Accelerating P&C product and rate filing is critical to meet dynamic market demands and regulatory requirements. Traditional processes are constrained by manual handoffs, fragmented data, and slow approvals, resulting in delayed product launches and constrained profitability. This article explores how data, GenAI, and Agentic AI can transform rate filing—enabling parallel execution, automated testing, and intelligent workbenches for competitive analysis.

By adopting best practices in architecture, automation, and governance, insurers can compress cycle times, enhance pricing sophistication, and improve compliance. The approach outlined empowers carriers to respond swiftly to market shifts, optimize risk management, and gain a decisive edge.

Problem Statement: What?

Property and casualty (P&C) insurers in the United States face a complex and fragmented regulatory environment when filing new products or rates. The average time to approve rate filings has increased by 40% nationwide (for the period from 2018 to 2024 for homeowners' product). The result is delayed market response, constrained profitability, missed opportunities to reflect a changing risk posture (for example: In California, Proposition 103 limits insurers to base rates on historical losses rather than current and predictive/forward looking models).

While these regulatory complexities add to the delays of rate approvals, insurers also face internal challenges. These are magnified by fragmented data assets affecting rate development/indications, weak/limited integration of policy administration systems and rating engine, manual scenario generation & validations across rating workflows, too many handoffs, and manual state filing preparation.

Understanding Regulatory Complexity in State Filing

The regulatory complexity arises from several related factors:

1. State-Based Regulation and Legal Diversity:

Insurance regulation is primarily state-based, with each state legislature enacting its own rating laws, standards, and filing requirements. These laws may be based on NAIC model laws (e.g., prior approval, file-and-use, use-and-file, flex rating), but significant variation persists in definitions, processes, and compliance expectations across states. Insurers must navigate a patchwork of statutes, administrative rules, and case law, often requiring tailored filings for each jurisdiction.

2. Multiplicity of Filing Types and Entities:

Filings may pertain to rates, rating rules, policy forms, underwriting rules, or combinations thereof. Entities making filings include insurers, advisory organizations, and third-party filers, each subject to different rules and authorities depending on the state and product category.

3. Rigorous Data and Actuarial Standards:

Regulators require extensive supporting data for rate filings, including historical premium and loss data, actuarial analysis, and justification for rating factors. Standards mandate that rates must not be excessive, inadequate, or unfairly discriminatory, but interpretations and required methodologies (e.g., loss ratio vs. pure premium methods, credibility standards, catastrophe modeling) vary by state. Data quality, segregation, and rate adjustment protocols are scrutinized, and regulators may require multi-year data, trend analyses, and loss development triangles.

4. Procedural Complexity and Review Process:

The filing process involves multiple steps and stakeholders: filers must ensure completeness and compliance with state-specific requirements, often using tools like SERFF for electronic submissions. Reviewers conduct detailed checks for statutory and regulatory compliance, issue objection letters for deficiencies, and may require hearings or amendments. The process is iterative, and delays often result from incomplete filings or back-and-forth correspondence.

5. Policy Form Review and Public Policy Considerations:

Beyond rate filings, policy forms are subject to rigorous review for compliance with mandated provisions, prohibited clauses, readability standards, and consistency with pricing memoranda. States may require additional documentation, such as actuarial memoranda or advertising materials, and enforce unique requirements for specific lines of business.

Internal Challenges in Rate Change Management

Rate change management in P&C insurance is challenged by fragmented data sources and limited clarity/disjoint in data/business requirements for rate development & analysis. Insurers must reconcile information from underwriting, claims/loss history, reinsurance, and market trends, which demands extensive data wrangling and preparation. Latency in accessing third-party data and manual handoffs between product, actuarial, and IT teams further slow the process, leading to rework and misalignment.

The absence of integrated platforms for hypothesis development, rate workups, and filing results in inefficiencies and extended cycle times. Compliance steps are repeated for each state, and technical requirements for integration are often relayed indirectly, compounding delays. Manual testing and architectural gaps—such as non-stateless rating engines and scattered product management logic—impede data-driven decision-making and actuarial rigor.

Dislocation analysis, a key actuarial process, is time-consuming due to sequential, repetitive workflows and limited automation. The challenge is to quickly identify segments with disrupted rates and adverse loss ratios, as variable-by-variable reviews are essential but time-consuming. Without robust analytical capabilities, targeted adjustments are delayed, increasing regulatory risk and reducing pricing effectiveness.

How to bridge the internal challenges?

To accelerate and improve product/rate filing for Personal Auto & Property, insurers must deploy targeted interventions across dimensions such as Planning & Communication, Platform/Architecture, Data Controls & Trust, Validation, and rate filing intelligence—ensuring each stage of the value chain is robust, data-driven, and responsive to market and regulatory demands.

• Planning & Communication: Product / Rate filing has a direct correlation to business or product strategy. Considering its significance and the complex nature of the regulatory, it requires well-architected planning and execution. More often the challenges or delays are due to siloed interactions, lack of integration, gaps in business & IT/data requirements, delayed communication etc. across teams (product management, IT, Data, Actuarial, State filing etc.). Creating a digitized & integrated master rate change plan (by state, LOB, change complexity, filing type, etc.), workflow assignments and tracking ensure timely communication, transparency in timelines, dependencies etc. and enables identifying the choke points to improve execution. For example, Shift left the production IT activities related to configuration and build (i.e., before DOI approval/state filing, pre deploy with future effective dates toggled off until approval). Use emergency change approvals for minor rate updates and enforce strict SLA/OLA for signoffs to cut internal wait times.

