An AI layer that reads a customer's life events from policy data they already have, and gets guidance to them before they ask.
Year
2026
Type
AI Product Design
Partner
Intact Financial Corporation
Skills
Service Design, Strategic Research, Product Design
Overview
Insurance built around decisions, not disasters
Lifolio uses Intact's existing policy data as a signal layer, detects life events in real time, maps the legal and financial obligations attached to them, and connects customers with the right professional before they know they need one.
The insurance industry was built to respond to what went wrong. I reframed the relationship around what comes next, so the product is a living portfolio of a customer's life: obligations tracked, professionals on demand, and uncertainty reduced at the moment it actually matters.
Snapshot
Policy data becomes a signal, the signal becomes a set of obligations, and the obligations become guidance a person can act on.
Problem Definition
Insurance, as the world knows it, is reactive, transactional, and invisible until disaster strikes. So where is the insurance for the decisions that shape what comes next?
Insurance resolves uncertainty after the fact, but the uncertainty that shapes a person's financial trajectory happens before any claim is filed. A home purchase, a marriage, a job change: each carries legal and financial obligations that most people navigate blind.
For young adults and first-time earners the gap is wider. Financial literacy is not a given, and the systems built to help, lawyers and advisors and accountants, are priced out of reach at exactly the moments they are needed most.
Three structural gaps insurance does not address
TimingCover arrives after the event. Nothing in the relationship speaks to the decision that created the exposure in the first place.
InterpretationObligations exist but stay invisible. Filings, beneficiary designations, and powers of attorney lapse because nobody surfaced them.
AccessProfessional advice is priced per hour, so the people with the least room to absorb a mistake are the least able to ask.
Discovery
Where government sets the framework, private enterprise delivers the outcome. I built the case on that split, because a proposal that argues against the regulator does not get built.
Canada's regulatory architecture, OSFI, FCAC, and the provincial superintendents, defines the standards and the direction. When volatility strikes, private insurers consistently outperform public relief mechanisms on speed, scope, and recovery depth. Lifolio does not operate against that direction, it extends the private sector's reach within it.
The three numbers the case rests on
$9.2BInsured losses in Canada in 2024, the highest annual total ever recorded, against a previous record of $6.2B in 2016. A Calgary hailstorm took $2.8B in one hour, the Jasper wildfire $1.3B, and the GTA flooding drove the rest. IBC, January 2025
92%of July 2024 flood claims resolved by private insurers despite record volume, 250,000 claims in two months, roughly 50 percent above any prior annual average. IBC, January 2025
49%of Canadians aged 18 to 34 do not know where to find reliable financial advice. That is the top barrier, ahead of understanding the concepts themselves at 37 percent. Financial Resilience Institute, June 2025
Government programs against private insurance
I compared the two on four dimensions, because the argument only holds if the gap is structural rather than a matter of effort.
Crisis response speedGovernment: six to eighteen months via DFAA, with advance payments covering emergency costs only. Private: 92 percent of 2024 flood claims resolved within weeks, at record volume.
Coverage eligibilityGovernment: uninsured losses only, means-tested, standard policyholders excluded. Private: all policyholders, event-specific, at full policy value.
Financial guidanceGovernment: generic programs through FCAC, and 49 percent of 18 to 34 year olds still cannot find reliable advice. Private: personalized, AI-driven, embedded in a policy relationship that already exists.
Operational flexibilityGovernment: cross-provincial licensing restricts adjuster redeployment during disasters. Private: national operations, flexible deployment, no jurisdictional barrier.
Lifolio operates in full alignment with OSFI's consumer protection guidelines, FCAC's national financial literacy mandate, and the provincial superintendents. The argument is not that government should not lead. It is that Intact's data reach, operational agility, and existing trust relationship enable a layer of proactive guidance that no government program currently delivers at the level of an individual.
Prototyping
Proactive over reactive, personal over generic
The premise is that the best time to offer guidance is before a customer realises they need it. Intact's policy data is the signal, the AI layer is the interpreter, and the professional network is the safety net.
I kept the service to three components on purpose. The goal is not to replace insurance but to extend the relationship from protection into life planning, rebuilding it at the level of individual decisions rather than population-level risk models.
Three components
01 · Life Event DetectionA customer enters a life event, or Lifolio infers it from data Intact already holds. A new home policy signals a purchase, a beneficiary change signals a relationship shift. The AI maps every relevant legal and tax obligation to that event automatically.
02 · Living Obligations DashboardObligations surface with deadlines, required documents, and progress. Proactive alerts catch the failures that normally go unnoticed: missed filings, expired powers of attorney, outdated beneficiary designations.
03 · Verified Professional HandoffWhen the AI reaches its limit it hands off to a lawyer, CPA, or notary through a structured micro-consultation. The professional receives a pre-built brief, so the customer pays for targeted advice rather than for the time it takes to explain the situation.
The handoff is the component I care most about. An AI that answers everything is not credible in a regulated field, so I designed the limit into the product and made reaching it a feature rather than a failure.
Conclusion
Lifolio started as a question about timing. Insurance already knows a great deal about its customers, and almost none of it is used before something goes wrong.
What the research settled is that the gap is structural rather than a matter of effort. Public programs are built for aggregate relief and cannot reach an individual before a decision, while a private insurer already holds the signal and the relationship. Framing the proposal as an extension of the regulator's direction rather than an argument against it is what made it credible to present.
The work is in progress with Intact Financial Corporation. The open question I would take up next is measurement, since a proactive service only proves itself if you can show a decision that went better because the guidance arrived early.
