Sandra Said is the Vice President and Head of Global Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Operations and Reporting at Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated (RGA).

Paul Carroll

How does RGA define an emerging risk?

Sandra Said

RGA defines an emerging risk as a new or evolving risk that is difficult to assess and could impact the life and health insurance industry and RGA’s strategy.

Paul Carroll

What are some of the most significant emerging risks facing (re)insurers today?

Sandra Said

The risk landscape continues to evolve rapidly, shaped by a widening array of economic and social forces. Many of these risks are increasingly systemic and interconnected.

Among the most significant emerging risks are AI-related, geoeconomic confrontation, unsettled regulatory and legal environments, technological acceleration, and global inflation shocks. Each of these risks present unique challenges that can impact the stability, operations, and strategic direction of (re)insurers globally.

Paul Carroll

How does AI pose a risk to the insurance industry?

Sandra Said

Threat actors are increasingly using AI to rapidly adapt attack methods and deploy sophisticated tools, such as deepfake voice and image generation capabilities. This escalation in AI-enabled cyberattacks is creating a growing risk of more frequent and damaging cyber incidents. AI-enhanced threats are a growing concern due to their ability to adapt quickly, evade detection, and autonomously exploit vulnerabilities. 

For (re)insurers, this means a higher frequency and intensity of attacks and increased risk of data breaches, operational disruptions, and reputational damage. Since the industry relies heavily on secure digital infrastructure for several core processes, a successful cyberattack could undermine financial stability and erode client trust.

(Re)insurers should continue to educate employees about deepfakes and social engineering, proactively monitor adversarial tactics, and protect data to prevent attacks. Companies should, among other things, adapt processes involving financial transactions or sensitive data transfer to include multiple verification steps for appropriate mitigation.

Paul Carroll

Can you explain the impact of geoeconomic confrontation on (re)insurers?

Sandra Said

The risk of increased tension among some major global economies, including political polarizations, may have a negative impact on global trade and growth. Trade tensions, economic sanctions, and shifting alliances can disrupt international business relationships and cause shifts in economic conditions. For (re)insurers operating globally, this can lead to currency fluctuations, market volatility, and challenges in complying with differing regulatory requirements across regions. Increasing uncertainty means decisions may need to be made before all desired information is known. These factors may increase operational costs and require nimble risk management strategies.

Paul Carroll

Why is an unsettled regulatory and legal environment considered a major risk?

Sandra Said

Regulatory changes across jurisdictions can affect financial institutions’ operating models, business operations, and capital requirements, to name a few. The evolving landscape, especially regarding data privacy and emerging technologies, demands constant vigilance and adaptation. Increased compliance requirements may create a drain on financial resources, while non-compliance can damage reputation and attract regulatory scrutiny.

While regulatory shifts can drive innovation, they may also introduce complexity and uncertainty, potentially impacting strategic decisions and financial performance.

(Re)insurers may need to prioritize strategies for proactive regulatory engagement, integrating government relations into business units and anticipating regulatory obligations to stay ahead of changes. 

Paul Carroll

How does technological acceleration affect (re)insurers?

Sandra Said

Rapid technological change brings both opportunities and threats. (Re)insurers need to develop and retain the right talent – those who have the technical skills along with the knowledge of the company, its technical capabilities, and its ways of working. Ensuring a talent pipeline exists within the organization is key, including robust succession planning to build the next generation of digital skills necessary following retirements and attrition.

The experience and skills needed to build emerging technology solutions are in high demand to support changing business needs. The challenge lies in integrating new technologies effectively; failure to do so can impact competitiveness and operational efficiency. Increased digitalization also heightens the importance of data privacy and regulatory compliance.

(Re)insurers may take a proactive approach to technology adoption, while balancing innovation exploration (through monitoring and proof-of-concepts) with security and compliance considerations.

Paul Carroll

What steps can (re)insurers take to address these emerging risks?

Sandra Said

Agile and responsive risk management is essential. Integrating emerging risk insights into strategic planning and developing targeted action plans is no longer a “nice-to-have”; it is a strategic imperative. Equally, fostering a culture of risk awareness and knowledge sharing helps ensure emerging risks are openly communicated throughout the organization. 

At RGA, we have designed and implemented an online platform for enterprise-wide collaboration and information sharing. Education sessions delivered by subject matter experts throughout RGA help cascade knowledge about these emerging risks across the enterprise. Such proactive engagement with cross-functional experts and ongoing education can help organizations anticipate challenges, seize opportunities, and maintain a competitive edge in a complex global environment.

In addition, scenario analysis enables (re)insurers to evaluate how emerging risks might impact their business under different future conditions. By conducting this analysis, organizations can develop proactive strategies and contingency plans to ensure readiness when these scenarios materialize. They also can – and should – establish early warning indicators that serve as alerts when potential risk scenarios begin to unfold.

Insurance is not an easy market. We operate under tight deadlines, low margins, and a fair bit of uncertainty that takes a toll on our focus and capacity. This must change. Customer expectations have risen, and there is a growing demand for transparency and empathy in the decisions we make. This is why 'responsible underwriting' is the need of the hour.

I was a panelist at a recent Send webinar along with Haley Robinson, NED and advisor to the commercial and specialty market, and Russell Brown, principal at Safe Harbor Insurance. Together, we unpacked how insurers can protect margins while delivering value to customers. Here are some insights from our discussion that can be translated into actionable strategies in 2026.

Balance profitability and customer-centricity.

This is non-negotiable. There can be a strong urge to overaccommodate to meet targets, especially if the underwriter is new to the industry. This is where underwriters must hold their ground and be transparent on what they can write and what they cannot. To earn the trust of customers, underwriters must be consistent, fair, and clear. However, Haley Robinson reinforced a fundamental truth that ultimately, sustainable profitability is essential. With discipline, underwriters can gauge when to be flexible and when to say no to deliver long-term value to customers and retain profitability.

The AI era: The best time for underwriters

There has not been a better time to be an underwriter than today. Two decades ago, all an underwriter had was a pen and paper. Today, underwriting workbenches can ingest broker submissions, cleanse data, benchmark risks, and much more. AI represents a major change in the industry. AI is creating an ecosystem where underwriters can reduce administrative tasks and focus on writing business. This can help underwriters show a transparent picture to the client and give them a tailored customer experience. But I still caution the industry that underwriters must remain curious and skeptical about using AI. Just because a pricing engine gives you a number doesn't mean it's right. Tools must guide decisions and not dictate them.