• Platform/Architecture: Significant data engineering and configuration effort spent during Dislocation analysis and Post approval implementation. Address duplicate efforts spent in dislocation analysis and implementation (post rate approvals) by choosing appropriate rating engines (e.g.: Akur8, Earnix) with integration accelerators and compatible with modern policy administration systems.

• Data Controls and Trust: Automated data pipeline to ingest information, third-party data from near real time sources (telematics, IoT) on loss characteristics, use of CAT models for rate filings to assess risks like wildfire in California (as part of sustainable insurance strategy) to aid rate factor selection and an Assumptions Data Hub to capture UW assumption, Pricing assumptions, loss data etc., helps to build agility. Similarly, replacing legacy /excel-based models for rate filings with python/modern platforms such as hx Renew for central, version-controlled environment helps to improve collaboration, simplification and drive accurate filings.

• Automated validation: Leverage pricing tools/platforms such as hx Renew to automate scenario analysis (what-if") scenario analysis, automate the assessment of the impact of model changes and changes to assumptions, automated validation rules. Also, pairing provisional rate implementation with automated regression and CI/CD, improves response time via elastic rating engines and enhances rate monitoring, compliance, and traceability.

• Rate filing intelligence – Build & leverage rate filing intelligence powered by insights from SNL insurance product filing datasets (from S&P Global Market Intelligence) to understand market strategies, industry trends, analyze filings/factor changes of peer insurers, insights wrt objections, approval/response timelines of DOI etc. Harnessing these insights provides a feedback loop wrt product strategy, planning & execution adaptation to market conditions and decision-making.

Potential Benefits

Adopting integrated interventions such as master rate change plans and disciplined workflows, modern rating engines and platforms, reducing/eliminating excel based rating models, third-party data integrations, CI/CD and automated regression, market aware rate filing intelligence and effective change management—can significantly increase throughput of rate changes, strengthen rating traceability, reduce refiling/rerating cycles, and leverage richer third-party data for more responsive pricing, improving conversion, loss ratio resilience, and agility to market shifts.

The Way forward

To accelerate rate filing and product launches, insurers should assess their implementation strategy across the dimension such as people, process, technology and data, to evaluate their performance and outcomes. By operationalizing some of the relevant interventions listed above, insurers can compress cycle times, respond swiftly to market shifts, and optimize risk management. Now is the time for industry leaders to champion these changes and drive better outcomes.

Ten years ago—has it been that long?—I was working with the largest insurer of churches and religious institutions in the US when we discovered they were incurring an average of $70 million in annual losses from frozen pipes.

It makes sense. Many houses of worship sit empty most of the time, and in the northern half of the country—where most of this carrier's book was concentrated—a power outage or failing furnace leads to frozen pipes, burst lines, and substantial water damage claims.

So we built an IoT service that monitored furnace activity and water pipe temperatures, complete with a call center to alert policyholders before problems escalated. It worked so well that it survives today: insureds receive annual premium discounts for enrolling, and frozen pipe claims have dropped over one-third.

That experience in continuous risk management sparked my fascination with the next frontier: continuous underwriting. In my view, there's no reason insurance premiums shouldn't fluctuate daily—like stock prices or utility bills—as new risk data emerges.

Frustratingly, there are exactly two reasons they don't: regulation and reinsurance.

Tesla Insurance: A Case Study in Market Inertia

Tesla Insurance launched in 2019 in California, leveraging real-time telematics data from connected vehicles to offer up to 30% lower premiums through a Safety Score algorithm that tracks behaviors like hard braking and collision warnings. The system performs real-time scoring—true continuous underwriting—and adjusts premiums monthly.

Today, Tesla Insurance operates in just 12 states. Twelve states in six years represent a glacial pace for a company built on speed, underscoring how state-by-state regulatory approvals and legal roadblocks stifle algorithmic pricing scalability. Elon Musk has joked that SpaceX will reach Mars before Tesla Insurance writes business in all 50 states—a sadly ironic quip, since the technology for continuous underwriting already exists.

Then there's reinsurance. Earlier this year, Tesla accelerated its pivot toward vertical integration by launching full in-house underwriting for California policies, marking a strategic departure from third-party partners like State National Insurance (a Markel subsidiary). This move gives Tesla direct control over risk assessment, pricing, and policy issuance—despite California's Proposition 103 restrictions on dynamic telematics pricing.

This operational autonomy does two critical things: it eliminates reinsurance constraints—such as conservative loss ratio caps that previously stifled Tesla FSD-linked innovations—and positions the company for national expansion, with pilots already running in Texas and Illinois. By year-end, in-house underwriting will cover 40% of Tesla's $1.2 billion premium base.

Cyber Insurance: A Case Study in Market Necessity

Cyber underwriting has traditionally relied on static annual assessments, but accelerating threat velocity—in the first half of '25, incidents grew by 49% YoY—demands a shift to continuous underwriting. Real-time data from AI-driven tools like open-source intelligence (OSINT) scanning and attack surface risk management (ASRM) enables dynamic risk evaluation and premium adjustments.

Cyber insurtechs such as Cowbell are transforming underwriting from a snapshot into a living process. They report a threefold reduction in claims through proactive remediation and adaptive policies tied to evolving security postures.

