John Hele & Greg Framke: Portage AI: The hard 20%: where AI could create the most value in insurance (420)

AI represents the most significant technological shift of the current era, necessitating a move beyond simple proof-of-concepts toward production-ready, value-driven applications. Portage, founded by industry veterans Greg Framke and John Hele, addresses this by applying AI to complex, high-stakes insurance challenges like post-bind processing and delegated authority management. Rather than acting as consultants, the firm builds and deploys custom-trained models that integrate directly into client systems, guaranteeing measurable ROI before requiring commitment. By utilizing advanced predictive analytics and establishing common data ontologies, the company solves long-standing operational inefficiencies that have historically plagued the insurance sector. This approach prioritizes tangible outcomes, such as improved loss ratios and accelerated pricing submissions, over theoretical experimentation, positioning AI as a practical engine for driving competitive advantage in the specialty and reinsurance markets.