Empower the next generation of underwriters with soft skills.

Russell Brown pointed out how underwriters today have major training gaps that prevent them from being critical thinkers. I agree with him. I recall how I was part of programs earlier on in my career that focused on communication, negotiation, and relationship building. I do feel that today's underwriters are over-reliant on digital communication. In my opinion, effective underwriters are those who combine strong technical skills with confidence to engage directly with clients, especially with large commercial lines. So AI is indeed a blessing as it reduces administrative work and allows junior underwriters to spend more time observing, engaging, and developing situational judgment.

Responsible underwriting is the only way forward.

As we move ahead, new industries and businesses are emerging. Insurers must support innovation by withstanding risks and moving capital to those who need it. I agree with Haley Robinson when she says, "If something is covered and it's clearly covered, we must pay quickly and in full." Insurers who have a good reputation for paying claims that are valid are the ones that will win in the future.

At its core, insurance is a promise, and responsible underwriting means keeping up the promise. As AI and technology reshapes workflows, the true test of success will be insurers who can combine data-driven insights with empathy, integrity, and accountability. By doing this, responsible underwriting will be both a strategic advantage and a promise delivered.

While cyber threats are coming at business from every angle, cyber insurance policies have been able to hold their ground, and they look like they will continue to do so into 2026.

As a whole, cyber policies are generally available and relatively still affordable for most businesses. Most companies can obtain cyber insurance unless they have a severe open claim or extremely poor controls, said Katie Pope, Esq., senior vice president, executive lines for The Liberty Company Insurance Brokers.

"Even insureds with significant loss history are often able to find competitive options because capacity is plentiful and many new entrants are competing for market share," Pope said.

And that is good news for businesses because according to a 2025 study, there were over 3,000 reported cyber incidents with small businesses in the last year, and 75% involved ransomware.

In that environment, even businesses on the smaller side are recognizing they need cyber coverage.

"On the claims side, the cyber insurance landscape continues to evolve quickly," said Mitch Miles CISSP, CISA, with Shoreline Public Adjusters.

Ransomware and tracking claims continue to be the primary loss drivers. The shift from cyber risk as a hypothetical concern to a real one is a reality many businesses are grappling with.

Typical risks include

• Ransomware
• Data breach
• Network attacks
• Phishing
• Social engineering
• Cyber intrusion

The healthcare space seems to have a uniquely high risk profile, with more exposure than nearly any other sector. That is because it is not only high stakes, but the consequences of a health care breach are rife with the risk of fines and class action suits from the affected patients.

Regardless of sector, one of the biggest questions following a cyber incident seems to be clarity on who is on the hook for which type of claim. Depending on policy language, this could result in coverage disputes that could be prolonged and may even find their way into mediation or court.

"Once a claim is filed, coverage interpretation is often where the most significant disputes arise," Miles said. "From a claims perspective, the core challenge is rarely whether an incident occurred. Instead, the dispute usually centers on whether the loss fits within narrowly drafted coverage triggers."

Beyond sorting out who is at fault, many insurers are leaning in and working directly with policyholders before an incident to prevent the losses in the first place. Many are demanding best practices and security protocols, and others are providing their policyholders with tools they can use to fight back against the cyber criminals.

"Underwriting remains highly selective," Miles said. "Insurers are placing far greater emphasis on the actual enforcement of security controls, such as multifactor authentication, backup integrity, and incident response readiness, rather than relying solely on completed questionnaires."

As cyber risks evolve, policies are needing to adapt to respond; take cloud outages, AI agents, and deep fakes.

With cloud outages, businesses and insurers are now scrambling to clarify the details of their coverage to see who, if anyone, might be on the hook to reimburse for any losses.

When the high-profile Hong Kong deepfake incident went down, where a finance worker was duped into making a multimillion-dollar transfer based on a video call with two of his colleagues who turned out to actually be deepfakes, insurers the world over wondered how their policies would hold up under a similar attack.

And with AI agents operating autonomously, businesses now face a new layer of risk. Previously the question was what happens if a human clicks the wrong link, but now with autonomous agents, entire suites of tools might now be at risk where they might not have been in the past.

That said, some of these risks are still largely theoretical.

"Everyone is fearful of AI-related cyber claims, but we haven't actually seen many cyber losses directly tied to AI yet," Pope said.

Moving forward, many in the industry are expecting more aggressive carrier subrogation efforts to try to spread the risks throughout the value chain.

And as cyber claims mature, the industry conversation has shifted from simply asking, "Do you have cyber insurance?" to the far more critical question: "Do you understand how your policy will actually respond when it's under stress?" Miles said.

The hard market, which we're hopefully exiting, had its origins in 2018. This is likely a surprise to many readers because rates didn't begin to accelerate until approximately three to four years later.

All hard markets originate with a lack of surplus. Profits, or the lack thereof, typically have nothing to do with hard markets. No matter how long, forceful, and even believable the testimonies given by insurance companies are that their lack of profits cause a hard market, don't believe them. Most people preaching this have drunk the Kool-Aid and don't know any better. They're not purposely misrepresenting the situation. They are just ignorant.

If profits were the issue, carriers would not have been profitable 31 of the last 32 years. If profits were the issue, carriers would not have made record profits the previous two years. By "record," I mean ginormous profits the last two years, and preliminary numbers suggest 2025 profits will be huge, as well. Carriers as a whole have not experienced profit problems for decades.

Hard markets are a result of inadequate surplus. The most obvious aspect of a hard market is how expensive insurance becomes. Why is this? Because there is less competition. Why is there less competition? Because some companies were mismanaged and lost their surplus. Without strong operational surplus, carriers cannot afford to grow, so they quit competing for business.

Ever wonder why carrier reps tell you about how they want to write all this and that, but everything you submit gets rejected? Sometimes it's because the submissions are not quality, but other times, especially lately, it is because a carrier does not possess adequate surplus.

The reason carriers as a whole lacked surplus in 2018 is because they forewent the largest purchase of reinsurance likely in history. This means they severely reduced the amount of reinsurance they purchased. Some carriers almost quit buying reinsurance. The effect was so pronounced that carriers overall doubled their net written premium growth rate. Their direct growth rate that year was approximately 5%, but their net growth rate was almost 11%. The only way this happens is when carriers quit buying as much reinsurance. My research into individual carriers supports this paradigm change. The overall surplus to net premiums written decreased by approximately 10% as a result.

