YF Life joins Hong Kong’s AI Cohort to accelerate responsible insurance innovation

For YF Life, the programme formalises work already underway to bring AI into underwriting, claims handling and customer service while strengthening controls for data privacy, model explainability and bias mitigation. Operating within a structured cohort helps align experimentation with supervisory expectations, shortens feedback loops on model risk management, and creates a forum to share implementation lessons with peers.

For the regulator, convening an AI cohort raises the floor on market practices while allowing innovation to proceed in a measured way. The approach mirrors “regulatory sandbox” concepts seen in other jurisdictions but adds a sector-wide lens: common templates for governance and documentation, shared testing methodologies, and periodic reviews to decide which proofs-of-concept are ready to scale. That, in turn, should reduce duplication of effort and encourage responsible competition on service quality rather than on risk-taking.

The near-term test is execution. Cohort participants will need to demonstrate that AI tools actually improve claims accuracy, turnaround times and customer satisfaction without creating new operational or compliance risks. If projects meet those benchmarks, Hong Kong’s insurance market could see faster digitalisation with stronger guardrails and insurers like YF Life will be better positioned to convert pilots into production at scale.