Blogs · July 2026
AI agent or an outsourced contact centre: which is right for an insurer?
Three ways to cover the calls you cannot answer. An honest look at where each one wins, including where the AI agent is the wrong answer.
The short answer: an outsourced contact centre buys you people, and people are the right answer for judgement, negotiation and distress. An AI agent buys you coverage, and coverage is the right answer for volume, repetition and the hours nobody staffs. Most insurers need both. The mistake is using outsourced people to do work that is purely repetitive, and paying a premium per call for it, or using an AI agent for the cases that need a human and hoping nobody notices.
The three real options
Keep it in house. Your handlers know the book and own the outcome. The limit is arithmetic: they cannot be there at 3am, and they cannot all pick up at once when a storm lands.
Outsource to a contact centre. You get real people and elastic capacity. What you usually also get is a team a step removed from your policy wordings, working to a script, taking a message and passing it back. Cost scales with volume, and it scales fastest exactly when you are already having a bad month.
Use an AI agent. Answers contacts on every channel, at any hour, from your own documented process, and it is not priced per call, so a storm does not send the bill up with the volume. But it must never be the thing that decides a claim or handles somebody in crisis.
How do they compare?
| In house | Outsourced contact centre | AI agent (Atlantas.Ai) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answers at 3am | No | Sometimes, at a price | Yes |
| Handles a surge without a queue | No | Slowly, and it costs | Yes |
| Knows your actual policy wordings | Yes | Rarely, works to a script | Yes, grounded in your documents |
| Takes a full FNOL, not a message | Yes | Sometimes | Yes |
| Judges a contested claim | Yes | No | No, and it should not |
| Handles a distressed or vulnerable customer | Yes | Sometimes | No, it escalates to your people |
| Same answer on phone, email and chat | Depends | No | Yes, one knowledge base |
| Cost when volume doubles | Cannot flex | Rises with the volume | Does not price per call |
| Every conversation reviewable | Partly | Depends on contract | Yes |
When is an outsourced contact centre still the better call?
It genuinely is, in three cases, and any supplier who tells you otherwise is selling.
- You need judgement, not answers. Complex commercial claims, negotiation, anything contested. That is a human job and it should stay one.
- The work is emotional. Bereavement, serious injury, a fire, a customer who cannot cope with the process. You want a trained person, and you want them quickly.
- You need hands as well as a voice. Some outsourcers do the physical follow-through: arranging the emergency plumber, booking the hire car. That is service delivery, not a conversation.
An AI agent does not replace any of that. It stops those people spending their shift on "where is my claim" and "what does my excess mean", which is a large part of the volume.
Where does the AI agent clearly win?
Volume, repetition, hours and consistency.
The regulator's findings point straight at this. Reviewing home and travel claims handling, the FCA found "claims service and delivery" was the main root cause of complaints, and named the failures: expectations on timescales managed poorly, customers not kept updated on their claim's progress. That is not work that needs judgement. It is work that needs doing consistently, for every open claim. It is the work people run out of time for.
The stakes are countable. The Financial Ombudsman Service took 45,606 new insurance complaints in 2024/25 and upheld 38%. Consumer Intelligence found 13% of home and 8% of motor policyholders moved after a negative claims experience. Both of those are fed by service, not by underwriting.
So which should you choose?
Do not choose. Split the work by what it actually needs.
- Repetitive, documented, high volume, out of hours goes to the AI agent. FNOL intake, coverage questions, claim status, document chasing, renewals, the out-of-hours window.
- Judgement, negotiation, distress, dispute goes to people, in house or outsourced.
- The join between them is the product. The agent has to know when it is out of its depth and hand over cleanly, with the context attached, so the customer never repeats themselves.
If a supplier will not tell you where their agent stops, that is your answer about the supplier.
Frequently asked questions
Does an AI agent replace our claims handlers?
No. It covers the contacts they cannot get to and takes the routine volume off them. Claims decisions stay with your handlers and loss adjusters.
Is it cheaper than outsourcing?
It is not priced per call, so the gap widens when you are busiest. The honest comparison is your own per-call cost against a flat platform cost, and you should run it with your own numbers.
Can we use both?
Most insurers should. The agent takes the volume, your people take the cases that need people.
Does it sound like us?
It answers from your wordings, in your tone, and it says what it is. It does not pretend to be a person.
Sources
- FCA, home and travel claims handling arrangements, 22 July 2025: https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/good-and-poor-practice/home-travel-claims-handling-arrangements
- Financial Ombudsman Service, annual complaints data 2024/25: https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/data-insight/our-insight/annual-complaints-data-insight-2024-25
- Consumer Intelligence switching data 2025, reported by Insurance Business UK: https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/news/property-insurance/whats-behind-fewer-customers-changing-insurance-providers-555939.aspx
See Atlantas.Ai answer for your own book.
Every call, email, chat and message, grounded in your own policy wordings, with a person on hand the moment a case needs one.