PHILADELPHIA – The insurance industry is poised to benefit from the use of artificial intelligence, but adopters of the technology must stay vigilant against misuse and keep up to date on regulatory developments, experts said during a roundtable discussion on Thursday.

“Every industry’s being changed,” Bill Taylor, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Compensation Rating Bureau and the Delaware Compensation Rating Bureau, said in Philadelphia. “It’s going to impact work comp. It’s going to help with risk management.”

Mr. Taylor, speaking during the joint rating bureaus’ inaugural Workers Compensation Symposium, led a panel of industry experts who offered predictions and insight on how the workers comp sector is evolving through the use of AI.

“If anything, it makes our jobs more efficient,” said Ramona Tanabe, president and CEO of the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Workers Compensation Research Institute.

Still, the industry is cautioned against the “overreliance” on AI, since it’s “not a substitute,” but an additional tool that can be leveraged by insurance professionals, Ms. Tanabe said.

“The efficacy of AI wholly relies on your ability to support it with good data,” said Russell Sommers, a New York-based partner with consulting and accounting firm Baker Tilly who has expertise in insurance risk and compliance.

The insurance industry must stay vigilant with AI, since the platform, if used wrongly, can negatively affect claims management, Mr. Sommers said.

Human error can likely lead to problems with around 30 to 40 claims per day, while errors made with AI can potentially affect “thousands” of claims per day, he said.

Workers comp has seen positive advances with AI, with its use benefiting fraud detection, underwriting and pricing models and claims management, said Dave Bellusci, a Brentwood, California-based principal with Bellusci Workers’ Comp Consulting, and former executive vice president and chief actuary with the California Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau.

Rating bureaus can also be “very well positioned” to take advantage of AI, Mr. Bellusci said.