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Closer Look: As Insurance Execs Eye AI for Fraud
Closer Look: Reinsurers Stand Strong Amid Investment Volatility, Natural Disasters
It Covered?: Certificates of Insurance…Or How I Got a Job in the Prison Laundry
Smoke in the Rearview: Lessons in Wildfire Preparedness from an Agency CEO’s Evacuation
Tariffs, Tension, and Risk: How Trump’s Trade War Is Reshaping the Insurance Landscape
Minding Your Business: Value-Added Services to Offer Clients
Closing Quote: How Embedded Insurance Supports Real Livelihoods in the Growing On-Demand Economy
Opening Note
Business Worries
From costs to interruptions to climate risks and regulating AI—these are issues that owners are worried about when it comes to their business for the next year.
Nearly all—93% of business owners—report feeling concerned that supply chain disruptions, in particular, will affect their business over the next 12 months, according to the 2025 Business Owners Survey by Gallagher.
Some 90% also report feeling concerned about the impact of tariffs as well.
For many business owners (65%), worries about their businesses are more likely to keep them up at night than personal matters, such as family.
The survey responses show business owners have growing concerns in three key areas: supply chain disruptions; weather/climate issues; and artificial intelligence and cyber risk.
According to the survey, the majority of business owners (73%) have dealt with supply chain disruptions that impacted their business in 2023 or 2024, or during both years. The good news is that three in four business owners (75%) have contingency suppliers in place to manage potential supply chain disruptions.
Product recall can have a direct and widespread effect on the supply chain, the survey noted. When asked if business owners were concerned about product recall, 89% of owners indicated they have some level of concern.
The survey also found that 91% of business owners are concerned that natural disasters will adversely affect their business.
Business owners identified flooding (41%) as the natural disaster risk they were most concerned with, followed by fire risk (39%), earthquakes (37%), severe storms (36%), tornadoes (33%), and hurricanes (31%).
Business owners also noted that the biggest threat when it comes to climate is either direct threats to their business or to one of their suppliers.
When it comes to cyber threats, nearly three-quarters of businesses (72%) feel extremely/very concerned that a cyberattack will affect their business over the next 12 months.
The survey revealed that 36% of business owners would like to acquire or expand insurance coverage for cyberattacks as well.
‘For many business owners (65%), worries about their businesses are more likely to keep them up at night than personal matters.’
When asked about AI, almost all business owners (93%) reported feeling at least somewhat worried that the technology will affect their business over the next 12 months, compared to 85% who said the same last year.
Nearly all business owners surveyed said that AI misuse needs stronger regulation (95%) and better protection (90%). Even so, a large number (41%) reported they would be increasing their investment in AI technologies in 2025.
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News & Markets
Cotality:
Over 33 Million Properties at Risk of Hurricanes, Creating
‘Liquidity Traps’
Cotality said it has identified more than 33.1 million residential properties from Texas to Maine with a combined reconstruction cost value of $11.7 trillion as being at least at moderate risk of sustaining damage from hurricane-force winds.
The property data provider, formerly known as CoreLogic, said 6.4 million residential properties with a reconstruction cost value (RCV) of $2.2 trillion are at moderate or greater risk of damage from storm surge flooding.
pricing, which in some cases can actually price people out of what had previously been thought of as less-risky markets.”
“Our data shows that the coastline is evolving, with the impacts of hurricanes extending not only further—both in cost and distance—but also on a more consistent basis,” said Maiclaire Bolton-Smith, vice president of insurance product marketing at Cotality, in a statement. “This is being reflected in insurance
According to Cotality’s hurricane risk report, as the risk of wind and flood damage grows, the availability and affordability of insurance in certain areas are creating “liquidity traps.” Properties are losing value and staying on the real estate market longer.
A study by the firm found that homes within the flood zone in Miami lost as much as 18% in value per square foot. But
from the buyer’s perspective, any savings are usually wiped out by the cost of insuring the property—if insurance can be found.
The dynamic is repeated in more places outside of Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, where clear hurricane risk is ever-apparent and the property insurance markets have been through periods of turmoil. Cotality has been keeping an eye on Florida migration patterns, which appear to indicate from mortgage applications that people are moving to the Carolinas and elsewhere.
However, this movement may stress the infrastructure elsewhere—even in areas thought to be safer from hurricane risk.
“Across the nation, floods caused by hurricanes routinely overwhelm infrastructure, knocking essential services like electricity, wastewater treatment, and clean drinking water offline for days or even weeks,” said Cotality, adding that some standards and funding programs from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were recently discontinued.
