Paul Murray, CEO Life & Health Reinsurance at Swiss Re, highlighted that mental health claims have increased significantly this year, noting that the reinsurer is managing the trend through its AI-powered Wysa app, which has already shown measurable improvements in users’ mental health.
“There are a few issues here,” explained Murray. “One is that the taboos around talking about mental health have fallen, and that’s a very good thing for society, but it means for insurance policies that support mental health, the cost is also going up.
“So, part of our role is to pay the claims, but also to look at how we can manage the cost as well? And we’ve done this really interesting thing with AI. We’ve partnered with a company called Wysa to create an app that people can have a conversation with to deal with some of the mental health challenges that they have.”
In partnership with Wysa, Swiss Re developed Wysa Assure, the first insurance-specific mental wellbeing app. It is an AI-driven platform designed to provide accessible, confidential support to help prevent and reduce the effects of negative mental health episodes through early intervention, ultimately improving overall mental wellbeing.
Murray highlighted the app’s success, noting that Swiss Re has observed a 30% reduction in depression rates among people who engage with Wysa Assure. This demonstrates that the AI-powered app plays a crucial role in cutting claims costs.
He said, “It’s an app, so you can communicate with the app, and AI enables the app to direct the questions based on what the inputs are from the person that’s communicating.
“It really works. We are only in the early years of rolling this out, but we’ve seen a 30% drop in depression rates from people that engage with our Wysa app, which is really remarkable. That’s equivalent to maybe the impact of five or six therapy sessions. And it’s economically very effective. So it’s really, really powerful.”
He continued, “But, we also need to look at the product design that pays out in the case of mental health claims. If you look at Australia, for example, we’ve seen mental health claims for people in their 30s increasing 700% in 10 years. And you have to sometimes ask the question of what’s actually happening underneath the surface there, and we’re doing a lot of research to understand that and to try and design products that can still pay out in the future while managing the cost.”
Murray concluded that AI offers great promise for enabling productivity, stating that if people are unable to work due to mental health challenges and Swiss Re can help them return to work, that’s a positive outcome.
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