3 Questions with CorVel’s Jason Wheeler on AI, Future of Claims Work

The Trained A-Eye

If you have any connection with workers' compensation, you know that AI is a fact of life, and the question has long moved from the "if" of implementation to the "when." But what might be uncertain at this point is what AI will do to workers' comp and how it will affect (or disrupt?) those who have been in the industry a long time.

For perspective from someone with deep industry knowledge and experience, we were fortunate enough to borrow some time from Jason Wheeler, Chief Sales Officer at CorVel, a mainstay in the workers' compensation space.

Q. With fears of AI replacing jobs, how can it actually be leveraged for retention in the insurance sector and enhance the next generation of talent in workers' compensation? 

Jason Wheeler: An estimated 400,000 insurance professionals are expected to age out over the next 10 to 15 years, and the industry isn't replacing them at the same pace. AI is arriving at a useful moment for that challenge. It can take on more of the documentation, triage, file review, and other routine work that consumes a claims professional's day, creating more human capacity for judgment, investigation, communication, and negotiation. 

The question isn't whether AI can replace an adjuster. It's whether AI can make being an adjuster a better job. If technology can reduce friction in the role, adjusters can spend more time on the parts of claims where their expertise and relationships have the greatest impact. 

That becomes especially important as we bring new people into workers' compensation. CorVel University trains new adjusters from non-traditional backgrounds and has seen 90% retention since the program began more than two years ago. We look beyond traditional claims experience for people with the core skills to succeed and then give them the training and support to develop that expertise. 

For newer professionals, I think about AI as acceleration and synthesis. It can help them navigate large amounts of information and surface relevant context, but it doesn't replace the experience they develop over time. AI can assemble the picture. The claims professional decides what to do about it. The opportunity is to give people more capacity to learn the parts of claims that require judgment while keeping them connected to the injured worker. 

Q. What should claims managers/adjusters be preparing for when it comes to the future of AI? 

JW: Claims professionals should be preparing for a shift in what the job rewards day to day. As AI takes on more documentation, information gathering and synthesis, professionals should have more capacity for strategy, investigation and communication with injured workers and employers. Managers should be developing those skills now rather than waiting for the technology to expose them as a performance gap. 

Claims managers also need to play an active role in how AI is implemented. You can't simply introduce a tool and expect it to understand what good claims handling looks like. Organizations need to teach systems their workflows, establish clear guardrails and define what a successful result looks like before they scale. AI can assemble the picture. The claims professional decides what to do about it. 

Regulation and oversight around AI will continue to evolve, but organizations shouldn't wait for regulation to define responsible use. We need to be clear about where information comes from and how it's being used, while maintaining human accountability for decisions. 

Claims leaders also need to be thoughtful about how they measure success. Adoption alone isn't the goal. I don't care how much AI we're using. I care whether it's changing the outcome of the claim. We should be looking at whether AI is creating human capacity, improving consistency, helping professionals respond sooner, and ultimately improving claim performance. 

Q. In the next 5-10 years how will AI have shaped claims work at CorVel? And shaped the general workers' compensation industry? 

JW: Over the next five to 10 years, I expect claims professionals to spend much less time searching for and reconciling information and more time applying their expertise to the activities that influence a claim's trajectory. AI will continue to get better at processing large amounts of information and bringing forward what may require attention. The opportunity is to use that capability to create more human capacity, not simply add more technology to the claims process. 

At CorVel, we're building AI into the way claims are already managed rather than treating it as a separate destination an adjuster has to remember to visit. CorVel Connected reflects that approach by embedding intelligence directly into Care^MC, helping synthesize information and bring relevant context forward when it's needed. Claims professionals shouldn't have to stop what they're doing and go looking for AI to make it useful. 

Across workers' compensation, I think the organizations that get the greatest value from AI will be the ones that develop their people and technology together. Technology will continue to change the work, but organizations still need professionals with the judgment, communication skills, and expertise to manage increasingly complex claims. The goal should be to make that expertise more effective. 

Nobody should be impressed by how much AI CorVel uses. They should be impressed by what our people are able to accomplish because of it. For me, that's the more meaningful measure of claims excellence. If technology helps our professionals communicate more effectively, recognize issues sooner, and make better-informed decisions, we should see that reflected in the injured worker's experience and, ultimately, in claim outcomes. 

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