Skyward targets self-funded health insurance market

Skyward Specialty Insurance Group has partnered with Gradient AI, an enterprise software provider of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions in the insurance industry, to power its Accident and Health (A&H) division's latest technology driven stop-loss solution, SkyVantage.

According to Skyward, as employer healthcare costs continue to rise, an increasing number of businesses are turning to self-funded health insurance models. However, lack of access to sufficient historical data leaves many companies unable to purchase stop-loss insurance, access necessary protection to self-fund employee benefits and take advantage of the value-added quality and cost containment solutions afforded to self-funded employers. These employers are relegated to the fully insured market to provide health benefits, resulting in double-digit annual increases and plan designs that leave employees functionally uninsured.

Skyward Specialty A&H met this challenge with SkyVantage, which it said leverages Gradient AI's SAIL medical underwriting solution. As a result, Skyward Specialty can evaluate group health risk at a deeper level by accessing Gradient AI's vast medical dataset and machine learning and then integrating this intelligence with their expertise in the underwriting process.

Using the solution, Skyward Specialty leverages these data insights and more precise assessments to offer highly customized and cost-effective solutions for the self-insured market. This allows employers to provide employee benefits more cost-effectively while also enabling many employers to self-insure who may have been unable to do so otherwise.

“SkyVantage heralds a new era for the self-insurance market with an innovative, holistic solution that simply did not exist before,” said Byron Way, chief executive of Skyward Specialty's A&H division. “Our philosophy is when the employer plan wins, we win. Combining Gradient AI's group health data and advanced machine learning with our highly skilled and experienced stop-loss underwriters makes SkyVantage a true differentiator in the market.”