These cyber insurtechs focus almost exclusively on the SME segment—businesses with less than $1 billion in revenue, fewer than 1,000 employees, and, crucially, simpler IT environments than large enterprises. They're also proactive. Cowbell, for instance, actively monitors and underwrites risk for over 31 million SME entities using continuous external attack-surface scanning (their Cowbell Factors), often before a quote is even requested. This makes them one of the clearest real-world examples of continuous underwriting operating at scale in the small-and-mid-market commercial segment.

Regulation is actually helping here, pressuring carriers to verify real-time adherence to baseline security standards like multi-factor authentication through tools such as Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and Managed Detection and Response (MDR).

Reinsurance innovation is providing capacity. Leaders like Munich Re and Swiss Re are investing in advanced modeling and proportional treaties that favor data-rich, quota-share structures—lowering capital needs while supporting AI-enhanced risk portfolios.

Continuous underwriting unlocks growth. Projected global cyber premiums are expected to more than double from $14 billion in 2023 to $29 billion by 2027.

The "Big" Fight to Scale

In this corner, the champ: Big Insurance and Big Legal (has anyone not heard of Morgan & Morgan?). They'll spend upwards of $200 million this year lobbying Washington to preserve the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945, keeping arcane insurance regulations frozen in place.

In that corner, the challenger: Big Tech. As continuous underwriting—by definition, fully automated—consumes AI data center capacity, the AI hyperscalers are throwing untold millions into the fray.

The majority of insurance consumers—per recent surveys—are rooting for the challenger.

I'm not here to scare anyone by saying, "Tech will replace all insurance professionals." That line is boring now.

What I want to talk about is something else: Tech may not replace your job immediately, but it is slowly replacing your worth in the system.

We are entering a phase where some changes in insurance are no longer a choice. They are inevitable. I call this "inevitablism" in insurance.

What Is Inevitablism?

Inevitablism in insurance refers to the mindset that certain industry shifts — such as automation, AI adoption, data-driven decision-making, and modernization of legacy systems — are not optional but unavoidable.

It's the belief that these changes will happen regardless of current comfort, resistance, or preparedness, and that insurers must adapt rather than delay, because the future will arrive with to without them.

Tech vs Talent: The Usage Gap

There is no shortage of talent in insurance. The real problem is how that talent is being used.

Across the industry, many bright professionals spend their day on low-value tasks:

• Moving data between systems
• Updating spreadsheets
• Chasing documents
• Sitting in the same recurring meeting.

They are capable of designing better products, rethinking portfolios, and solving complex risk problems. But because technology inside many insurers is underused or outdated, people become the "glue" holding legacy processes together.

And let's be honest — we all know insurance adopts technology at a speed of 0.1× compared with the rest of the world. When the world is moving toward no-code workflows, instant software creation, and autonomous systems, insurers are only now preparing to give GenAI controlled access to production environments.

The gap is not just between tech and customers; it is between tech and talent.

Instead of using technology to free people for higher-value work, we often use people to compensate for the lack of technology. That's where the fear of AI comes from. It's not just, "Will AI replace my work?" It's also, "Have we allowed our roles to become so basic that any decent system could replace them?"

The Age of Innovation

We are already in a world shaped by Web 3.0, emerging platforms and decentralized technologies. Bitcoin's rise is just one signal of how digital value and infrastructure are shifting. On top of this, AI is accelerating innovation at a speed the industry has never seen before.

In this environment, insurers do not have the option to "wait and watch". They will be forced to adopt technology and create products that match how people actually live, work and transact today.

Innovation will not grow linearly; it will grow exponentially with the help of AI.

Automation will not be a luxury; it will be a necessity.

With open-source AI tools, startups can build, iterate and launch at a fraction of the cost and time. This new tech wave can easily create the next 10 major insurance players for the world—born digital, data-native and globally connected from day one.

In the future, most people will have their own AI agent helping them choose the right policies from hundreds of options. Most interactions—advice, onboarding, even parts of claims—could happen through VR or AR environments, especially for complex or high-value risks.

Behind the scenes, risk and portfolio decisions will rely on far more computing power than today, with advanced simulation and optimization. At the same time, connections between insurance and reinsurance will become more streamlined, with better data-sharing, real-time insights, and smarter capital allocation.

Leadership Choices in a Legacy World

Some leaders still believe that sticking to legacy systems and old processes is the safest path. They focus on short-term stability, minimal change and being answerable upwards, rather than looking ahead.

And this creates another silent problem — there is no real plan to make the transition easier for the next generation of leaders. Very few leaders think 10 years ahead. They avoid solving foundational issues like unstructured data, fragmented systems, or outdated architecture. But if today's leaders don't streamline data, modernize infrastructure, and clean the technical debt, how will the next leader build, innovate, or scale?

Without this groundwork, every new initiative becomes a retrofit, every improvement becomes a patch.

On top of that, most organizations don't have a clear plan to upskill employees before introducing new technology. Instead of preparing talent for next-level work, new tools get dropped in suddenly. This creates anxiety, resistance, and the fear of being replaced. A thoughtful, long-term upskilling roadmap not only protects employees — it empowers them to drive the transition and elevate the organization to its next stage.

Others think long term. They understand that the next generation of executives will not just "manage operations" but will be expected to embrace innovation, work with AI and data fluently, and redesign how insurance is delivered.

The organizations that win will be the ones where leaders:

• Invest in modern platforms instead of patching legacy systems forever
• Empower teams to experiment, automate and simplify
• Build long-term upskilling plans so employees grow with the technology
• Prepare future executives to operate in a world where AI, Web 3.0 and virtual interactions are normal, not experimental

The choice is simple: either leadership shapes the transition, or the transition happens to them.

