Allianz exec leads on tech for global trade coverage

March 2, 2025 2:33 PM

Allianz Trade's Baltimore headquarters is in the Legg Mason building, 100 International Drive.

Artur Wisniewski, appointed COO of the Americas region for Allianz Trade in January, comes to the Baltimore-based role from leading the Allianz Trade Global Competence Center in Bucharest. He joined Allianz in 2018 after it acquired insurer Euler Hermes, having served in leadership roles there since 2007. The Allianz Trade unit provides trade credit insurance for corporate business transactions. Digital Insurance spoke with Wisniewski about technology innovation in the insurance industry, the impact of AI and what to expect in the future.

This article is from a longer interview and edited for clarity.

What challenges does the insurance industry have for using technology to innovate and become more efficient?

Artur Wisniewski of Allianz — Artur Wisniewski, COO, Americas region, Allianz.

Digital transformation is changing everything. Trade credit insurance is not immune to it. We are one of the oldest on the market. Our company in the U.S. is more than 30 years old. We have our schematics for how to do things, but especially over the last 15-20 years, there's been a lot of changes, including automation, big data and artificial intelligence. For example, with current experiments with artificial intelligence in claims fraud prevention, the first results are very promising. We are definitely open to what can bring our customers added value, such as more accurate answers on claims, to assess the claims more accurately and faster in benefit to our customers.

How is Allianz doing with digital transformation?

We are currently undergoing the complete change in our systems technologies we use. The U.S. is already partially on our new platform. This was done not only to convert our own systems to newer technologies, but also for all the novelties on the market. We use similar technology to analyze the market trends and be faster with warning our customers that something is going in the wrong direction on the market. We are systematically enhancing our financial systems to more accurately invoice our customers and explain why they got the invoice. Over the last three, four years, it's completely changed in the way we do business with our customers and how we approach technology.

What is the new platform doing that Allianz Trade couldn't do before?

It allows us to connect with our smaller projects. With two APIs, we can pin artificial intelligence set engines much faster. We can test and enhance our automation of claims assessment and claims assessment and credit monitoring. On the commercial side, it allows us to interact faster with our customers, with our more accurate database.

What's the difference between today and then in efficiency? Since 2020, when we started the journey for the Americas [Allianz Trade serves the U.S., Canada and Brazil], we are probably 70 to 80% more efficient. Of course, this is only what we can get from our commercial teams on the market, especially over the last two years. The feedback from the market is that we are a little bit ahead with all those technological changes.

How is AI transforming insurers’ operations, and how will Allianz and others apply it?

The areas where we are focusing artificial intelligence are claims and collection. We also use AI tools to predict collectability of outstanding amounts after 13 to 14 months. Tests of collection performance rates in the Americas increased from an average 12% to close to 20%. Technology really helps us to focus on the areas where we think [we need] the human intervention, which is extremely important. We have extremely experienced teams behind it and ultimately they make the final decision, but at least the technology allows them to focus on areas where they should spend time.

What will technology look like in the firm in three to five years?

Automation of our decisions and claim assessment will increase from the average of 40-50% we have today, to 80-90%, and our people will really focus on very unusual situations. It's the same in credit, where we are proud of our expertise and market knowledge. We are sector experts in many areas, and our people today cover hundreds of billions of trade in the United States. Technology will allow those people to focus where their undisputed expertise is necessary, not just to do daily chores.