Insurers urged to use AI and planning portals to tackle home underinsurance problem

Many home insurance policyholders may be unaware that they are currently – or may soon be – underinsured and the insurance industry could be taking a more proactive, technology-led approach to solving the issue.

This is according to Jeff Wynne, director at loss adjuster TBRN, speaking on a panel titled The Trust Test – Fair Property Claims in a High-Pressure Market at this week’s Verisk Insurance Conference 2026.

Wynne explained that a vast number of UK properties are currently underinsured, a fact going unnoticed by the majority of policyholders. One cause, he said, was the volume of building work completed without insurer involvement.

“Hundreds of thousands of people around the UK apply for planning permission every year – to build extensions, to build outbuildings, to build man-caves at the bottom of the garden, whatever it may be,” he explained.

“How many of those people even give a momentary thought to how that affects their insurance and more specifically their sum insured? If you increase the footprint of your property, you might spent £100,000 adding extra space into your property and not many people realise they need to account for that when the time comes to renew.”

Technological solution

The solution, however, may go beyond education of policyholders. As Wynne explained, given the industry’s duty to provide proactive protection to its consumers, a technological approach could be used to catch issues before they occur.

He said: “The industry as a whole has some responsibility to take on that front as well, because how straightforward and how simple are autorenewals. We all go renewing policies without asking pertinent questions or making pertinent points.

“In today’s technology-driven world, surely we could have a system in place where in the run up to renewal, the insurer cross-references or does an AI check on if the property has had any planning permission applications?

“If it has, then that’s a great opportunity to say to the policyholder, ‘we understand you’ve got a planning permission approval and may be proceeding with some building work, do you know that you need to let us know when you’re about to undertake that work and consider your sum insured?’”

This, in theory, would move control back into insurers’ hands.

“It’s a very difficult thing to force people to want to learn about insurance,” Wynne concluded. “We as an industry can probably prompt them a little better”.