The carriers may have explained their actions by stating that the reinsurance was too expensive. It was only too costly for them. It's like someone who has squandered their paycheck on non-essentials saying eating is too expensive. It is too expensive for them, but not for financially responsible people.

Another fascinating correlation to me was how the reinsurers thought, "If primary carriers do not want to buy reinsurance, what should we do with all our capital? Let's invest in MGAs!" In 2018, surplus lines growth was double-digit and has remained double-digit ever since; moreover, it has accounted for nearly 100% of all commercial premium growth after adjusting for inflation. This means primary carriers are, as a whole, going backward, becoming less and less important.

This explains why the MGA market has exploded. Reinsurers provided start-up capital and often the marketing rating for their initial products.

The hard market did not start immediately in 2018 for many reasons, including that a hard market takes time to get started. Then COVID hit, resulting in large premium rebates, which caused significant distortions in premium growth. Carriers had time to rebuild the surplus they lost from buying so much less reinsurance, but in 2022, they made terrible investment decisions. For unknown reasons, they decided interest rates would not increase and might even decrease. When interest rates increased, the value of their surplus dived, resulting in one of the most significant losses of surplus in insurance history. The losses had nothing to do with nuclear verdicts or catastrophic storms. It was caused entirely by bad investment decisions.

Surplus to premiums has decreased each year since. While carriers have made record profits the last two years, they have not left the money in surplus. They paid shareholders or executives, or maybe wasted it, but they did not leave enough in surplus to rebuild it. The surplus ratio at the end of 2024 was the lowest it has been likely since 2001.

This is also due to the rapid increase in rates. If a carrier has a $1 surplus to $2 premium ratio and loses 25% of its surplus (and some companies lost more than this in 2022), they now have a $0.75 surplus to $2 premium ratio. If rates increase by 10%, the ratio goes to $0.75 to $2.20. Leverage goes from 0.5 to 0.3, or in reciprocal terms, it goes from 2 to 1 to 2.2 to 0.75, an increase of 40%. That is a considerable increase and enough to cause a hard market or keep a market hard.

Another aspect of this market is that a few carriers are better managed than most. Berkshire finished 2024 with nearly 28% of all surplus in the entire industry. There were around 1,100 carriers in 2024. If Berkshire's surplus is removed, the remaining carriers' leverage increases significantly. Berkshire's surplus position skews the entire industry's results.

Progressive also skews the industry's results. If Progressive had started from scratch 24 months ago, it would already be the 10th (out of 1,100 carriers) largest by net premiums written. It is also, of the larger carriers, the most profitable on an underwriting basis. Its growth and profitability skew the industry's overall underwriting results.

Going forward, the market should soften if carriers leave profits in surplus. But the recovery will be hugely uneven because the hole many carriers have dug for themselves has only two exits: The carrier ceases to exist or they sell all or part of themselves. We've seen a lot of activity where carriers have sold off assets in the last 24 months, and simultaneously, many mutuals effectively de-mutualize so they could sell equity. Selling equity always entails selling parts of the company. Many of those companies will be sold entirely because they don't have the wherewithal to compete with the well-run carriers.

The barriers to entry are so low that in the immediate future, many tiny carriers will be created. These may be standard insurance companies, RRGs, or captives, but they will be small. Small can be beneficial for being nimble, or scary simply because they are small. The best-run larger carriers, though, will become dominant. The top 10 carriers already write more than 50% of all net premiums, and the top 90 out of 1,100 write almost 90% of all premiums. Approximately 500 carriers are unimportant and have no material future. With the barriers to entry so low on every level, financial, regulatory, and IT, I don't believe the number of carriers will decrease, but the number of important carriers will be limited. This is especially true for superfluous, small, admitted carriers because of the growth of surplus lines.

The rest of the industry will become more dependent on these larger, well-managed companies. This does not mean all the large carriers will become more important. Several are horribly run and working hard to become irrelevant. But some of the carriers ranked between 11 and 50 by net premiums are run by high-quality people, they have surplus, and they will be taking the place of the poorly run carriers, resulting in a stronger cadre of large carriers than we have today.

Whether you are an agent, a carrier, or an insurance industry vendor, it pays to know who the winners and losers will be. 

Insurtech boards often look the same: VCs providing the funding, tech execs offering product wisdom, and a retired insurance CEO from a bluechip org offering access to their network. What's missing? Insurtech operators who've actually built and scaled an insurtech.

This gap matters as insurtechs mature toward profitability. The sector's shift is evident: 57% of UK insurtechs now prioritize cost metrics compared with 29% in 2023. As insurtechs move from disrupting insurance to being insurance companies, the absence of operational expertise creates predictable failures.

The Traditional NED Profile Doesn't Always Fit an Insurtech

Insurance boards traditionally draw non-executive directors (NEDs) from predictable pools: retired CEOs, CFOs, accountants, lawyers, ex-regulators. These profiles bring essential corporate governance—financial oversight, regulatory compliance and crisis management experience—and make sense for mature carriers.

But for insurtechs, there's a critical gap: operational experience in how insurtechs actually work. Insurtechs move fast, iterate weekly, deploy code hourly, operate cloud-native infrastructure, and leverage real-time data for pricing. Most traditional NEDs haven't experienced this reality.

Board Oversight Requires Operational Fluency

You cannot challenge what you don't understand, and you cannot understand what you haven't experienced. Take underwriting. A traditional NED might ask: "Are you rating on the full postcode?" But the question to the executive should be: "What's the key telematics data point that identifies poor driving, then how quickly are you removing drivers?" This requires an understanding of telematics data, real-time risk scoring, and behavioral analytics—having built these systems, not just read about them.

Regulatory relationships: I wore trainers to the GFSC and still secured approvals for Zego Insurance. Not because regulators don't care about professionalism—they do—but they care more intensely about competence, transparency, consumer protections and how an insurance carrier has quantified and manages their risks. The fact that I wore trainers is irrelevant. What mattered most was demonstrating an intimate understanding of underwriting models, capital adequacy, conduct and risk. It's about substance and authenticity, not formality.

Traditional NEDs can sometimes impose processes mismatched to insurtech speed: 200-page quarterly board packs taking weeks to prepare, approval gates slowing decisions, risk frameworks designed for 100-year-old companies applied to three-year-old startups. Not because they're obstructive, but because their experience hasn't equipped them to distinguish proportionality.

