Global Fintech Interview With Eric Rentsch, Chief Product Officer at Zywave

Eric Rentsch, Chief Product Officer at Zywave highlights more on why modern insurance players need AI agents to drive customer experiences in this fintech interview:

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Hi Eric, tell us about yourself and a little about Zywave’s latest fintech solutions.

I’m Chief Product Officer at Zywave, where I lead our corporate strategy, product development and approach to agentic AI. We serve carriers, brokers, and agencies, and the biggest thing we’ve done recently is launch our agentic AI suite. It’s a set of insurance-specialized AI agents that collapse what used to be dozens of manual processes – prospecting, research, outreach, quoting – into a single, continuous workflow. The goal isn’t just another AI feature; it’s a genuine performance multiplier for producers and their teams.

How is AI changing the face of modern insurance?

Insurance is under a lot of pressure right now. Carriers are dealing with rising losses and reinsurance costs. Brokers are facing an aging workforce and way too many disconnected, manual systems. AI – and agentic AI specifically – is starting to address those structural problems by connecting fragmented workflows into intelligent systems that run continuously in the background. Instead of a producer spending half their day on research and admin, AI handles the data enrichment, prospect identification, and personalized outreach – so they can focus on strategy and client relationships, which is where they actually add value.

For insurance innovators looking to drive better customer experiences and marketing impact: what tips would you share?

First, find the friction. Look at where your teams are losing time on repetitive, low-value steps and use technology to eliminate those – not just layer AI on top. AI is a deflationary force for nearly all workflows, so the hard part isn’t the technology anymore. Rather, it’s the rollout and change management. Figuring out how to shift work from manual processes and onto AI systems in a way that sticks is what we are seeing leading innovators pursue. That means scoping the right workflows, managing change, and being honest about where humans add unique value versus where they’re just bridging gaps between disconnected systems.

Second, unify your data. Insights are only useful if they come with context, and that means connecting across systems. Third, use AI to enhance personalization, but keep the human in the loop – as an orchestrator, not a bottleneck. When a producer walks into a conversation with instant insight into a prospect’s business, their coverage needs, and their risk profile – that conversation is fundamentally different. More relevant, more impactful.

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Can you highlight a few impactful ways in which insurance innovators can use agentic AI to drive growth?

The most immediate impact is in prospecting – finding the right targets faster and focusing on the opportunities most likely to convert. AI agents can automate research, build personalized outreach sequences, and continuously optimize based on what’s working. But the bigger opportunity is structural. We’re entering a phase where most work will evolve and transform. The firms that win won’t just adopt AI tools; they’ll be the ones that figure out how to form entire workflows off of manual human labor and onto intelligent systems. That’s a harder problem than buying software, but the upside is enormous. Looking further out, agents will connect directly to an agency’s book of business to surface coverage gaps, recommend additional protections, and eventually tap into real-time carrier APIs to accelerate quoting. The net effect is that teams can meaningfully increase their opportunity volume without adding unnecessary headcount or processes – which is how you drive organic growth sustainably.

What myths would you bust surrounding AI and the future of insurance?

The biggest misconception is that AI is going to replace brokers and advisors. It won’t. Insurance is a relationship-driven business, and the channel plays a critical role in both sales and underwriting.  – AI will replace manual, repetitive tasks, but not human capability. This industry is struggling with staggering labor gap, where employment has grown less than 2% for a decade, while premiums continue to consistently increase 7-8%. This means all human labor is being asked to do nearly double the work. At the same time, a significant portion of insurance workforce is preparing for retirement. AI is coming in at a critical moment to help fill the gap in workforce capacity.

The other myth is that generic AI tools are good enough. They’re not, at least not for insurance. You need models with access to proprietary data on exposures, understand coverage design, compliance, and risk. The most effective solutions are purpose-built for the industry and embedded directly into the workflows people already use.

Five parting thoughts you’d leave fintech/insurtech readers with before we wrap up. 

1. In insurance, productivity constraints have become growth constraints. If you can’t fix the efficiency problem, you can’t grow.
2. AI adoption should be about workflow transformation – not checking a feature box.
3. Vertical specialization matters. Generic AI doesn’t understand risk, regulation, or how insurance works.
4. The firms that combine automation with human expertise are going to outperform – it’s not one or the other.
5. Agentic AI is a shift from reactive systems to proactive growth engines. That’s an exciting opportunity for our market to realize!

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