DALLAS — American International Group Inc. is working to devise new insurance products and services that will advance the insurer in areas such as cyber risk and workers compensation, said Robert Schimek, president and CEO of AIG's property/casualty Americas region.

In a Wednesday presentation about insurance industry innovation during the Entrepreneurial Insurance Symposium being held in Dallas, Mr. Schimek said AIG has worked to establish an innovative culture that tries to anticipate future insurance needs and trends that will require new products and services.

The insurer has invested about $60 million per year on a “science team” that works to identify such developments across all of AIG's coverage areas, he said during the conference hosted by Dallas-based electronic insurance exchange MarketScout.

The team has helped AIG develop a suite of services and products connected with its cyber liability insurance, Mr. Schimek said. That includes AutoShun, a proprietary device provided to AIG's CyberEdge clients that blocks cyber attacks from Internet protocol addresses known to be threats.

AIG also has partnered with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore to identify behavioral trends in workers comp that can be identified early in a claim's life cycle before resulting in significant costs, Mr. Schimek said. The insurer's partnership with the university was inspired by AIG's desire to differentiate itself from other major workers comp insurers that underwrite the line “far better and far more strategically than us,” he said.

“We are seeking for ways to advance past the pack, not to catch up to the pack,” said Mr. Schimek, who declined to provide details of the Johns Hopkins partnership during a question-and-answer session.

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Insurers, brokers and insurance service providers should aim to position themselves as having “unique” products and services, rather than striving to be the “best” among their competitors, Mr. Schimek said. This includes investing in new products that may not be successful, but still can provide customer feedback and allow companies to develop better offerings down the road.

Such differentiation will be necessary for companies to cover and mitigate risks for customers — including software and aerospace firms — as the United States transforms into a “knowledge economy,” Mr. Schimek said.

“I'd say probably none of us is in a place where we're ready to be able to handle the changing needs and, quite frankly, the opportunities that will exist coming out of where the United States will be by 2050,” Mr. Schimek said of the overall insurance industry.