Number of homes and associated RCV with moderate or greater risk to storm surge damage by state
Go Big
540,000
The gallons ice cream and frozen yogurt involved in a recent recall over concerns they could contain pieces of plastic. The Iowa-based ice cream manufacturer, Wells Enterprises, produces Blue Bunny and Halo Top ice cream products. The nationwide recall includes 22 flavors in 180,000 three-gallon containers with “Best If Used By” dates ranging from March to October 2026.
$180,000
The amount of the settlement reached by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) with a New Jersey commercial bakery where an employee suffered partial finger amputations in 2023. Valenti’s Bakery, has agreed to pay a $180,000 penalty and implement enhanced abatement measures.
75%
The amount of insurance payouts that could have been avoided following 2020’s Hurricane Sally if every home in Alabama’s Mobile and Baldwin counties had met the state’s Fortified standards. Homes retrofitted or built to Fortified standards, a voluntary construction code created by the nonprofit Insurance Institute for Building and Home Safety (IBHS) could have saved insurance companies up to $112 million, and policyholders could have paid up to 65% less in deductibles, saving almost $35 million, according to a recent study.
$82 Million
The amount Southern California Edison, a unit of utility Edison International, agreed to pay to settle claims with the U.S. Forest Service for costs and damages resulting from the Bobcat Fire in 2020. The U.S. government had filed a lawsuit against SCE in 2023, alleging negligence that caused the wildfire, which burned nearly 180 square miles.
Declarations
Insuring College Athletes
“The reason why insurance is now being introduced more consistently is that there are now real dollars at risk. And we’re not talking a small amount of dollars, either. We’re talking billions of dollars that are now going to athletes. Universities, for the first time, are now sharing athletic department revenues back to the athletes.”
— Said Tyrre Burks, founder and CEO of Players Health, a sports-centric managing general agency. Following decades of a strict no-pay policy enforced by the NCAA, athletes were cleared to begin profiting off their name, image and likeness (NIL) in 2021. They have since been legally allowed to receive money from third parties like donor collectives and brand sponsorship deals — but they haven’t been cleared to receive funds directly from their schools.
Weathered Workers
“They’ll continue to answer the bell as long as they can, but you can only ask people to work 80 hours or 120 hours a week, you know for so long. They may be so bleary-eyed, they can’t identify what’s going on on the radar.”
— Elbert “Joe” Friday, a former weather service director, commenting on thinly-stretched staff at local and regional weather services. A depleted National Weather Service has cut the number of workers and the hours of service, meaning some areas are going without the surveillance they need to keep residents safe from deadly storms. The U.S. is on track to see more tornadoes this year than in 2024.
Diversifying Cyber
“They’re seeking diversification in the standard ways we know of–writing across multiple industries, size segments, and geography–but also more nuanced diversification by really looking at what technology dependencies are large exposures for their portfolios. So, more carriers are investing in different scanning capabilities and different tools that really identify those technology aggregation points across the portfolio.”
— Crystal Boch, U.S. head of cyber analytics at Aon Re, said while serving as a panelist at this year’s PLUS Cyber Symposium in New York City. As cyber insurance rates have begun to stabilize, insurance carriers are seeking more diversification to fuel their underwriting and growth strategies, according to speakers at the event.
Reforms Attract Entrants
“Florida’s legislative reforms acted as a material tailwind for longstanding participants but also improved the environment to attract new entrants, effectively increasing capacity. Additionally, the retreat of certain carriers—whether through reduced market participation or the suspension of new business—has created space for new companies to establish a foothold, further reshaping the competitive landscape.”
— Said Josie Novak, senior financial analyst for AM Best. Excluding national carriers and state-created Citizens Property Insurance Corp., Florida's direct premiums written rose from $5 billion to over $11 billion since 2020.
Supporting Science and Speech
“The purpose of this was very clear: to silence the science, preventing people from doing anything with it, sharing it in any form.”
— Said Caitlion Hunter, director of research and policy for Rise St. James, one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by Louisiana environmental organizations over the recently passed Community Air Monitoring Reliability Act (CAMRA), which requires that community groups that monitor pollutants “for the purpose of alleging violations or noncompliance” of federal law must follow EPA standards, including approved equipment that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Community groups sharing other information that did not meet these requirements could face penalties. of $32,500 a day.
Growing Coastal Risks
“Our data shows that the coastline is evolving, with the impacts of hurricanes extending not only further—both in cost and distance—but also on a more consistent basis. This is being reflected in insurance pricing, which in some cases can actually price people out of what had previously been thought of as less-risky markets.”
— Maiclaire Bolton-Smith, vice president of insurance product marketing at Cotality, said. Cotality found millions of properties from Texas to Maine at moderate to high risk of wind and flood damage with a potential reconstruction cost value risk of $13.9 trillion.
