The "iron rice bowl" of traditional insurance intermediaries may really be in trouble. On February 9, 2026, the U.S. insurance brokerage sector suffered a major setback, with the S&P 500 insurance index plummeting 3.89%, marking its largest single-day drop in nearly a year. Among them, industry giant Willis Towers Watson fell 12.10%.

The cause of the market's collective "shock" was a new "gadget" in the ChatGPT application library.

The online insurance comparison platform Insurify officially launched a ChatGPT -specific insurance comparison app that day. This is the first insurance-related application in the official plugin directory of OpenAI, aiming directly at the complicated and information-asymmetric car insurance purchasing experience that has long existed.

What makes this "comparison tool" so powerful?

Extreme personalization: Users just need to input location, vehicle model, age, credit, and driving record, and ChatGPT will instantly generate a tailored premium estimate.

Massive data support: The app is backed by Insurify's own database of 196 million auto insurance quotes, as well as more than 70,000 real customer reviews.

Conversational shopping: Buying insurance no longer feels like reading a book. You can ask questions in simple and understandable language, and the system will compare key information such as prices, discounts, and service transparency of different companies side by side.

Industry disruption or efficiency upgrade?

Insurify CEO Snejina Zacharia said that AI will redefine the insurance purchase experience, making it as simple as chatting. Although some analysts believe that the tool is currently more of an "efficiency amplifier," investors are clearly more worried about its long-term impact on the consulting business of insurance brokers.

With AI giants like Anthropic continuously launching disruptive tools, the insurance industry in 2026 may be standing at a crossroads of "disintermediation."