Weightmans acquires MatterLab following landmark AI and data project

National law firm Weightmans has invested in an artificial intelligence toolset to transform the handling of personal injury insurance claims, in a six-figure deal.

The product, currently known as MatterLab, was developed by Weightmans’ Innovation and Data Science teams in partnership with Frontier Labs, the AI company. Over an 18-month design and build period, the team has created a reserving augmentation tool that helps to boost reserving accuracy in volume personal injury claims with a value up to £100,000.

MatterLab uses historic claims data to create a model that enables case handlers to more accurately reserve at a much earlier stage in the claim, often when important claims information is still outstanding. Under initial closed pilots, the tool was shown to boost the accuracy of reserve predictions by 20%, significantly reducing the amount of over and under-reserving on an individual case by case basis.  

Now that Weightmans has purchased the IP to MatterLab, it is progressing to live pilots, the first phase of which is due to conclude at the end of April 2022.

The acquisition follows the launch of PREDiCT Large Loss, developed by Weightmans’ in-house data scientists, which uses similar methodology but a far more granular data set, to support large loss claims handlers in reserve calculations. Its pilot testing delivered a 71% improvement in reserving accuracy, representing a global average reserve reduction of £285,000 per case.

MatterLab will be rebranded to sit alongside the suite of AI tools that Weightmans has developed under the PREDiCT banner.

Will Quinn, Partner at Weightmans, said: “Reserving is one of the most business-critical stages when handling personal injury claims — it can impact everything from loss forecast estimates, insurers’ solvency and customers’ reinsurance premiums. The challenge is that reserving often takes place in a knowledge vacuum, with individual case handlers often having to work with minimal detail and only their previous experience to draw on.   

“We knew that AI-enabled technology and predictive analytics tools were key to complementing the capabilities of case handlers, ensuring they have as much data as possible at their fingertips to boost the accuracy of their calculations. This investment represents our commitment to augmenting the specialist skills of handlers to help them provide the most accurate, insight-driven results for clients.”  

The development of MatterLab was funded by Innovate UK, which provided a grant worth £165,874 in 2019 to help kickstart the project.

Stuart Whittle, Business Services and Innovation Director, said: “This is an exciting development for Weightmans and demonstrates our commitment to invest heavily in new technologies and innovation that will support our people to deliver the very best results for our clients. Using data-led insights to transform our claims handling capabilities is key to our service delivery by helping our clients manage their financial liabilities and drive down overall indemnity spend.”

Steven Hassall, Design Director of Frontier Labs, said: “It has been a pleasure working alongside Weightmans to design and develop MatterLab. We are very proud of what has been achieved so far and wish Weightmans the best of success commercialising the product.”