This isn't a license to ignore governance. Insurtech operator NEDs who are effective understand that to move fast, this still means robust governance controls, stress testing and customer protections. The best insurtech operator NEDs combine speed of execution with a governance mindset.

When Insurtech Operator NEDs Become Critical

Phase 1 (Seed-Series A, £0-10M): Early stage insurtechs prioritize product-market fit. Board composition appropriately made up of VCs and product/tech executives. Operational insurtech expertise remains advisory. Governance-focused NEDs to ensure financial control.

Phase 2 (Series B-C, £10-100M): This is the inflection point where most insurtechs stumble without operational guidance. The company faces scaling challenges: establishing reinsurance relationships, navigating regulatory relationships, building in-house claims operations at scale, managing underwriting profitability, and risk management.

This is precisely when operational insurtech NEDs become essential. They've navigated these transitions, built these capabilities, and made these mistakes. They recognize the warning signs: adverse selection in growth cohorts, claims cost inflation, disadvantageous reinsurance treaties, and regulatory relationships straining. The majority of insurtech value creation or destruction happens here.

The optimal board at this stage combines a blend of skills and experience:

• Insurtech operator NEDs, who understand how an insurtech actually works and have the battle scars from past experience
• Governance NEDs, who bring their legal, regulatory, financial and compliance background and insight
• Investor NEDs, who provide direction on their investment and capital markets.

It's not an either-or; it's achieving the right balance. It's about achieving good corporate governance.

Phase 3 (Series D+, £100M+): Late-stage insurtechs require boards driving profitability discipline, optimizing capital efficiency, and preparing for exit. This demands senior executives who've scaled carriers to £500M+ revenues and delivered sustained profitability.

What Insurance Operator NEDs Bring

Underwriting Discipline: VC-backed insurtechs face pressure to grow revenues and hit milestones, creating an incentive to loosen underwriting standards. Operators who've lived through this provide an essential counterbalance.

Regulatory Navigation: Insurance regulation is relationship-intensive. Regulators want to know you understand the risks and that you will be transparent when things go wrong. Operator NEDs help management distinguish genuine regulatory concerns. The best foster proactive regulatory relationships, flagging emerging risks early, explaining new approaches transparently and treating supervision as a partnership. This builds trust that protects the business during challenges.

Reinsurance Expertise: Technology founders approach reinsurance as pure optimization: minimize cost, maximize coverage. The reality is more nuanced. Reinsurance partners provide capacity, capital relief, risk diversification, and revenue. Insurtech operators understand these tradeoffs from experience, preventing expensive mistakes.

Claims Reality Checks: Claims are where profitability lives or dies. The temptation is to treat claims as pure tech: automate everything, eliminate humans. The reality resists this. Claims require empathy, judgment, and negotiation. Insurtech operator NEDs help boards recognize when automation enhances versus degrades operations.

Governance integration: The best insurtech operator NEDs bring execution expertise and governance understanding. They've worked with regulators, managed capital adequacy, balanced speed with policyholder protections and regulatory compliance. This combination of operational fluency plus governance mindset makes them most valuable.

Consumer Outcomes: NEDs understand that algorithmic pricing models must present fair customer outcomes. They ask: How do our pricing models treat vulnerable customers? How do we identify vulnerable customers during automated claims processes? This consumer-first mindset is critical.

The Insurtech Operator NED Profile

Not every insurance executive makes an effective insurtech operator NED. Requirements include:

• Recent Experience (Within Five Years): Insurance and tech evolve rapidly. Experience from 1998 lacks 2025 context.
• Hands-On Building: NEDs who've implemented underwriting systems, launched products, negotiated reinsurance, secured regulatory approvals—not just strategized.
• Technology Fluency: An understanding of how modern technology enables insurance operations at a conceptual level sufficient for informed questions.
• Startup Empathy: Distinguish necessary governance from bureaucratic waste. Insurtechs with 50 employees cannot operate like 5,000-employee global carriers.

Red Flags:

• Retired executives disconnected from current dynamics
• Pure strategy/M&A backgrounds without operational depth
• "We did it this way at [Big Incumbent]" mentality
• No understanding of data-driven underwriting
• Too hands-on—they can't distinguish between strategic oversight from operational execution
• Dismissive of governance requirements or regulatory concerns

Data-Driven Underwriting Requires Data-Literate Boards

Board oversight of data-driven underwriting requires an understanding of how modern data infrastructure and machine learning function in production. How are you validating model performance? Detecting drift? Preventing algorithmic bias? Former compliance officers typically can't ask these questions.

Making It Work

For insurtechs adding operator NEDs:

• Give them a voice when it comes to product, underwriting, pricing and claims decisions
• Pay competitively (+ equity for serious involvement)
• Include them in strategic discussions early—their pattern recognition prevents expensive mistakes and supports faster execution.
• Balance insurtech operator NEDs with governance NEDs—you need the best of both worlds

For operators becoming NEDs:

• Move from doing to advising—you're not the CEO anymore
• Bring your governance experience too, alongside operational expertise.

The Opportunity

Insurtech operators contemplating board careers face an unprecedented opportunity. The UK alone hosts 300+ insurtechs seeking insurtech operational expertise. As funding shifted toward profitability in 2024 (Series B/C funding up 30% while seed declined), boards are increasingly recognizing operational expertise gaps.

For insurtechs, the imperative is clear. As you scale beyond Series A, add operational insurtech expertise. Not just former CFOs or compliance officers, but operators who've built insurtech carriers, navigated regulators, negotiated reinsurance and achieved profitability, while understanding the governance requirements and their fiduciary duties.

The insurtech sector's next phase belongs to companies combining technological innovation with operational excellence. That combination requires the board's understanding of both. The missing ingredient on most insurtech boards, operational insurtech expertise, is also the most critical ingredient for sustainable success. The question is not whether your board needs insurtech operators, but how quickly you'll recognize the gap before expensive mistakes make the answer obvious.

Cobalt can be considered the silent metal of the energy transition. Unlike lithium, which has become shorthand for the electric vehicle (EV) revolution, or nickel, which has long been a staple of industrial production, cobalt rarely makes headlines. Yet, it is cobalt that stabilizes the cathodes of high-performance Li-Ion batteries, enabling the size, safety, and durability that consumers demand. Without it, the green transition would likely be slower, more expensive and certainly more uncertain.