A Future No One Wants to Miss

If we get this right, the future of insurance is not something to fear—it's a future no one will want to miss.

Insurance will work much more globally than it does today. Risks will not only be priced and held locally; they can be pooled globally, with capital, data and exposure flowing more smoothly across borders.

With the help of Web 3.0 and digital identity, we may see unique decentralized IDs created for individuals, businesses and even digital assets. These IDs can carry verified risk information, claims history, behavior patterns and coverage details in a secure, portable way. That means faster underwriting, smarter risk selection and better pricing for those who manage risk well.

For customers, protection becomes something that quietly works in the background—across countries, platforms and channels—instead of a one-time, paperwork-heavy transaction.

At the same time, insurers may rely on an entire army of AI agents to handle day-to-day tasks: answering queries, comparing products, monitoring exposures, flagging anomalies, and triggering workflows. These agents will effectively act on behalf of both the insurer and the customer.

That raises a new question for the industry: we won't just be insuring people and organizations — we will also need to think about how to insure the agents and the risks created by their decisions, errors, or failures.

As more processes are automated and more intelligence is built into systems, something important happens on the human side: we actually get more time and space to think.

More time to:

• Discover what risks and needs are emerging
• Innovate types of coverage and services
• Design better experiences for both physical and virtual worlds

AI, automation and advanced computing handle the volume and speed. Humans handle the nuance and direction.

Final Thoughts

The future will not argue with any of us.

We can continue to debate whether Al will really reach certain capabilities, whether regulators will permit specific models, or whether customers will fully trust automated decisions. Many of these discussions are valid and necessary.

But some trends do not wait for our full intellectual comfort. They advance quietly through small projects, pilot programs and incremental upgrades.

The future does not require large numbers of people to keep legacy processes alive. It requires fewer people doing higher-value work, supported by smarter tools and more connected systems.

Farmers have been managing the risks to productivity throughout human history, for example by selecting the most appropriate choice of crop to plant according to state of soil moisture at the time. This is efficient, dynamic risk management the old-fashioned way.

From the late 19th century, the traditional way of protecting against the risks of perils, including hail, drought, flood, frost, heatwave and windstorm, has been indemnity insurance.

But just as farming techniques have evolved, farmers today benefit from new sources of data and technology, combined with alternative risk transfer options, to better protect their interests. What's more, these alternative solutions can allow farming supply chain partners, from processors, manufacturers and retailers, to protect their particular interest in the primary inputs into global food and beverage industries.

What obstacles do farmers face with traditional insurance?

Traditional crop insurances rely on accurate measurements taken at field or farm level. However, visiting farms and fields, often in remote locations, can prove time-consuming and may not give farmers the payouts they need to recover from losses when they need them.

Also, if a loss event is widespread, affecting many growers at the same time, there may not be enough experienced individuals to carry out the necessary loss evaluation work fast enough.

That's when alternative insurance arrangements, such as parametric solutions, can benefit both farmers and their supply chain partners.

What benefits do parametric solutions offer farmers?

Parametric solutions differ from more traditional, indemnity-based insurance contracts. They don't rely on on-the-ground loss adjustment because there is no need to prove loss, as in indemnity insurance. Instead, the insurance contract provides a payment based on a threshold being met on a pre-agreed scale or index. Such an index may be quite simple, for example the millimeters of rainfall recorded during the growing season or a critical part of it. Indices can also be temperature based: how many hot (or cold) days at prescribed temperatures are recorded.

Parametric insurance also differs from traditional insurance because payments are made automatically when contract terms have been met, without any need to 'claim' in the conventional sense. While the index will have been calibrated to reflect conditions that are likely to have caused a crop loss, the actual condition of the crop and resulting harvest are not considered when the payment is calculated.

Parametric solutions can be applied in varying forms and to address distinct risks that affect the supply chain, including cropping (both annual and perennial) and also livestock, aquaculture and forestry.

How can satellite technology and parametric insurance protect farming supply chains?

The routine availability of remotely observed data from satellite sources removes the need for insurers to visit the location of the insured assets for either risk or loss assessment. Such data sources let insurers measure vegetation health and evidence of burning remotely.

Such data, when combined with parametric insurance arrangements, enables interested parties up and down the food chain to protect their interests. If your business relies, for example, on the successful harvest of coffee in Brazil but you're not the grower of that coffee crop, you can still protect your interest with an appropriately designed parametric contract.

Traditional contracts of insurance are typically regulated so the policyholder must have an 'insurable interest' and, in the event of a claim against the policy, to show a 'proof of loss.' Parametric contracts can operate outside traditional constraints. This flexibility enables partners across supply chains to achieve a broader range of risk management objectives.

How can farmers take the first step toward parametric insurance?

Parametric insurance may sound complicated and sophisticated, but, in practice, almost the reverse may be true. While it may take the careful input of highly skilled experts to construct such products and to ensure they are fit for purpose, for the end user they should be easy to understand with payments, when due, being swiftly settled.

If you're a farmer or would like to explore protecting an agricultural supply chain partner with parametric insurance, your first step would be to assess your supply chains and their vulnerabilities. Geospatial analytical tools, for example, can help you quantify the likelihood and severity of multiple perils across global supply chains.

The insurance industry has spent years talking about modernization. Strategies drafted, budgets allocated, and pilot programs launched. But after early progress, momentum is slowing—and for many carriers, stalling altogether. The result is an industry caught between ambition and execution, where the cost of standing still grows with each passing quarter.

