{"id":985364,"date":"2026-08-06T21:30:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T21:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/985364\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T21:30:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T21:30:24","slug":"bestow-launches-ai-labs-team-for-life-insurance-carriers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/985364\/","title":{"rendered":"Bestow Launches AI Labs Team for Life Insurance Carriers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bestow<\/p>\n

Bestow Co-Founders Melbourne O\u2019Banion, CEO, left, and Jonathan Abelmann, president, sit in their Dallas office. [Photo: Bestow]<\/p>\n

Dallas-based Bestow has formed a dedicated team called Bestow Labs to build AI-native products for life insurance and annuity carriers, deliberately separating that work from the production systems its clients depend on.<\/p>\n

Chad Hersh, who joined Bestow as head of AI solutions from Amazon, is leading the group\u2019s first product. Hersh led global life insurance market development at AWS, and he\u2019s worked on technology transformation across the insurance landscape. The company is not yet disclosing details about the product but said it is targeting release later this year.<\/p>\n

Co-founder and CEO Melbourne O\u2019Banion said in an interview with Dallas Innovates that the separate structure of Bestow Labs is crucial. Insurance is heavily regulated, and Bestow\u2019s carrier-facing infrastructure has to stay stable and compliant.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeparating Labs from production gives our team a sandbox to experiment with AI-native approaches, take bigger swings, and move fast, without any of that risk touching carrier-facing systems,\u201d O\u2019Banion said. \u201cNothing graduates out of Labs until it\u2019s proven out. That separation is what lets us be ambitious on the innovation side while staying dependable on the production side, so carriers get the best of both.\u201d<\/p>\n

What carriers are asking for<\/strong><\/p>\n

O\u2019Banion said the idea for Bestow Labs came out of a pattern in customer conversations.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany carriers are after the same thing: they want to move at the speed the market demands, but they\u2019re boxed in by legacy infrastructure,\u201d he said. \u201cModernization is the top priority we hear across the industry, and customers repeatedly tell us the real barrier isn\u2019t ambition, it\u2019s fragmented data and systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

That echoes Deloitte\u2019s 2026 Global Insurance Outlook<\/a>, which identifies legacy systems as a continuing top focus area for insurers and points to fragmented data and outdated infrastructure as barriers to scaling AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarriers shouldn\u2019t have to choose between innovating and re-platforming,\u201d O\u2019Banion said. \u201cBestow Labs was built to solve that gap, giving carriers access to AI-native capabilities that weren\u2019t even possible a year ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bestow didn\u2019t disclose the size of the Labs team, but O\u2019Banion said the company is investing significantly and growing the team quickly. It is distributed nationally with a strong base in Dallas.<\/p>\n

North Texas growth<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bestow has been in Dallas since its founding in 2017. At the time, the company launched a fully digital term life product in Texas<\/a> that let consumers buy coverage in about five minutes without a medical exam. It raised $15 million in Series A<\/a> funding in 2018 and expanded to 32 states within three months. A $50 million Series B<\/a> came in 2020, and a $70 million Series C followed later that year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The business has since shifted from selling policies directly to selling infrastructure to the carriers that do. In May 2025, the company closed a $120 million oversubscribed Series D<\/a> co-led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives and Smith Point Capital, along with a $50 million credit facility from TriplePoint Capital.<\/p>\n

Bestow now supports carriers across the policy lifecycle, from digital new business through policy administration. The company says its carrier clients include Nationwide, Transamerica, USAA, Sammons Financial Group and Equitable.<\/p>\n

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