Cobalt mining is also concentrated in some of the world's most politically fragile regions, dominated by a handful of actors whose interests do not always align with those of consuming nations. 84%, or 220,000 metric tons (2024), of all the world's production comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), mostly as by-products from copper and nickel mining. The second largest supplier is Indonesia, with 7% of the world supply. China, which dominates the world's refining capacity (roughly 70%), supplies less than 1% of the world's cobalt output. This leaves both cobalt mining and refining significantly exposed to geopolitical events and tensions. Recently, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) set quotas of 96,600 tons of annual export through 2027. This is less than half what the country exported in terms of volume in 2024. Trump's recent tariffs might also significantly affect the global cobalt markets. These risks are not just hypothetical: they are already reshaping flows of investments, trade policies and corporate strategies.

Geographical dependence

Within the DRC, production is clustered in the copper belt of Katanga, where industrial-scale mines sit alongside thousands of miners working in precarious conditions. This concentration is not an accident of domestic policy but of actual geology. Cobalt is rarely mined on its own; it is a by-product of copper and nickel extraction (the exception being the Bou-Azzer mine in Morocco). The DRC's copper belt happens to be unusually rich in cobalt-bearing ores, giving it a natural monopoly. The cobalt belt is located in the south part of the country, near the borders of Zambia and Angola, leaving it vulnerable not only to domestic disruptions such as political instability, labor unrest, or regulatory change, but also geopolitical tensions in neighboring states. Sudden changes or events can quickly ripple through global supply chains (unlike oil, where multiple producers can offset disruptions).

Decades of conflict, corruption, and weak governance have left DRC with fragile institutions. Elections are often contested, and the state struggles to exert control over its vast territory. Political and ethnical violence is largely concentrated to the east of the country, near the Rwandan, Burundi and Ugandan borders. Recent insurgency by the rebel group M23 can be seen as a resurgence, possibly supported by Rwanda. The group emerged in 2012 and later surrendered in 2013 as part of a peace deal after a year of intense fighting with DRC government forces. The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Uganda based Islamic group has recently performed attacks in North Kivu, killing more than 80 civilians. Geographically, these incidents are taking place more than 1,500 km north of the cobalt concentration in the country. Careful monitoring of the situation is required, as situations can evolve quickly, even over relatively large distances.

For mining companies, this creates a volatile operating environment. Besides the armed groups present in the country, local and national contracts can be renegotiated or revoked. Taxes and royalties can be raised unpredictably. Local communities, often excluded from the benefits of mining, can erupt in protest.

The hidden cobalt dependency: military and aerospace

While battery production and EVs dominate the cobalt conversation, the military and aerospace sectors have their own, less publicized, strong dependence on the metal. Cobalt is essential for superalloys used in jet engines and gas turbines (for power production). These alloys must withstand extreme temperatures and stresses, making cobalt's heat and corrosion resistance hard to replace. For defense applications, cobalt is also used in magnetic alloys for guidance systems (e.g. precision-guided missiles), smart bombs, and for armor resistant plating.

The aerospace and defense (A&D) industry faces unique challenges in replacing suppliers. Qualifying a new source of aerospace grade cobalt can take up to 10 years due to stringent performance and safety requirements. Even if alternative mines come online, they cannot be integrated into critical defense supply chains overnight.

Moreover, A&D grade cobalt is purchased in smaller quantities than grades for other industries, giving defense buyers less market leverage. In a tight market, EV manufacturers — with their larger, more predictable orders — may crowd out smaller but strategically vital defense procurement.

The Rise of Resource Nationalism

The DRC is not the only country reassessing its role in the global mineral supply chain. Indonesia, which has vast nickel reserves and growing cobalt by-products, has banned the export of raw nickel ores to force investment in domestic processing. The government's goal is to capture more value from its resources, moving up the supply chain into refining and battery production. This strategy might have paid off, as Chinese investments have significantly increased since 2020 and global export has grown from less than 2,000 tons/year in 2020 to close to 20,000 tons in 2024. The recent move by DRC is possibly reflecting the same goals. At the same time as it boosts local production, it also strengthens Chinas position and leverage globally. Increased Chinese investments would also add some level of security for the DRC government. What would China do if the threat from M23 or ADF become real for the Cobalt sector?

Other countries are following recent developments carefully. Governments are tightening control over critical minerals, raising royalties and demanding local beneficiation. This wave of resource nationalism reflects both economic ambition and political intention. Leaders see critical minerals as leverage in a world hungry for energy transition inputs.

For investors, this obviously means greater uncertainty. Projects that looked profitable under one national policy can become unviable under another. Long-term contracts are no guarantee against political shifts, and geopolitical strategies are now more than ever affecting the strategies of businesses. That is why geopolitical risk recently has climbed into the top 10 risks for corporations to deal with.

Strategic Intelligence in Decision-Making

In such a volatile business environment, strategic intelligence has become indispensable. For mining companies, investors, and governments alike, the ability to anticipate risks and act preemptively is as valuable as the metal itself.

Strategic intelligence is not simply about collecting data. Intelligence is the product of data and information analysis, requiring both analytical skills and geopolitical awareness to be able to produce informed assessments. In essence it's about synthesizing political, economic, and social signals into actionable foresight. This can be divided into smaller segments of intelligence, for example:

• Political risk forecasting: Intelligence professionals monitor electoral cycles in the DRC, shifts in Chinese industrial policy, and the rise of resource nationalism in emerging markets.
• Supply chain mapping: By tracing cobalt flows from artisanal mines to refineries, companies can identify chokepoints and potential vulnerabilities.
• Scenario planning: Modeling of the impact of sanctions, export bans, or regional conflicts on cobalt availability, allowing firms to stress-test their strategies.
• ESG monitoring: Open-source intelligence (OSINT) and satellite imagery are increasingly used to verify supply chain claims and detect abuses in artisanal mining.

The intelligence function is no longer confined to governments and private intelligence firms. Corporations now employ former diplomats, analysts, and data scientists to build in-house capabilities. Multinationals share intelligence with allies and industry consortia, recognizing that resilience is collective.

To manage and stay on top of the full cobalt supply chain, businesses need to stay on top of what is happening on all levels.

Supply Chain Alternatives

Building alternative supply chains is easier said than done. New mines take years to develop, and environmental opposition can delay projects in developed countries. Processing capacity is still overwhelmingly concentrated in China. Even so, consuming nations are not passive and are constantly looking for alternative supply chain solutions to reduce the overall risk of supply concentrated to single resources. The United States, through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), was offering subsidies for domestic battery production and incentives for sourcing from allies. With the new Trump administration in place, the IRA has plunged into uncertainty, with funding being paused in January 2025. The US also has the Defense Production Act in place to fund domestic mining and refining of cobalt, nickel and lithium.

