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Markel Insurance launches Cortex to use AI in hard-to-place casualty underwriting
The new unit was created with Bain & Company and rolled out within months of starting a project to overhaul how the insurer underwrites and services hard-to-place U.S. casualty risks.
Markel Insurance is expanding its use of artificial intelligence by launching Cortex, a new business unit developed in partnership with Bain & Company to reimagine underwriting and servicing for hard-to-place U.S. casualty risks, the company said on its Q2 2026 earnings call.
Markel Insurance CEO Simon Wilson said the insurer has challenged its businesses to speed up product delivery to customers by examining each stage of its processes and identifying where AI can help. Wilson also said Cortex combines Markel and Bain experts, using market-leading AI tools alongside Markel’s underwriting expertise and the data the company has accumulated over decades.
Wilson said the Cortex unit launched last week within Markel Insurance’s wholesale and specialty division, just a few months after the project began in March. He added that Markel is focused on deploying AI in ways that improve customer service and generate attractive returns on capital, with business unit leaders determining how the technology is used.
In the same quarter, Markel Insurance reported a 40% surge in adjusted operating income to $376.5 million, and underwriting profit in its core specialty insurance division more than doubled to $142.1 million. The segment posted a 93% combined ratio in Q2 2026, despite a two-point impact from net catastrophe losses tied to the ongoing Middle East conflict and an additional two-point drag from the runoff of its exited Global Reinsurance division.