Today we are launching technology that lets UK insurers and brokers distribute protection products through conversational AI platforms, starting with ChatGPT and Claude.
With the integration, a consumer can ask questions about life cover, get a price based on the product's own rules, check whether they are eligible, have exclusions explained in plain English and book a callback with an adviser, all without leaving their AI conversation.
Why now
The launch follows the FCA's latest work on the pure protection market, which calls on firms to develop technology-led approaches that could help reduce the UK's protection gap.
"Consumers who do not want to buy protection over the phone are underserved by today's protection market because traditional distribution cannot profitably deliver a quick, easy purchase," said Alain Desmier, co-founder of Subcontext. "Conversational AI changes that because it opens new ways to distribute protection on the communication channels consumers prefer to use."
Your brand, inside the assistant
Insurers and distributors can deploy their own branded assistants within ChatGPT and Claude. The consumer is talking to the insurer or broker they chose, on a platform they already use every day.
Whole-of-market protection firms can also offer their product panels through our integration with IRESS' The Exchange, so a consumer can compare the market from inside the same conversation.
Governance built in
Distribution is only half of the problem. A conversation about cover, price and exclusions is a regulated conversation, and the record of it is evidence. We designed the technology to meet governance and audit requirements from the start, not as an afterthought.
That matters more than ever following the FCA's Mills Review, published in July, which examined the potential impact of AI on retail financial services and considered the role of AI agents acting on behalf of consumers.
"We've built the agentic insurance stack that sits on top of large language model (LLM) infrastructure to define and distribute protection products on ChatGPT and Claude with governance built in," said Mike Laming, co-founder and CTO of Subcontext. "The journey appears within an insurance business's own brand and also through messaging channels like WhatsApp."
Three routes to AI distribution
ChatGPT and Claude are one of three routes through which we support AI-based insurance distribution.
- AI assistants. Branded protection assistants inside ChatGPT and Claude, launching today.
- WebMCP. A proposed browser standard, currently in origin trial, that lets an insurer's website tell an AI agent about its products and quote process directly, rather than leaving the agent to interpret the website's content on its own.
- Governed agents on your own channels. Our agent service for the channels insurers and distributors control directly: web chat, WhatsApp, SMS, voice and email.
All three run from a single product definition. Eligibility, pricing and underwriting rules are held as configuration, so a product behaves the same way wherever the consumer meets it, and every AI-generated answer is kept in an audit trail.
Reaching the people the market misses
"The FCA has been clear that the protection gap starts with adults who never consider protection at all," said Alain. "Those adults are already asking AI assistants about mortgages, children and money. There are 31 million adults without pure protection in the UK and we are building the technology that lets our clients serve them in that AI conversation."
If you are an insurer, broker or distributor and want to put your protection products in front of consumers inside ChatGPT and Claude, we would love to talk.