The Data & Analytics track at ITC Vegas 2025 drew a bustling room for a straight-talking session on injury claims. On stage were Max Drucker, CEO of Carpe Data; Pranay Mittal, who leads Travelers Investigative Services; and Erik Roen, Senior Vice President & CIO: Claim, who oversees technology, analytics, and strategy across Travelers’ claim organization. The conversation centered on keeping pace with heavy workloads, rising fraud risk, and fast-moving tech, while never losing sight of the core principle: taking care of customers without taking care of fraudsters.
Talent in a changing industry
The panel did not sugarcoat the staffing reality. Experienced professionals are retiring and while the promise of AI is alluring to some, Travelers has chosen to invest even further in their people: clearer career paths, a continuous learning mindset, and coaching that helps claim professionals grow in a digital-first setting. The aim is practical and keeps expertise in the chair while building the next generation of experts who can work confidently with modern data and systems.
That also means equipping managers with coaching tools that reinforce the right behaviors like monitoring utilization so they know which tools are used appropriately and which require additional training; all while keeping foundational investigative steps in place, whether the signal comes from data or conventional methods.
Technology that fits the work, not the other way around
Roen argued for a loosely coupled tech ecosystem that lets new capabilities slot into workflow without showering adjusters with shiny tools they will not adopt. Fit and timing are the first and biggest wins. Put the right information in front of the right person at the moment of need. The second win is the people side. Up-skilling and manager coaching drive adoption, speed decisions, and free teams to focus on value-add activities.
Measuring the benefit, not just the tool
Travelers once relied on manual social media checks for online investigations (in fact, they were among the first of major US insurers to do so). Today, they integrate a wide set of publicly available data sources in automated ways, with smarter searching, ongoing monitoring, and resolution strategies that surface the right signals at the right time. Roen called Travelers a trailblazer here, but emphasized that success came from discipline; It is less about one clever search and more about how information flows through the process.
Roen described this discipline as part of their test-and-learn culture grounded in design of experiments. Control groups and test groups help quantify lift, a practice they have refined over roughly 15 years dating back to early predictive models. Mittal added that benefit realization should be judged across the full data picture, not one tool at a time. Holistic measurement prevents false signals and keeps investments tied to results.
Automation, agentic AI, and the human in the loop
Manual investigations on their own are not scalable, on this the panel agreed, and they expect agentic AI to keep growing especially in triage and summarization. Even so, data are messy and judgment matters. Human review ensures explainability and holds the line on the core objective to pay what is owed. The next push is making the flood of information truly actionable and efficient, so teams move faster without sacrificing quality.
Travelers works with specialists like Carpe Data for more than fraud hunting. The first goal is verification of facts related to a claim. Roen framed it as a strategic choice, allowing carriers to focus on their core processes and ecosystem while letting partners build and maintain specialized capabilities that would be costly and slow to replicate in-house.
What this means for carriers right now
- Treat online data as evidence that moves the file.
- Integrate new capabilities into the workflow you already trust.
- Upskill teams and coach managers so adoption sticks.
- Measure lift with controls and keep your eye on total program impact.
- Use partners to verify facts at speed while your people focus on judgment and defensibility.
The session closed with a unifying message; claims leaders and their teams don’t need a pile of fragmented tools or UIs. They need a unified system that gets the right evidence to the right person at the right moment, with clear measures of value and a culture that keeps learning. That is how insurers can scale operations on massive injury claim inventories while staying true to the promises made to their insureds.