I know everyone's going to love it. Thank you for being on another amazing episode of the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.
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Podcast: Artificial Intelligence Podcast: ChatGPT, Claude, Midjourney and all other AI Tools
Host: Jonathan Green
Guest: Scott Zimmerman (Corps Strat; Life Insurance Expert)
Date: May 19, 2025
This episode dives into the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI) within the life insurance industry—and tackles the provocative question, “Can AI predict when I will die?” Host Jonathan Green sits down with industry veteran Scott Zimmerman to explore how AI impacts insurance underwriting, claims, fraud detection, and the evolution of insurance products. The conversation covers the speed, accuracy, and pitfalls of AI-powered processes, discusses the shift in customer-broker relationships, and considers how consumers can navigate an increasingly complex marketplace.
Past vs Present
Impact on Speed and Customer Experience
Overwhelming Choice & Affiliate Marketing:
Advice on Getting Accurate Information:
Market Gimmicks:
Memorable Analogy:
On AI-Driven Underwriting:
On AI Bias:
On The Two-Year Contestability Rule:
On Quick, Digital Insurance Product Risks:
On the Dehumanization of Service:
On the Allure of ‘AI’ Branding:
Analogy—Beware the New Game:
Guest Info:
Scott Zimmerman, Corps Strat
Contact: scott@corpstrat.com | (818) 481-9342
Host: Jonathan Green
Artificial Intelligence Podcast
artificialintelligencepod.com