The Problem With Generic AI Copy
You've probably noticed it. That particular way ChatGPT has of writing. The slightly formal tone. The paragraph structure that feels like it came from a template. The phrases that appear in a thousand other websites.
For insurance brokers and financial services professionals, this is a genuine problem. Your clients don't choose you because you sound like everyone else. They choose you because they trust you. Because you understand their specific worries. Because when they read something from your firm, they recognise your personality in it.
When you feed your content needs entirely to an AI tool without direction, you get competent writing. You don't get writing that builds relationships. You don't get copy that makes a small business owner think, "This person gets what I'm worried about."
The good news? AI is genuinely useful for content creation in financial services. You just need to treat it like a junior colleague, not a finished product.
Where AI Actually Helps (And Where It Doesn't)
Let's be honest about what these tools are good for. They're excellent at speed. They're good at structure. They can take rough notes and turn them into something readable in minutes.
They're terrible at opinion. They're weak at specificity. They struggle with the kind of hard-won insight that comes from actually advising clients for fifteen years.
This matters in financial services more than most industries. When a prospective client reads a blog post about whether they should consolidate their business insurance, they're not just checking facts. They're assessing whether you understand their situation. Whether you've seen this problem before. Whether you're going to save them money or cost them money.
An AI tool can outline the consolidation process perfectly. It cannot tell them what happens when they consolidate and then lose a key supplier. It cannot share the story of the manufacturing firm you advised last year who thought consolidation was the answer, then discovered they'd created a compliance nightmare in the process.
The System That Works: Rough Draft, Then Rewrite
Here's the approach that actually works for brokers and financial advisers. Use AI for the skeleton. Then write the real article around it.
Start by giving the tool a proper brief. Not "write about business insurance trends". That's too vague. Try something like this: "Write a 400-word outline about why small manufacturing firms in the Midlands often over-insure their machinery. Include three common reasons they do this. Use clear language. Assume the reader has no insurance background."
That prompt does actual work. It gives constraints. It asks for specificity. You'll get an outline that's genuinely useful, even if the writing itself needs work.