The European Union launched its Critical Raw Materials Act, aiming to secure diversified supply. The recent dramatic US change in the IRA policy, aimed at reducing funding of renewable projects could affect EU policies as well, as European far-right political parties gain momentum. Trump made it very clear in his latest speech at the UN General Assembly in New York that he's not a big fan of the green transition and called it 'the greatest con job.'

Japan and South Korea have their own resilience strategies and are investing in overseas mining projects, sometimes in partnership with Western firms. Canada and Australia are both part of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) together with the US, EU and Japan.

Recycling could also eventually provide a significant share of supply, but not on a scale in the near term. For now, dependence on the DRC—and by extension on China—remains a structural reality.

Managing Resilience

Risk transfer mechanisms help companies manage volatility and maintain operations. What are the risk transfer mechanisms available then for investors and end users?

• Political risk insurance (PRI) protects against expropriation, contract frustration, currency inconvertibility, and civil disturbance. For mining companies, this coverage can be critical in securing financing and maintaining access to capital markets.
• Trade credit insurance ensures the payment of receivables throughout a chain of intermediaries, reducing the risk of liquidity crises resulting from counterparty defaults.
• Supply chain interruption insurance mitigates risks arising from disruptions such as port closures, sanctions, or cyberattacks. For automotive manufacturers reliant on just-in-time cobalt deliveries, this type of coverage is essential to business continuity.
• Hedging instruments—though currently limited in the cobalt market—offer buyers the ability to fix prices or share financial risks with suppliers, thereby providing greater price stability.
• Parametric insurance: Trigger based payouts linked to measurable events (e.g., port closures, conflict escalation, strikes) that disrupt supply.

Traditional insurance, once seen as a peripheral cost of doing business, is increasingly central to the strategic calculus of companies exposed to geopolitical risk. Insurance alone, though, does not necessarily provide a complete solution. A great example of this would be the war in Ukraine. It has had a significant direct effect on the global transformer supply, as insulation used in transformers is fabricated in Ukraine, and Ukraine's domestic need for transformer significantly increased with Russian attacks on critical infrastructure. Today, lead times can be up to 36 months for high-capacity transformers, and with a typical cap of 18-24 months for business interruption insurance coverage, power generation and transmission companies risk significant loss of income that only partly would be covered by insurance.

In essence, what these tools can do is buy time — time for companies to diversify supply, invest in recycling, or adapt technologies to be less dependent on volatile materials. Risk transfer solutions focus more on managing resilience than eliminating exposure.

My recent article on continuous underwriting drew some pushback from peers regarding the Tesla Insurance case study. Their argument: Progressive, State Farm, and Allstate have offered usage-based insurance for more than a decade—and they write far more of it. So, what makes Tesla Insurance special?

The difference is that Tesla sells cars, not insurance. Auto insurance is a variable in the car's total cost of ownership (TCO)—and Tesla Insurance exists to drive that number toward zero, or as close to zero as possible. Insurance isn't their business; it's their anti-business.

Tesla brings world-class engineering, its own AI infrastructure, and relentless drive to overcome barriers—including regulatory ones. With a $1.5 trillion market cap (as of this writing)—the equivalent of 11 Progressives, 24 Travelers, 28 Allstates, or 40 Hartfords—it packs serious financial firepower.

Embedded Insurance

It's hard to discuss continuous underwriting without considering embedded insurance. When Tesla bundles coverage with vehicle purchases, when Apple offers device protection, or when DoorDash automatically includes delivery insurance—these feel like features, not insurance products. The insurance almost disappears into the broader service relationship.

Tesla Insurance captures customers at the point of sale, when they're most inclined to bundle. Its customer acquisition cost is nearly zero (versus the industry average of $200-$800), it writes policies 20–30% below standard rates for good drivers while maintaining acceptable loss ratios, and its Net Promoter Scores exceed the industry average by more than 40 points.

This kind of experience turns insurance from a grudge purchase into an invisible part of something people actually enjoy. That perceptual shift creates space for continuous underwriting innovations to take root gradually, without friction.

The Convergence Thesis

Here's where this gets strategically fascinating: Multiple trillion-dollar technology companies—Tesla, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft—all have business models where minimizing insurance costs creates competitive advantage in their primary markets. They possess:

• Superior data: continuous behavioral and environmental monitoring through devices and services
• Direct customer relationships: eliminating distribution costs that constitute 15-25% of premiums
• Technology infrastructure: claims automation, fraud detection, and risk modeling capabilities
• Brand trust: customers already trust them with payments, personal data, and critical services

Traditional insurers face a daunting scenario: the companies best positioned to innovate in insurance have no interest in sustaining the industry as currently structured. They want insurance to become a nearly free utility that enables their actual businesses.

The Timeline Question

• Will this disruption happen quickly or slowly? The answer varies by line:
• Auto insurance: 10-15 years as autonomous vehicles scale
• Cyber insurance: 5-10 years as security tools improve and become commoditized
• Property insurance: 15-20 years as smart home technology reaches critical mass
• Health/life insurance: 20+ years due to regulatory complexity and medical cost inflation

But the direction is clear. We are moving toward a world where insurance exists primarily as:

• Embedded features bundled free or nearly free with other products
• Regulatory compliance where coverage is legally mandated
• Catastrophic protection for truly unpredictable tail risks

The companies building this future aren't insurers trying to sell more policies. They are automakers, technology platforms, security vendors, and device makers for whom insurance is an obstacle to be minimized or eliminated.

Traditional insurers are defending a $1.3 trillion U.S. market. But they're facing adversaries who would gladly destroy 70% of that market if it means selling more of their own products.

The Transition—The Cybersecurity Vendors

Cyber is a textbook case of the elimination incentive. Cybersecurity firms like CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, SentinelOne, and Microsoft profit from prevention, not protection—making cyber insurance their natural competitor.

Some see opportunity in cooperation. CrowdStrike partners with insurers, sharing data to improve underwriting and prove its users suffer fewer breaches. That helps customers pay less for coverage while quietly shrinking the cyber insurance market itself.

