Alexis Vertefeuille, Founder and CEO of Sinistar, was invited to share his perspective on "The Future of Claims: How AI, Data & Emerging Technology Are Transforming Insurance." The session took place at the 2026 Joint Claims Executives Association (JCEA) conference in Nashville, Tennessee. Bryan Falchuk, President & CEO of the Property & Liability Resource Bureau (PLRB), moderated the panel, which also featured Curtis Kincaid, Founder & CEO of Scopeworx.
The session was recorded live in front of senior claims leaders. It is now available as an episode of The Future of Insurance podcast, with a written summary and the full recording.
Alexis explained the model behind Sinistar. For every relocation, vetted local hosts bid to house displaced policyholders in furnished homes. When more hosts compete, supply grows and families are placed faster. According to Alexis, this competition has lowered temporary housing prices by about 15%.
Curtis described a similar logic for roof claims. Scopeworx tracks labour pricing from about 3,500 contractors and refreshes material prices every week. As a result, its estimates hold up even when a major catastrophe shakes the market.
The common thread was to price claims on today's real market rather than on past settlements, which can carry their own biases.
Both founders were candid about the limits of general-purpose AI. Curtis shared a test his team ran: the same prompt, given to the same chatbot five times, returned roof estimates up to 30% apart. No carrier could defend that.
Alexis warned claims leaders about "wrappers," tools that simply resell a general-purpose model under a new name. In his view, AI earns trust when it is trained for one specific decision. He compared it to autonomous vehicles, which coordinate many specialized agents rather than relying on a single all-purpose brain.
Bryan raised a provocative question: why does AI bias draw so much scrutiny when human bias rarely does?
For Alexis, the answer lies in independent testing. Insurers and policyholders need a way to confirm that an AI isn't quietly tilted toward profit or toward particular suppliers. Trust has to be demonstrated, not assumed.
Alexis's main advice to carriers was about data. He expects insurers to own or rent models trained on their own information. Each model would reflect the carrier's own priorities, whether that's price, quality or communication with policyholders.
To get there, he urged carriers to start now. They should organize, classify and name their data, and keep it in-house. As owning an AI becomes more affordable, the carriers with clean data will be the ones ready to benefit.
The panel also looked at how the adjuster's role is changing. In one example, an independent adjusting firm cut a 40-minute estimate-writing task to under five seconds. That raised output from roughly one file per hour to around seven.
Technology can also bring consistency, so that neighbours with similar losses don't get very different results from the same carrier. Still, the panel agreed that the settlement decision stays with the adjuster. Bryan also raised a longer-term concern. If AI takes over simpler claims, the industry will need new ways to train its next generation of experts.
These ideas are already at work in Sinistar's platform. The bidding marketplace brings competition to temporary housing. AI helps match each family with the right home. A human team supports adjusters and policyholders throughout the stay.
Sinistar began when Alexis helped a friend's mother who had spent months in a hotel after a house fire. That story still guides the company today. Technology is only worth adopting if it helps displaced families find a comfortable home faster.
The upshot? Thanks to JCEA and PLRB for the invitation, and to Bryan and Curtis for a frank, forward-looking conversation about the future of claims.
Sources
The Future of Insurance, "The Future of Insurance Podcast – AI & The Future of Claims," November 3, 2026: future-of-insurance.com
Thumbnail image: The Future of Insurance, "The Future of Insurance Podcast – AI & The Future of Claims," November 3, 2026: future-of-insurance.com