Recent data from West Monroe's survey of 300 insurance executives reveals a distinct pattern: while nearly every carrier has modernization plans in motion, few are making meaningful progress. 20% have defined strategies but haven't advanced execution. Another 12% remain in early planning stages. The most jarring: two-thirds of insurers expect it will take another three to seven years just to move core systems to the cloud, with 14% having no timeline at all.

This goes beyond technology. It's a business risk that's compounding with each passing quarter.

The Legacy Tax Is Draining Innovation Capacity

The clearest evidence of stalled momentum shows up in budget allocation. More than half of insurers now spend 51-75% of their IT budgets simply keeping existing systems operational. This "legacy tax" creates a self-reinforcing cycle: aging systems require more maintenance, leaving less capital for transformation, which in turn allows those systems to age further.

The impact is measurable. In the past 12 months alone, 52% of organizations delayed or canceled two to three strategic technology programs due to budget constraints. These programs include data governance improvements, AI capabilities, and customer experience enhancements that would position carriers for future competition.

Many insurers are still running core operations on COBOL, a language older than most of their customers. More than half report between six and 15 mission-critical COBOL modules still in production, revealing how deeply legacy code runs through their systems. This dependency exposes a major contradiction: organizations may have modern customer-facing experiences, yet their back-end processes remain anchored to aging infrastructure that limits scalability, agility, and speed.

Closing that gap requires more than new tools—it takes a clear modernization strategy that balances innovation with operational stability.

Speed Matters, And It's Slipping

The operational consequences of stalled modernization are impossible to ignore. 41% of executives say their critical data is only available when needed, not in real time. That lag translates directly into competitive disadvantage.

Consider the pace of basic operations: 48% report it takes 16 to 30 days to complete a rate indication assessment. Nearly half say it takes nine to 16 weeks to launch even a minor product endorsement. In a market where competitors can respond to emerging risks in days, not months, this kind of delay erodes competitive positioning.

In a market defined by speed, the ability to act in real time is becoming a key differentiator—separating those who capture growth from those still optimizing for stability.

The AI Paradox: Investing in Tools Without Foundations

Perhaps nowhere is the momentum problem more evident than in artificial intelligence adoption. Nearly 60% of insurers report being past the pilot stage with generative AI, yet most deployments remain small-scale and fragmented. Claims leads slightly with 30% actively piloting tools, while underwriting shows 27% still in proof-of-concept.

The stall is structural, not technical. Organizations that haven't invested in platform and data modernization face mounting costs and complexity. Large-scale transformations of policy administration, billing, and claims systems are creating more tech debt, pushing carriers further behind.

When asked about barriers to AI adoption, respondents pointed overwhelmingly to human factors: 24% cited resistance to change, 23% struggled with unclear value propositions, and 20% pointed to poor user experience. Only 13% identified technical issues as the primary obstacle.

This reveals the core challenge: insurers are trying to scale AI on foundations that weren't built for it. Without modern data governance, unified platforms, and streamlined processes, even sophisticated AI tools remain trapped in pilots instead of powering real underwriting and claims improvements.

Business and IT Misalignment Multiplies the Problem

Momentum stalls when priorities diverge. While 40% of organizations report "some alignment" between business and IT, that qualification signals trouble. Critical disconnects remain, and those gaps slow decision-making, blur accountability, and fragment modernization efforts across competing initiatives.

The data shows this misalignment in action. When asked about primary modernization objectives, 36% said improving customer experience, yet when budget allocation was examined, customer digital experience ranked last in funding priority. Meanwhile, 30% are betting on GenAI and advanced analytics, but 28% acknowledge their data layer and governance must mature first.

This represents an execution gap. Without shared ownership between business and IT, modernization risks solving for technology instead of solving for customers. The organizations breaking through are those that have hard-wired collaboration into their operating model, ensuring priorities and budgets move in lockstep.

Breaking the Stall Requires Strategic Focus

Momentum doesn't return through incremental adjustments. It requires strategic recalibration. Carriers gaining ground have stopped treating modernization as a technology initiative and started treating it as a business imperative tied to measurable outcomes.

That means rebalancing spend away from maintenance toward platforms that reduce future technical debt. It means building data governance that enables speed, not just compliance. And it means aligning business and IT not just in planning sessions, but in budget cycles, decision rights, and accountability structures.

Most critically, it requires accepting that modernization timelines measured in half-decades are no longer viable. When asked what would happen if modernization efforts froze for 24 months, 45% predicted significant competitive disadvantage. Yet nearly one in five believed a freeze would have minimal effect, a perception gap that signals how far some organizations still are from connecting technology strategy to business outcomes.

Those Who Move First Will Define What's Next

Momentum can't be restarted by chance—it has to be rebuilt with intent. The carriers regaining speed are the ones tackling legacy debt, modernizing data foundations, and aligning business and IT around a shared vision. With these foundations in place, AI and emerging technologies can do more than pilot—they can accelerate real performance and growth. For insurers, restoring momentum isn't just about catching up; it's about setting the pace for what comes next.

As we enter 2026, the insurance industry faces one of the most significant technology shifts in decades. After years of patchwork upgrades, costly integrations, and cautious experimentation with artificial intelligence (AI), the pressure to modernize has become urgent. Economic, regulatory, and technological forces are converging to make modernization a business imperative. Several forces will define insurance technology in 2026:

• Modernization will continue to drive profitability through tax incentives, operational efficiency, and cloud adoption.
• Regulators will further enable responsible innovation while maintaining accountability.
• AI adoption will reward readiness — carriers with modern infrastructure and unified, real-time data will gain further speed, insight, and competitive advantage.
• U.S. software will regain global leadership as domestic platforms expand adoption in Europe and the U.K.