News & Markets
Triple-I: New Research Suggests Link Between Litigation Funding, Attorney Ads
According to research from the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), legal service providers spent more than $2.5 billion on 26.9 million ads in 2024 alone—with significant increases in television, radio, and outdoor advertising since 2017.
The Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) released an issues brief, “Legal System Abuse and Attorney Advertising for Mass Litigation: State of the Risk,” shedding light on the sharp rise in attorney advertising across the U.S. and the increasing influence of third-party litigation funding (TPLF) on the legal and
insurance landscapes.
“Attorney advertising has become big business in the U.S., fueling explosive growth in the likes of multi-district litigation (MDL), which solicits anyone and everyone to join frivolous and expensive cases around anything from ear plugs to weed killer,” said Sean Kevelighan, CEO, Triple-I. “These ads, often bankrolled by litigation funders,
Inflation Impacting Workers’
Anew study by the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) illustrates how rising inflation has impacted the system in recent years.
The 2025 edition of the WCRI Medical Price Index for Workers’ Compensation, authored by Dr. Rebecca Yang and Dr. Olesya Fomenko, analyzed the cost for medical services including evaluation and management, physical medicine, surgery, radiology, neurological testing, pain management injections, and emergency care—typically billed by physicians, physical therapists, and chiropractors.
The annual study examines how fee schedules and network participation influence price trends, providing insights into price regulation.
There were distinct price variations among states. Costs for medical services varied significantly, ranging from 33% below the 36-state median in Florida to 172% above the median in Wisconsin in 2024. This reflects Florida’s fee schedule and Wisconsin’s lack of one.
Six states with no fee schedules (Indiana, Iowa,
create urgency and overpromise outcomes, drawing in claimants who might not have otherwise considered legal action.
Research by Yehonatan Givati and Eric Helland shows a direct correlation between ad volume and plaintiff participation in MDL cases.
According to the research: • TV ads peaked in 2023 with 16.4 million placements—a 44% increase om 2017.
Comp Medical Costs: WCRI
Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Wisconsin) had prices 35% to 177% higher than states with fee schedules in 2024. Most states without fee schedules saw faster price increases from 2008 to 2024, with a median growth rate of 40%, compared with 15% in states with fee schedules.
The study provides insights on price changes following major fee schedule updates, examining overall price shifts and changes by service type. For example, California uses a Resource-Based Relative Value Scale fee schedule tied to Medicare and regularly updated, controlling costs. Colorado and Arizona also implemented this type of fee schedule.
Other trends tied to fee schedules included Illinois, which showed cost increases slowed after implementation of
a fee schedule, and Massachusetts, which had an outdated fee schedule leading to higher price increases.
Medical provider network participation also slowed price increases. Insurers in Texas direct injured workers to preferred provider networks. This led to a 10%-20% reduction in costs compared to non-network providers.
This latest edition expands the growth rate analysis over 17 years, from 2008 to 2024, and presents price index comparisons for 2023 and 2024 across the 36 study states.
“This study found that many states experienced faster growth in prices paid for workers compensation medical professional services from 2021 to 2024 compared with earlier years,” said Ramona Tanabe, WCRI’s president and CEO. “This trend is due to, among other things, higher inflation in the general economy over the last few years. This was especially the case for states that update their fee schedules based on all-price indexes, rather than on medical price indexes.”
The 2024 results are based on price data collected through June 30, 2024.
• Radio ads surged to over 6.8 million in 2024—a 261% jump from 2017 levels.
• Outdoor advertising, including billboards, rose by over 260%.
The groups said that while some of the overall rise in advertising spending (up 39% since 2020) can be attributed to increased digital costs, industry experts warn that the growing saturation of legal advertisements—often underwritten by third-party litigation funders—may be fueling legal system abuse, driving up insurance claims and delaying settlements.
TPLF, in which “dark money” investors finance lawsuits in exchange for a portion of the settlement or judgment, has become a major force behind the surge in mass litigation, according to the brief. The infusion of capital allows law firms to
scale up legal efforts, including expensive and widespread plaintiff recruitment through advertising.
The economic potential of MDL, combined with the high upfront costs of pursuing them, makes them an attractive vehicle for funders. The 2024 Westfleet Insider report estimates that TPLF assets under management reached $16 billion, with approximately 74% of commitments allocated to legal budgets—expenditures that can include advertising for plaintiff acquisition and case aggregation.
“Third-party litigation funding adds fuel to the big business of law fire,” said Kevelighan. “By enabling broader reach and sustained legal action, TPLF may amplify systemic challenges, particularly in how insurers model risk and calculate premiums.”
