Hi Marley Research Reveals 75% of Policyholders Embrace AI but Demand Human Access

New research from Hi Marley highlights a critical tension for P&C carriers: while 75 percent of policyholders are comfortable using AI-powered conversational tools to accelerate service, one-third would consider switching providers if they could not reach a live person. For insurers, this underscores the necessity of balancing automated efficiency with seamless human escalation to maintain customer retention.

What was announced

Hi Marley’s latest Voice of the Policyholder Survey gathered insights from 500 U.S. homeowners, renters, and auto insurance policyholders who engaged in policy or billing service interactions over the last six months. These interactions spanned routine tasks such as making payments, requesting documents, and modifying coverage. The findings reveal a significant appetite for AI-supported service, provided it delivers accuracy and speed. Among those who used AI-powered conversational tools in the past year, 62 percent described the experience as easy.

However, the data suggests that automation cannot exist in a vacuum. Beyond the demand for human access, conversational continuity emerged as a major factor in loyalty. Thirty-seven percent of respondents indicated they would consider switching carriers if forced to repeat questions multiple times, while 36 percent would look elsewhere if they had to interact with multiple representatives to complete a single policy change. Channel preference also remains fragmented; while 44 percent prefer mobile apps or web portals for bill payments, the phone remains the dominant choice for complex policy questions (47 percent) and billing inquiries (38 percent).

The survey also identified text messaging as an underutilized channel in the insurance sector. While 53 percent of respondents have used text for professional services in the last year—with 75 percent rating it as an easy experience—adoption within insurance remains lower than other digital tools, representing a strategic opportunity for carriers to reduce friction. Speed of resolution remains the primary driver for channel selection, cited by 67 percent of respondents as a top-three factor.

"Access to a human is second only to accuracy in shaping how comfortable policyholders feel with AI-powered tools. Policyholders are telling us they're ready for AI, as long as it gets them to an answer faster and a person is there when they need one. Accuracy is the biggest factor in how comfortable they feel with these tools, and access to a human is right behind it. The carriers that win on service will use AI to take the effort out of routine requests and give their teams the context to handle the complex ones well."

Alex Burgess, VP Industry Strategy at Hi Marley.

The companies involved

Hi Marley provides an Intelligent Communication Platform specifically designed for the P&C insurance industry. The company focuses on streamlining the dialogue between carriers, agents, and policyholders by centralizing communications into a single, transparent record. By leveraging AI and conversational tools, the platform aims to reduce the friction often associated with claims processing and policy management, helping carriers improve their speed of resolution and overall customer satisfaction scores.

In the broader insurance ecosystem, Hi Marley functions as a bridge between legacy core systems and modern customer expectations. The firm’s technology is built to handle the complexities of insurance-specific workflows, ensuring that data from various interactions—whether via text, web chat, or voice—is preserved to provide representatives with the necessary context. This focus on conversational continuity addresses a primary pain point for policyholders who frequently cite repetitive information sharing as a reason for carrier churn. As an independent technology vendor, Hi Marley has established a significant footprint in the North American market, partnering with a wide range of carriers and service providers to modernize the insurance service experience.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has previously tracked Hi Marley’s efforts to centralize and modernize the insurance value chain. In August 2026, the publication reported on the launch of a new solution in Hi Marley Launches Unite to Centralize P&C Insurance Service Provider Communications. This initiative was designed to give carriers greater oversight and control over the network of service providers involved in the claims process.

Additionally, FF News covered the company’s strategic moves to integrate financial technology into the communication flow. In One Inc Partners with Hi Marley to Disrupt Payment Processing & Modernize Customer Experience, the report detailed how the partnership aimed to simplify the claims payment process by embedding payment capabilities directly within the conversational interface, reducing the time between claim settlement and the policyholder receiving funds.

What this means from an insurtech perspective

From an insurtech perspective, these findings place immense pressure on carriers still operating with siloed legacy systems. The demand for conversational continuity means that a failure to integrate AI tools with backend core systems is no longer just a technical debt issue—it is a direct threat to retention. MGAs and carriers that cannot pass context from a chatbot to a human adjuster risk losing nearly 40 percent of their customer base. This shift moves the needle away from pure automation toward a hybrid model where AI serves as a triage layer. For incumbent vendors, the challenge is now providing the interoperability required to ensure that a policyholder’s journey remains unbroken across disparate channels.