Carriers that act decisively know they will reduce costs, accelerate innovation, and improve competitiveness — and they're already moving ahead with modernization projects. Those that delay will struggle with systems that cannot support growth or meet rising customer expectations. The next 12 months will be critical. The gap between modernized and legacy-bound carriers will widen as AI, regulation, and economics all reward readiness.

The Cost of Legacy

For decades, insurers have been burdened by legacy systems built for a different era before application programming interfaces (APIs), cloud infrastructure, and real-time analytics became standards. These systems are fragmented, expensive to maintain, and slow to adapt. Every innovation, from digital onboarding to predictive analytics, has been required to work around outdated technology rather than work with it. Maintaining these systems consumes resources that could fund other growth initiatives, accelerate claims processing, and improve the overall customer experience. Operational inefficiency has become a serious liability.

Economic and Regulatory Drivers

Recent U.S. tax legislation, known as OB3, makes modernization more financially attractive. It allows accelerated or immediate write-offs for software, digital infrastructure, and R&D investments, reducing near-term taxable income and freeing capital for technology reinvestment — an advantage for insurers competing in a capital-intensive market. This makes upgrading legacy systems and adopting modern, cloud-native platforms a strategic and financially sound choice.

Regulators are now more apt to remove obstacles for innovation and modernization. They are shifting from purely enforcing compliance to actively enabling insurers to adopt new technologies responsibly. This change in oversight encourages innovation that improves transparency, accuracy, and consumer outcomes. This environment allows carriers to deploy automation, predictive tools, and digital distribution with fewer delays while remaining compliant. These updated oversight practices and flexible frameworks align strategic and regulatory incentives for modernization.

AI Opportunity and Caution

AI promises to accelerate decision-making, improve risk pricing, and enhance the customer experience, but insurers cannot realize these benefits without the right infrastructure. AI is already transforming risk assessment, underwriting, claims triage, fraud detection, and customer engagement. Generative AI assists with policy drafting, marketing, and document automation. However, many carriers are unprepared to deploy these tools effectively. Legacy systems, siloed data, and fragmented architectures limit integration and data accessibility and the ability to scale AI effectively.

Many AI systems rely on shared or external models that continuously learn from the data they receive. Without careful governance, insurers could inadvertently share proprietary information with platforms that also serve competitors. Cloud-native architectures, unified data strategies, open APIs, and robust data governance are prerequisites for effective AI deployment.

Forward-looking carriers treat AI as a multiplier of modernization rather than a cure-all. Unified platforms enable real-time data across underwriting, claims, and customer service. On this foundation, AI accelerates decision-making, improves risk pricing, and enhances customer experience.

2026 Marks The Year Modernization Becomes A Business Imperative

Modern, seamless technology is available and proven. Fiscal incentives are clear. Regulatory flexibility is aligned. 2026 is the year modernization will define who will flourish and who will flounder. Carriers with iconic leaders will make decisions that will catapult them ahead of complacent competitors who will be reduced to the scrap heap of black and white televisions and legacy software providers.

Carriers that modernize core systems, unify data, and make informed AI decisions will build the foundation for long-term competitiveness, achieving operational efficiency, sharper insights, better risk pricing, and faster time to market. AI will amplify the benefits for those who are prepared and expose inefficiencies for those who are not.

The pursuit of excellence is a curse that only innovation can cure. There is no cure for the complacent and the abyss awaits.

As someone who has spent the last two decades in insurance, I've witnessed the perennial struggle faced by carriers and agencies alike: you have enormous volumes of data, legacy systems built on silos, and you're making many of your strategic decisions based on reports that are weeks, sometimes even months, old. The issue isn't access to data. It's the inability to analyze and operationalize that data in real time.

In the world of insurance, the ability to access and act on insights as events unfold is fast becoming the new "power center" of leadership. Why? Three key reasons: agility, precision, and control.

Agility

The pace of change in this industry is accelerating, especially since Covid-19 forced companies to take a hard look at their digital strategy. Shifting consumer expectations, compressed margins, evolving incentive structures, and new distribution models require leaders to respond quickly. Yet most still rely on batch reports pulled manually from core systems.

According to one recent insight, many insurers remain hamstrung by systems that cannot deliver analysis in real time, forcing backward-looking decisions. Real-time analytics can eliminate that delay. Instead of waiting for month-end or quarter-end reporting cycles, leaders can monitor performance as it happens, whether it's agent productivity, product mix shifts, lead conversion trends, or persistency drops.

Precision 

In today's world, precision is required to understand patterns like:

• Which products are driving the highest lifetime value?
• Which agents are trending toward lower persistence?
• Where are revenue leaks occurring?
• Where is there early evidence of chargebacks or clawbacks that will erode revenue?

These are some core questions that leaders grapple with daily, and they can't be answered with static spreadsheets. When analytics are available to them in real time, leaders can spot early signals before they turn into financial problems.

Control

For decades, core systems for commissions, reporting, policy administration, and field performance have been disconnected. The result: fractured visibility and slow response times. With real-time analytics unifying these workflows, leaders can intervene earlier, forecast more accurately and coach more effectively. Imagine giving agents visibility into their own earnings trajectory and book of business health or regional leaders having live dashboards highlighting where risks are emerging or products are outperforming.

The implication for leadership is profound. If you don't make real-time analytics a core capability, you're ceding strategic advantage.