Microsoft's position is even more intricate. As both a top security vendor and the source of many exploited vulnerabilities, it has every reason to make breaches rarer. Its visibility into corporate systems through Azure, Office 365, and Windows gives it the data to underwrite risk directly—or eliminate it by making insurance nearly irrelevant.

The endgame isn't selling policies; it's securing systems so completely that the need for insurance disappears.

The Transition—The Hybrids

Out on the edge where technological possibility meets regulatory reality, a new wave of tech‑enabled MGAs and MGUs is emerging. They blend niche specialization—restaurants, beauty, wellness—with continuous underwriting, real‑time risk visibility, behavior‑based credits, and agent‑first digital distribution and economics.

In simple terms, they aim to be the best "program carrier + software layer" for independent agents in specific verticals, not broad, direct‑to‑consumer threats to the long-standing agency model.

With digital sophistication rivaling top cyber vendors, these companies work comfortably within existing regulations and sell through independent agencies using a human‑first model—spending most of their day actually talking to people.

If Tesla Insurance is a glimpse of what auto coverage will look like in 10 years, startups like Rainbow, Next, Coterie, Relm, and Thimble show the incremental progress toward that future happening right now.

In the end, healthy tension between innovators pushing for better experiences and regulators safeguarding financial markets keeps our industry moving—slowly, but in the right direction.

Based on the notion that sunlight is the best disinfectant, I've long advocated that homeowners insurance companies give clients as much information as possible about the risks they face. Don't just quote me a premium. Tell me that, perhaps, I'm at more risk of flood or wildfire than old government maps show--and help me understand what I can do to reduce those risks.

Zillow just took a step in the opposite direction. 

It had announced 15 months ago that it would feature detailed climate risk information for flood, wildfire, wind, heat and air quality, but the company quietly dropped that information last month. 

The reason is obvious: pressure from sellers who didn't want the risks to their properties spelled out.

The implications are disheartening. 

What Zillow was attempting was always going to be tough, because we humans aren't wired to think rationally about probabilities. If some political poll says a candidate has only a one-in-10 chance of winning, and they win, we leap to the conclusion that the poll was wrong and the pollster incompetent. Maybe. But maybe not. 

The only way to test is to look over a body of work and over time. Did those predicted to have a one-in-two chance win about half the time? Did the one-in-fours win a quarter of the time? Did those one-in-10s win a tenth of the time?

But models like the one from First Street that Zillow used haven't been around long enough for us to have much evidence about whether they're right when they say there's a one-in-50 chance of a wildfire affecting a home each year. 

A spokesman for First Street said, "During the Los Angeles wildfires, our maps identified over 90 percent of the homes that ultimately burned as being at severe or extreme risk — our highest risk rating — and 100 percent as having some level of risk, significantly outperforming CalFire’s official state hazard maps.”

But we humans are still wired to think, "Zillow said I was at severe risk of flooding, and I didn't have a flood this year, so those bozos were wrong." In the context of the risk ratings provided by Zillow, someone with a house to sell would surely also think, "And their error is costing me money."

While that sort of thinking led to enough pressure on realtors, a key constituency of Zillow's, that Zillow pulled the ratings, there's still some hope for the long run. Even Zillow still provides a link to First Street so those curious enough can find information about risks to properties they might buy. And good models like First Street's will not only get better but will be more accepted over time, as they build up a track record.

It'll just take longer than I had hoped, perhaps much longer.

Sorry, I don't make the rules. I sure wish I did....

Cheers,

Paul

P.S. So I don't end on a total downer, I'll share two links that contain a healthy dose of encouragement. First is a webinar I did recently with Francis Bouchard, a managing director at Marsh McLennan who has focused on resilience for years, and Nancy Watkins, a principal at Milliman who has developed a Data Commons to help mitigate wildfire risks in the wildland-urban interface. Second is the ITL Focus from September on resilience and sustainability, featuring an interview with Francis and parts of an interview with Nancy. 

Both describe the sort of conversation that insurers need to have--and are starting to have-- with architects, builders, city planners and others so that, as a group, we can build resilience into properties from the outset and can at least offer advice to homeowners and communities on how to reduce risks related to severe weather. 

The P&C insurance industry is about to lose nearly half of its workforce to retirement in the next five years, driven by the baby boomer exodus from the workforce. Much of that loss is deep expertise about underwriting, decades-honed claims handling skill, and the undocumented tribal knowledge that carry the day for carriers.

This "Great Retirement," also called "The Silver Tsunami," is fast approaching. According to a recent survey by APQC (American Productivity and Quality Center), 93% of insurance CxOs are genuinely concerned ("mission-critical", "strong", or "moderate" concern) about this knowledge hemorrhage. Coincidentally and paradoxically, the same percentage of carriers are not capturing knowledge consistently from departing employees before they walk out the door.

The result of this concern-complacency disconnect? A perfect storm of knowledge drain, compliance exposure, operational disruption, and customer experience degradation—unless insurers leap out of the "boiling frog" syndrome.

Methods Create Barriers

According to the survey, 83% of respondents capture knowledge using manual methods such as people-to-people transfer and time-consuming documentation, a Sisyphean approach that is neither scalable nor sustainable. No wonder time (mentioned by 62% of respondents) and resources (mentioned by 41% of respondents) topped the list of barriers to knowledge capture and management in the survey.

While interest in AI remains high, a stunning 87% of carriers surveyed have yet to operationalize it to automate knowledge capture and management. AI adoption has been slowed down by concerns about compliance (cited by 59%) and correctness of answers (cited by 38%). AI initiatives have been stymied by "garbage in, garbage out" where some carriers tried to slap AI onto enterprise knowledge silos of dubious consistency, accuracy, and compliance. No wonder a recent MIT survey found that only 5% of AI deployments have created any business value!

Trusted Knowledge Foundational to AI Success

The precious few AI-savvy carriers succeed in AI with a trusted knowledge infrastructure, which addresses adoption barriers such as correctness of answers and compliance head-on. At the same time, these organizations use AI to automate the knowledge capture, management, and optimization process:

• Capture questions that are the highest in volume, value, and complexity, and mine gold-standard answers for them from customer interactions with high-performance agents and intra-enterprise conversation stores among SMEs
• Capture procedures from flowcharts into in-band guidance for customer conversations
• Create drafts of knowledge articles that are aligned with the brand voice for human experts in the loop to review and approve
• Curate content to make it findable and AI-ready
• Analyze and optimize to identify gaps and improve knowledge performance

Winning best practices

Leading carriers treat knowledge as a strategic asset rather than a collection of documents and unstructured content. Their best practices include:

• Using AI to continuously capture expertise from daily work, not just end-of-career interviews
• Embedding trusted knowledge in claims, underwriting, and customer service systems
• Including compliance checks in knowledge workflows to ensure that answers are correct and aligned with regulatory requirements
• Training employees to use AI tools as assistants and not adversaries

A 10X acceleration in creation and curation of knowledge and a 3X acceleration in time-to-value is possible when companies use AI well.

