S2 E4. Build vs Buy in the GenAI Era: Inside Belfius’ Data & AI Strategy - The Data Playbook Podcast with Kris Peeters & Hannes Heylen
Description
Belfius Insurance’s Head of Data & AI, Hannes Heylen shares how his team scaled GenAI - from a fraud detection flywheel to “Nestor,” a claims copilot that speeds summaries, completeness and coverage checks. We unpack AI agents in the claims flow, build-vs-buy decisions, and why content/data governance drives LLM quality. Plus: a pragmatic delivery mantra - make it work, then right, then cheap - for CIOs, CDOs and Heads of Data.
What you’ll learn
- How to pick first AI cases that prove €ROI (fraud models)
- Designing a claims copilot: summarization, completeness & coverage checks
- Where AI agents fit (GenAI + ML + humans) across the claims flow
- Build vs. buy in 2025: foundation models, vendor flexibility, cost control
- Content/data governance as the make-or-break for LLM apps
- “First make it work, then right, then cheap”: an AI operating model for CIO/CDO
Guest: Hannes Heylen, Head of Data & AI, Belfius Insurance
🌐 More at www.dataminded.com
Chapters:
00:00 Why AI now in financial services
06:30 GenAI’s impact on text-heavy insurance processes
18:40 AI agents across claims
31:00 Governance > model tweaks
38:00 Fraud detection: the € case
41:30 Claims copilot (“Nestor”) & lab-to-prod
55:00 Lessons for CIOs/CDOs
Topics: ROI-first use cases • Claims automation • AI agents (GenAI + ML + human-in-the-loop) • Governance • Vendor flexibility & costs
United States