Picture a distribution network where you don't wait for quarterly performance reviews or manual data pulls. Instead, you see live indicators of channel performance, emerging lapse risks, commission anomalies, and revenue movement. You can intervene the moment an issue surfaces, not weeks later.

This is the shift: from reacting to yesterday's insights to orchestrating today's outcomes.

Real-time analytics are no longer a "nice to have." For insurance distribution leaders, they define who will operate reactively and who will lead.

For many seniors, the constant ringing of the phone has become a part of daily life. Unknown numbers. Out-of-state callers. A cheerful voice promising "burial insurance you can't afford to miss." What most people don't realize is that behind many of these calls sits a high-pressure operation designed to close a sale before a senior ever has the chance to truly understand what they're agreeing to. This is the world of telephonic final expense insurance sales, and over the last decade, it has quietly become one of the most predatory industries targeting older Americans.

Final expense insurance itself isn't the problem. When sold ethically, it's a simple, helpful product meant to ease the burden on families during one of the hardest moments of their lives. But as the industry shifted from local agents meeting families in their homes to large call centers dialing thousands of numbers every day, something important was lost: humanity. What replaced it was a business model built on speed, pressure, and emotional manipulation.

The modern final expense call center looks less like a professional insurance agency and more like a boiler room. Rows of agents sit with headsets, instructed to make as many calls as possible and keep the senior on the line at all costs. The expectation is not to educate, but to convert. Bonuses are tied to fast sales, not good advice. The sooner the agent gets payment information, the better. It's a numbers game, and the senior on the other end of the line is the number.

These operations target the most vulnerable: seniors living alone, those with low incomes, individuals who have recently searched online for burial insurance, and especially those who feel anxious about their health or finances. Once a senior's information enters one of these systems, the calls rarely stop. Some seniors report receiving a dozen calls in a single afternoon. To the call center, persistence is considered "follow-up." To the senior, it often feels like harassment.

The sales tactics used in these calls rely heavily on fear. Agents are trained to emphasize burdens, guilt, and urgency. Phrases like "You don't want your children stuck with your bills, do you?" or "If something happens tomorrow, your family will be unprotected" are common. Seniors who are already worried about their families are pushed further into anxiety. They're led to believe that if they don't act right then—on that very call—they may lose eligibility forever.

Another widespread issue is the way health questions are handled. In order to qualify a senior for a lower premium, some agents simply rush through medical questions, paraphrase them, or answer on behalf of the applicant. A senior may think they're being honest, while the agent quietly checks every box as "no." The client believes they're approved for immediate coverage, but the truth often catches up later—when a claim is denied because the application was completed inaccurately. By then, the agent is long gone, the call center has moved on to new leads, and the family is left with heartbreak.

Even when the policy itself is legitimate, the pricing can be misleading. Many seniors are quoted a very low monthly premium at the beginning of the call, only to learn later—if they notice—that the actual cost is higher. Sometimes the policy issued isn't even the plan discussed. In extreme cases, seniors are tricked into buying accidental death policies, which do not cover natural causes of death at all. The family may not discover this until it's too late.

Another problem with the telephonic model is the "one-call close." Seniors are asked to provide sensitive personal information—full name, date of birth, Social Security number, bank routing number—on the very first call. They are encouraged to enroll before having any time to think, read, or consult a loved one. Legitimate insurance professionals never behave this way. A rushed enrollment helps the call center, not the senior.

What happens after the sale is often just as concerning. Many call center agents move on quickly, never staying long enough to build a client relationship. Seniors who try to reach their original agent often find disconnected numbers or voicemail boxes that are never checked. When beneficiaries need help filing a claim, they are forced to navigate a maze of customer service menus. There is no continuing review, no annual checkup, no personal guidance—just an impersonally issued policy that may or may not fit their needs.

This is not how insurance is supposed to work. At its best, it is a relationship business. It requires trust, honesty, and time. A good agent asks questions, listens carefully, reviews multiple companies, and explains every detail before asking a senior to make a decision. A good agent makes sure the family knows what they're buying and why it matters. A good agent shows up when it's time to file a claim.

So how can seniors protect themselves in an environment where their phones are ringing nonstop with aggressive offers? The first rule is simple: never give financial information on the first call. The second is to ask the agent for their license number and verify it through the state's insurance department. The third is to request written information before enrolling. Ethical agents will always provide it. Seniors should also be wary of high-pressure phrases, sudden deadlines, and promises that feel too good to be true. And finally, if possible, seniors should work with someone local or someone who can be reached directly—not an anonymous voice from a rotating call center queue.

Final expense insurance will always have a place in this world. Families deserve the peace of mind that comes with knowing arrangements are covered. But as long as high-pressure call centers continue to prioritize speed over service, seniors must remain vigilant. Awareness is protection. The more sunlight we shine on these practices, the harder it becomes for predatory operations to hide behind friendly voices and fast talk. Seniors deserve better—at the very least, they deserve the truth.

The frequency and intensity of severe weather events have shifted dramatically, making it harder for insurers to predict and price risk. Once-seasonal catastrophes like wildfires, hurricanes, and hailstorms are now occurring more often and in areas previously considered low-risk.

Devastating events such as the Paradise and Marshall wildfires, Hurricane Helene, and recent widespread hailstorms in cities like Denver and San Antonio illustrate the expanding spectrum of climate-driven losses. According to a major P&C public insurer, in the first half of 2023 alone, there were 43 separate catastrophe events — many below reinsurance thresholds. Texas, Florida, and Colorado accounted for roughly half of all losses, while only six states nationwide went untouched.

