Interview: People not technology are insurance’s real legacy platform, says Sapiens CRO James Hannay

Insurtech has evolved from experimental tech to a vital industry lifeline. As companies race to modernise legacy systems, AI is the defining catalyst – driving efficiency, speed, and better customer experiences. Yet, the industry still battles persistent hurdles in adoption, cultural shifts, and execution.

Sapiens chief revenue officer James Hannay signals a “widespread appetite for change”. He calls out the industry’s failure to move AI past boardroom talk into real deployment. He also charts Sapiens’ future: leveraging a new London headquarters to launch an AI-native platform fuelled by deep insurance expertise.

LI: Insurtech has evolved a lot in the last few years. Looking at the sector today, what do you find the most exciting and what concerns you?

James Hannay: The executives I have been talking to agree it’s time to act on AI, but beyond frequent mentions of the technology in their board decks, very little of it is showing up in their business.

CEOs owe themselves and their stakeholders more. And better. Whether it’s automating risk assessment and underwriting, speeding claims processing and fraud detection, or giving their customers greater transparency, technology is not the problem. The problem is people. People are the true legacy platform that needs to be transformed.

Leadership must convince their organisations to move quickly enough to keep up with the pace of change. The agentic AI platform we are developing will fundamentally transform how institutions work for the better.

LI: You’ve just relocated your global headquarters to London. What drove the decision and what does it unlock for you that you couldn’t do before?

James Hannay: Establishing a global HQ in London signals the company’s intent to become a major global player. Particularly in Life, Pensions and Reinsurance, London is the global centre of these sectors, so being based in London means we can embed our teams even more closely with our most important customers and help them shape their future IT strategies.

We are also opening our first AI Customer Experience Hub in London, which will give our customers access to the very latest developments in our Insurance Agentification Programme.     

LI: Which markets or product lines are currently at the top of your priority list in the growth pipeline?

James Hannay: The industry has spent decades digitising how work gets done. The next chapter is AI doing the work. We are building what companies need to compete in the next decade. In place of 24-month implementations that stall transformation, manual, repetitive work that drains skilled teams, and customisation that won’t scale, our goal is one AI-native platform, everything included, zero assembly, with five AI modules across P&C, Life, and Reinsurance.

The market stakes could not be higher. But we are here to do what we have always done: deliver.

LI: How do you see the AI push affecting Sapiens internally — especially around talent, skills, and team structure?

James Hannay: This is the most important question you’ve asked so far. AI adoption among teams is not a skills issue or an HR requirement; it is an existential must-have for the insurance industry to get to the next stage of development. Microsoft’s Satya Nadella recently distinguished between human capital (judgment, relationships, ingenuity) and token capital (the AI capability the firm owns and controls). But for me, the two are one and the same: human beings borrow token capital, and token capital depends on human beings.

In an industry as collaborative and data-reliant as insurance, it could never be otherwise. As AI moves from decision support to outcome orchestration, humans stay in the loop for complex judgment, strategy, and relationships. The underwriter’s expertise becomes the training signal.

LI: What are the key operational and business milestones you’re targeting in the next 12–24 months?

James Hannay: We are issuing a call-to-action. The future of insurance is being built now. Build it with us. Our message to companies is to start small, prove fast. Everything depends on tangible results, like Claims with 40% faster close, Underwriting with 3X the volume, Policy with 90% configuration accuracy. 

LI: You’re pushing hard into AI. Looking five years out, how do you see this changing the day-to-day operations for your clients?

James Hannay: The big shift will be away from horizontal technology platforms which claim to be a “one-size-fits-all” but can’t meet the needs of specific carriers. What we’ll see more of is micro-vertical platforms, which will focus on line-of-business and micro-vertical capabilities built specifically for distinct insurance domains to handle the complexities that horizontal platforms paper over.

AI will have a significant impact on day-to-day operations, but it will only deliver maximum value if it is built on the right level of domain intelligence, which helps AI understand the specific customer challenge it is dealing with.

LI: How is the recently secured ADIA investment accelerating your strategy, and where will the capital be deployed?

James Hannay: The investment has helped to accelerate the launch of our first AI Customer Experience Lab in London and will support the development of a second Lab in the US, in the course of the year.

It is also helping to attract experienced senior leaders to the business.