The Bottom Line

With AI-powered knowledge capture and management, forward-thinking carriers capture, preserve, and activate institutional knowledge at scale—so every employee—from new adjusters to seasoned underwriters—can access trusted answers and the best thinking the organization has to offer exactly when they need it. Others are well advised to follow suit lest the Silver Tsunami sweep them away!

As we approach 2026, it's clear that the insurance industry needs to focus on something more foundational than product innovation or operational efficiency: rebuilding and strengthening trust. Whether in property & casualty (P&C) or life & annuity (L&A), trust is emerging as an important differentiator, yet it is the hardest to maintain in an environment defined by climate volatility, rising costs, demographic shifts, and accelerating automation.

Right now, insurers face a dual challenge. They must navigate economic and regulatory pressures while also meeting customer expectations shaped by real-time digital experiences in every other part of consumers' lives. That means the industry can no longer view communication as a compliance requirement or an operational task. Communication is the customer experience, and ultimately the foundation of trust.

The 2026 Challenge for P&C

For P&C insurers especially, 2026 is shaping up to be another turbulent year. Rising premiums – driven by higher reinsurance costs, climate-related catastrophe losses, supply-chain volatility, and inflation – are straining affordability. And when coverage feels more expensive while service feels inconsistent or complex, customer trust erodes.

So the question becomes: How do insurers maintain trust at a moment when customers are being asked to pay more?

Across industry studies and customer research, three actions matter most:

1. Explain the "why."

Transparency around rate drivers is strongly correlated with retention. While weather trends, rebuilding costs, inflation, and fraud patterns are all out of insurers' control, and premium increases are something that will never make a customer happy, these factors make sense to policyholders when communicated proactively and clearly.

This is an area where insurers can create real differentiation. A renewal communication that simply states "your premium is increasing" feels one-sided. A renewal that explains why the price changed, how the customer's risk profile evolved, and what the insurer is doing to help reduce costs over time feels partnership-oriented.

2. Increase transparency throughout the journey.

Claims remain the emotional center of insurance. Forrester's 2026 outlook underscores that even when claim outcomes are favorable, perceptions of fairness and trustworthiness are shaped most by transparency through real-time status updates, clear next steps, consistent messaging across channels, and expectations set early and often.

This is also where operational gaps tend to show. If one message comes from the portal, another from the adjuster, and a third from email or SMS – each with a different tone – customers sense misalignment. Consistency and transparency across every channel signals competence, care, and honesty.

3. Make every interaction worth the premium.

People trust organizations that demonstrate reliability, humanity, and capability in real time – not just in marketing.

In other words: customers judge the value of insurance not just at the point of loss, but through every touchpoint, whether for billing, servicing, onboarding, updates, coverage changes, or support. Transparent, consistent, multi-channel communications will be essential to demonstrating that value in a world where premiums continue to rise.

The L&A Perspective: The Trust Gap with Younger Buyers

L&A insurers face a different challenge, one shaped by demographic shifts and a stark contrast in purchasing motivation.

On one hand, the aging population is creating unprecedented momentum: 4.2 million Americans will turn 65 this year, and the wave of retirees has contributed to a dramatic rise in annuity sales, reaching $432.4 billion in 2024, up 12% year over year. For older buyers, the value of retirement income solutions is clear and immediate.

But beyond annuities, L&A products are struggling to capture interest, especially among younger or less financially secure consumers. According to a LIMRA study, younger buyers look, compare, and browse – but do not purchase. Why?

• They are unsure whether the products are worth the cost.
• They often feel the industry does not communicate in ways that are relevant to their financial realities.
• They question whether insurers have their best interests at heart.

Building relevance for younger generations means meeting them where they are: with clarity around value, real-world scenarios that make protection feel tangible, and messaging that explains benefits in everyday language. It also means demonstrating affordability and flexibility – not just in price, but in how insurers communicate, educate, and guide.

The organizations gaining traction with younger customers are leaning heavily into personalized digital journeys, plain-language education, and transparent explanations of how products fit into broader financial wellness and not solely on risk mitigation.

The Trust Imperative for AI in Insurance

Overlaying all of this is the accelerating adoption of AI across underwriting, claims, service, and customer engagement. According to a McKinsey report on the future of AI, insurers see AI as a path to efficiency and accuracy, while customers see risk – particularly around data privacy, bias, and fairness. Public awareness has grown significantly, and regulators are moving quickly.

So the question shifts again: How can insurers build and maintain trust while deploying more AI across the value chain?

A trustworthy AI strategy looks like this:

Be transparent.

Publish clear, accessible notices that describe where and how AI is used, whether for underwriting insights, claims triage, personalization, or fraud detection.

Be accountable.

Explain the safeguards in place to prevent bias or incorrect outcomes and commit to human oversight for material decisions. Make it clear that customers can opt out where appropriate.

Give customers a voice.

Provide simple methods for policyholders to query, appeal, or request review of any AI-driven decision. That two-way transparency is foundational to maintaining trust. AI doesn't erode trust – opaque AI does. When insurers use AI to improve clarity, reduce friction, and increase fairness, customer trust grows rather than diminishes.

The Bottom Line: Trust Is Built Through Communication

As 2026 approaches, one theme cuts across all insurance segments: trust is earned in moments, and communication shapes those moments more than any other factor.

Whether explaining a premium change, guiding a customer through a claim, educating a first-time life insurance shopper, or deploying AI responsibly, insurers must treat communication as a strategic capability, not a back-office task.

The organizations that will lead the market are those that communicate clearly, consistently, and proactively; meet customers across channels with a single, unified voice; make interactions personalized and empathetic; explain the "why" behind every major decision; and demonstrate responsibility and transparency in their use of emerging technologies.

Insurance is, at its core, a promise. And a promise is only as strong as the trust behind it. The industry has a rare opportunity to strengthen the partnership between insurers and policyholders – through transparency, communication, and a commitment to treating every interaction as a moment that matters.