Zurich Program IQ applies AI to global insurance contracts
December 22, 2025
Zurich Insurance Group has launched Zurich Program IQ, an AI-powered tool focused on contract certainty across multinational programs. The goal: find wording gaps early, align local policies with the master, and keep coverage consistent across borders.
As global programs grow more complex across jurisdictions, languages, and currencies, small wording differences can create real exposure. Program IQ gives Zurich's underwriting teams a faster way to review sublimits and flag mismatches before they affect coverage or operations.
What Zurich Program IQ does today
- Analyzes sublimits across master and local policies within multinational programs.
- Highlights discrepancies so underwriters can correct them early in the cycle.
- Processes policies in multiple languages to support local issuance and compliance.
- Focuses initially on property natural catastrophe coverage; more lines are planned.
- Built and used in-house by Zurich's underwriting experts, not as a customer-facing tool (at launch).
Why this matters for insurers, brokers, and risk managers
- Fewer coverage gaps: Early detection of misaligned sublimits or endorsements reduces surprises at claim time.
- Faster issuance and renewals: Structured review shortens back-and-forth on wording and approvals.
- Consistency across jurisdictions: Multi-language checks help keep local policies aligned with the master's intent.
- Better auditability: Clear flags and rationale create a defensible trail for governance and regulators.
Operational considerations for carriers and large brokers
- Data and document quality: Results depend on access to clean, complete policy documents and clear sublimit taxonomies.
- Model oversight: Ongoing validation, bias checks, and exception handling remain essential.
- Explainability: Underwriters need transparent reasons for flags to adjudicate quickly.
- Change control: Master wording updates should propagate reliably to local templates and rules.
- Privacy and regulatory: Cross-border data handling and retention require strict controls.
Zurich's multinational network spans more than 200 countries and territories, supporting over 7,500 customers through approximately 8,500 programs worldwide. Program IQ fits that footprint, giving teams a scalable way to review thousands of pages of wording without losing nuance.
Sierra Signorelli, CEO Commercial Insurance at Zurich Insurance Group, said, "Multinational insurance programs can be extremely complex, and our customers trust we deliver clarity and consistency across all their markets. Zurich Program IQ is a major step forward allowing us to review thousands of pages of policy wording across the globe to give customers even greater confidence in the coherence of their global insurance programs."
How to put this to work in your program cycle
- At placement: Align sublimit structures and terms before local issuance; agree on exception thresholds and approval paths.
- At renewal: Run prior-year binders and endorsements through tooling to spot drift and carry learnings forward.
- Midterm changes: Re-check material endorsements and M&A-driven territory shifts to avoid silent erosion of coverage.
- Claims preparedness: Use outputs to confirm intended recoveries by territory and reduce disputes.
Questions to ask your carrier or network partners
- Which lines and territories are currently supported, and what's the rollout plan for additional classes?
- How are language models validated for local legal nuance and regulatory requirements?
- What is the SLA for resolving flagged discrepancies during bind and renewal?
- How are rule updates versioned, and how do we access the audit trail?
- Can brokers and risk managers see flagged items or summaries, and in what format?
What this signals for the market
Policy wording at global scale is moving from manual checks to assisted review. Expect faster cycle times, fewer inconsistencies, and clearer documentation of decisions-provided organizations invest in governance, data standards, and training for underwriters and wording specialists.
For reference, see Zurich's global commercial overview for multinational programs: Zurich Multinational Insurance.
Next steps for insurance teams
- Map sublimit taxonomies by line and region; standardize naming and hierarchy across policy packs.
- Define KPIs: discrepancy rate, time-to-resolution, and percentage of programs issued with zero critical flags.
- Pilot a small set of high-value programs to prove time savings and quality improvements.
- Upskill underwriting and wording teams on AI-assisted review and exception handling. If you're building internal capability, explore role-based options here: AI courses by job.
Bottom line: Program IQ tightens contract certainty across multinational programs by catching misalignments earlier. As Zurich extends this to more lines, expect broader coverage of wordings and a smoother path from master to local policy.
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