Combined with rising costs and population growth in high-risk regions, this volatility is putting mounting pressure on insurers. Many property and casualty (P&C) carriers are scaling back or exiting markets like Florida and California, highlighting how climate risk is fundamentally reshaping the insurance landscape.

To respond effectively, insurers are increasingly turning to hyperlocal weather data.

The Trust Imperative

Weather intelligence at the local level has the potential to improve underwriting, accelerate claims, and reduce uncertainty. Yet adoption remains uneven. Translating raw data into actionable insights, without overcomplicating pricing or eroding policyholder confidence, is still a challenge.

Both insurers and policyholders need to trust the data underlying coverage decisions. Faster, data-driven claims processes depend on confidence that the evidence is accurate and objective. The next wave of innovation is likely to come from bridging this trust gap, making weather analytics transparent, verifiable, and practical across all stages of insurance operations.

A Turning Point for Insurers

At the heart of this challenge is uncertainty. Forecast accuracy has always been central to insurance modeling, but its importance grows as climate volatility rises.

Insurers rely on precise forecasts to anticipate losses, manage exposure, and guide portfolio decisions. Yet weather can change in an instant, and accuracy today goes beyond hit rates. It requires understanding the probabilistic nature of events and quantifying the likelihood of different outcomes.

A small snowstorm may be manageable in Chicago but catastrophic in Atlanta, affecting auto claims, emergency response, and ultimately premiums. By combining AI-driven ensemble modeling with expert meteorological analysis, insurers can produce forecasts that are both precise and actionable for their unique geographic footprints. Probabilistic forecasting turns such uncertainty into measurable, manageable risk.

These advances come at an inflection point. While insurtechs have introduced new technologies, scaling these innovations depends on the financial strength and operational expertise of traditional P&C insurers. Established carriers have the capital, data infrastructure, and institutional knowledge to withstand climate volatility and actively drive innovation.

Historically, commercial insurance centered on reducing risk for business policyholders. Today, AI and expansive weather and property datasets bring that same precision to highly localized levels. Insurers can tailor policies to the risks of individual communities, or even individual homes, shifting from reactive recovery to proactive risk reduction.

This transition marks a broader transformation in the industry: moving from managing losses after they occur to anticipating and mitigating risk before it happens.

Faster, More Predictable Coverage

Parametric, or event-based insurance exemplifies this evolution. Once considered niche, it has gained prominence as extreme weather becomes more frequent. Parametric coverage provides faster, more predictable payouts while limiting insurers' downside risk and keeping coverage affordable. Unlike traditional policies, parametric products are triggered by measurable thresholds — such as rainfall, wind speed, or hail size — rather than the extent of physical damage.

Trusted, high-resolution sources with deep historical records ensure fair and accurate payouts. When executed correctly, parametric coverage eliminates the need for on-the-ground adjusters and accelerates claims, offering policyholders transparency and speed when every hour after a loss matters.

Forensic meteorology, long a trusted courtroom tool, is also evolving. Certified meteorologists have historically reconstructed weather events to corroborate claims. Today, timestamped, high-resolution data from lightning sensors, mesonets, radar, satellites, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), synthetic aperture radar, and drones enhances precision and objectivity.

Ground truth remains critical. Many modern models approximate conditions, but insurers need verifiable, physical data for high-stakes decisions. Combining human expertise with advanced sensing technology accelerates claim validation, detects potential fraud, and ensures fairness for both policyholders and carriers.

Bridging Tech, Science, and Strategy

The challenge isn't just having data; it's translating it into action. Too often, information is delivered in an "over-the-wall" fashion, leaving insurers struggling to interpret or integrate insights effectively.

By combining deep meteorological knowledge with an understanding of operational realities, carriers can identify the signals that matter most for underwriting, claims, and risk modeling. When science and strategy align, insurers can move from reacting to proactively managing the weather's impact. Structured, repeatable processes allow carriers to deploy data where it matters most, improving decision-making and strengthening customer outcomes.

Insurers are investing heavily in AI, machine learning, cloud computing, data acquisition, APIs, and complementary technologies like robotic process automation, low-code platforms, IoT, and blockchain. Together, these systems create a more connected and intelligent insurance ecosystem.

Generative AI can simulate countless weather and loss scenarios, enabling insurers to anticipate risks, prevent claims before they occur, and uncover patterns human analysts might miss. AI-driven analytics also transform personalization and fraud detection. From targeted marketing campaigns to prescriptive insights for individual policyholders, these tools allow carriers to evolve from broad risk models to precise, data-informed strategies. Agents can make faster, smarter decisions, while direct-to-consumer carriers can craft hyperlocal policies reflecting a property's true exposure profile.

The Era of Climate Resilience

The convergence of hyperlocal weather data, probabilistic forecasting, forensic meteorology, parametric insurance, and AI-driven analytics is ushering in a new era of climate resilience. Insurers today are actively shaping how society anticipates, prepares for, and responds to extreme events.

Precision, trust, and actionability have become the backbone of modern risk management, enabling both policyholders and carriers to navigate an increasingly volatile climate with confidence.

The MGA market is outpacing the broader P&C sector, fueled by specialized expertise, speed, and innovation that help close the protection gap. But as next-gen, AI-enabled MGAs raise the bar, many still rely on legacy systems that slow growth and limit agility. To stay competitive, MGAs need modern foundations that drive scalability, efficiency, and innovation.

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