From AI Discovery to Insurance Purchase: Insights From the Stripe Panel at ITC Vegas.
A conversation with Stripe, MetLife and Fletch on how AI is changing insurance shopping, customer journeys and the path to purchase.
Agentic Commerce and the Future of Insurance Distribution
A customer purchasing insurance may no longer begin by visiting several websites. Increasingly, the journey can start via an AI agent, where the customer asks questions, considers options and executes a purchase.
This shift presents insurers with a new set of questions. How can a carrier become part of the recommendation? What needs to happen between a conversation and a completed purchase? And how can the experience remain connected when a customer moves between AI, a website and a human agent?
These were among the themes explored in a panel discussion featuring:
- Fergal Madigan, Global Financial Services GTM Lead at Stripe
- Meredith Rippey Director, Performance Marketing at MetLife
- Sri Oddiraju, CEO of Fletch Technologies
Their conversation considered customer behavior, payments, technology infrastructure and partnerships as the industry prepares for changing ways to distribute insurance.
and the future of insurance distribution at ITC Vegas.
From driving traffic to becoming a recommendation
As customers focus more of their research within AI experiences, insurers are considering how their acquisition strategies may need to evolve.
One perspective shared during the panel was that while visitor traffic and volume were not seeing a large year-over-year increase, conversion rates had reached an all-time high. This was viewed as a sign that visitors arriving from AI experiences were decisive and ready to follow through with their purchase.
“We are seeing our conversion rate at an all-time high. This is signaling to us that the users that are coming from AI experiences are really decisive and they’re ready to buy and follow through with their decision.”
Meredith RippeyMetLife
The discussion also considered how insurers can become a trusted recommendation, and how marketing materials and performance measurements may need to adapt.
“This is changing our strategy from ‘How do we generate the most volume to our website?’ to ‘How do we become that recommendation?’”
Meredith RippeyMetLife
Connecting the conversation to the purchase
An intuitive AI conversation is only one part of the insurance journey. When customers move from that conversation to a carrier’s quoting experience, the journey can become disjointed. Fletch advocated for a cohesive journey.
“ChatGPT knows you better than maybe your best friend. Muse knows everything about your life. Meanwhile, when you get a carrier quote, you end up on a disjointed journey.”
Srimukh OddirajuFletch Technologies
The panel discussed connecting the handoff from chat through to purchase. Payments are part of that experience, alongside the insurance sector’s role in placing risk and binding policies.
“But ultimately, payments infrastructure is a fundamental enabler to getting this right. Because if you can't accept payments in this world, you can't bind policies.”
Fergal MadiganStripe
A connected journey also needs to account for different customer preferences. Someone may begin in an AI experience, continue on a website or choose to speak with an agent. Carrying context across these interactions can help make the experience feel more cohesive.
What it takes to support an agentic transaction
Making an agentic transaction work requires coordination across a carrier’s organization. Legal and compliance teams need to be aligned on how the carrier appears in a new experience, while technology teams support the capabilities needed to operate it.
Reliable payments, marketing and partnerships are also part of the process. The panel discussed embedding quoting experiences within the customer’s purchase path so that insurers can meet customers where they are.
The underlying technology matters as well. The discussion highlighted making APIs machine-readable, providing strong documentation and enabling AI agents to interact with them in a compliant way. These foundations can help carriers prepare for changing platforms and customer entry points.
The journey continues after purchase
The conversation extended beyond customer acquisition and the initial transaction. An optimized experience also depends on analytics and actionable insights that help identify gaps and improve the process.
Once a shopper becomes a customer, the relationship continues through experiences such as onboarding and claims. The panel discussed how these interactions can help customers receive the value they came for.
A personal example shared during the conversation illustrated another possibility: using an AI assistant to address a bicycle-policy billing issue. According to the account, the assistant identified two active policy numbers, canceled the old policy and paid a billing gap on the second.
The example raised a broader challenge for carriers: how to make a helpful experience like this consistent, rather than an unexpected novelty.
“The big challenge question to carriers becomes: how do you facilitate that kind of experience every time, rather than it being a novelty, magical experience that was unexpected?”
Fergal MadiganStripe
Preparing for an evolving ecosystem
New platforms and experiences continue to change how customers may reach insurers. The panel discussed the difficulty of planning for these changes while building enough flexibility to respond to what is not yet known.
Partnerships were presented as a way to learn from market feedback and approaches used across industries. As carriers consider how to build and adapt their capabilities, the discussion emphasized the value of a strong foundation.
“With you two [Stripe and Fletch] as our partner, you help us understand how other industries are thinking about it and how it can be applied to us so that it’s not as much trial and error for us.”
Meredith RippeyMetLife
Looking ahead
The panel offered different perspectives on what the future could hold. One prediction focused on the potential share of transactions through agentic channels for simpler insurance lines. Another perspective centered on understanding how the value of existing marketing channels and customer touchpoints might change.
Together, these views highlighted an industry preparing for a shift whose pace and eventual shape remain uncertain. The discussion centered on how insurers can connect customer experiences, invest in their foundations and work with partners as new paths to purchase emerge.
Explore the full whitepaper
Learn more about how insurers can prepare for changing customer journeys in How Insurers Can Prepare for AI-Assisted Buying, a whitepaper co-authored by Stripe and Fletch.
