From transactional consulting to true partnership in insurance

In this episode of The Underwriting Intelligence Podcast, Amrit sits down with Ben Gower, Partner at Elixirr, to unpack why so many insurance transformations fail and what it actually takes to make them succeed in the age of AI.

Drawing on his journey from one of the Big Four to helping build a challenger consultancy, Ben offers a refreshingly candid perspective on extractive consulting models, misaligned incentives, and the cultural blind spots that derail even the best-funded transformation programmes. At the heart of the discussion is a powerful idea: actions are downstream of mindset and without addressing how people think about change, no amount of technology will deliver results.

In this episode, Amrit and Ben dive into: Why traditional consulting incentives often undermine long-term client outcomes The real reasons digital and AI transformations fail in insurance Why mindset change must come before behaviour, tooling, or operating models How insurers can move away from five-year transformation fantasies toward shorter, value-driven horizons What it means to “eat your own cooking” when deploying AI internally How to build genuine partnerships between insurers, consultancies, and insurtechs

Whether you’re an insurance executive, underwriting leader, consultant, or insurtech founder, this episode offers a grounded, experience-led view on transformation, cutting through the hype to focus on culture, incentives, and practical delivery in a rapidly changing industry.