Calls for Transparency and Reform
Attorney advertising and third-party litigation funding are reshaping the legal landscape. In response, stakeholders are urging policymakers to balance access to justice by preserving the integrity of the legal system. Without greater transparency and oversight, the combined impact of mass tort advertising and external funding could further strain insurers, raise premiums, and erode public trust in the civil justice system.
“Triple-I continues to shine a light on legal system abuse, calling for more tort reform to wrangle in what’s become out-of-control tactics by billboard attorneys who are exploiting Americans and increasing costs for critical household products and services,” added Kevelighan.
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News & Markets
Funding Cuts Threaten Safety Training for Workers in America’s Most Dangerous Jobs
By Leah Douglas
By the time Robbie Roberge spotted the fire consuming his boat’s galley last August, he knew he had just minutes to evacuate his beloved Three Girls fishing vessel, named for his daughters.
As the flames spread up the boat’s walls, he helped his crew into safety suits, deployed a life raft, and made a mayday call to alert nearby mariners and the U.S. Coast Guard that he was abandoning ship more than 100 miles offshore.
Roberge, a commercial fisherman from South Portland, Maine, learned how to handle such an emergency just three months earlier at a workshop held by Fishing Partnership Support Services, a nonprofit that has trained thousands of East Coast fishermen in safety practices.
On May 20, Roberge cut a fishing trip short to bring the six-man crew from his remaining boat, the Maria JoAnn, to another FPSS training in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
“I have years of experience, but not dealing with emergencies,” said Roberge, whose handling of the fire led to a successful rescue with no injuries. “I make it a point to be here.”
Such safety trainings—aimed at fishermen, loggers, farmers, and other workers in America’s most dangerous jobs—could be scaled back or wound down entirely as soon as July, according to Reuters interviews with a dozen health and safety experts and organizations, as a result of President Trump’s drive to slash the size and cost of the federal government.
Those cuts have fallen heavily on the federal government’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that is a key funder of workplace safety training and research.
Winding Down
The Trump administration on April 1 terminated about 875 of the roughly 1,000
employees at NIOSH, including most of the staff who provide technical advice and support to a dozen Centers for Agricultural Safety and Health focused on fishing, farming, and logging workers.
Although Trump this month reinstated about 300 NIOSH employees, they do not include the office overseeing the centers, according to data compiled by government worker unions seen by Reuters.
Reuters spoke to staff at seven of the centers who described preparations to
close down when their current funding cycles run out in the coming months.
J. Glenn Morris, director of the Southeastern Coastal Center for Agricultural Health and Safety at the University of Florida, said his team had already begun winding down work in anticipation of losing their NIOSH grant on September 29.
“We’re shutting down the direct education to the workers; we’re shutting down the research,” he said.
NIOSH funding for the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association’s fishermen safety trainings could run out as soon as July 1, said executive director Leann Cyr.
FPSS also expects to lose NIOSH funding in September, potentially leading it to cut back on trainings, said Dan Orchard, the group’s executive vice president.
The loss of the trainings could put more burden on federal marine rescue services when fishermen face emergencies at sea, said John Roberts, an FPSS instructor who spent 31 years in the Coast Guard doing search and rescue.
“The return on investment of the government is huge,” he said. “If they give us this money to do this training, it’s going to lessen how much money has to be spent to rescue the untrained.”
Asked to comment on the NIOSH job cuts, an HHS spokesperson said: “The work will continue. HHS supports America’s farmers, fishmen, and logging workers.”
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in March that the staff reductions are necessary to reduce bureaucracy and improve efficiency and that NIOSH would be combined with other sub-agencies into a new Administration for a Healthy America.
The scope of the impact on these centers and their potential closures have not been previously reported.
Risky Work
The nation’s 442,000 fishing, farming and logging workers make up just a fraction of America’s workforce, but they have the highest fatal injury rate of any U.S. occupation—24.4 per 100,000 workers in 2023 or seven times the national average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
These workers do dangerous tasks from rural outposts where it might take hours to receive medical care. Fishermen risk falling overboard. Farmers and farmworkers could be crushed by equipment or contract bird flu. Loggers face chainsaws and falling limbs.
That fatality rate has decreased over the last 20 years, BLS data show, with advances in mechanization and tightening federal safety regulations.
Safety research and training supported by the centers have helped improve outcomes as well, said Matt Keifer, professor emeritus of occupational safety at the University of Washington, who has worked for two of the centers.
‘We’re shutting down the direct education to the workers; we’re shutting down the research.’
Reuters could not verify the total number of workers trained by all of the centers, but the Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety in Cooperstown, New York, trained more than 5,600 workers in 2024, said director Julie Sorensen.
Some industry groups offer safety training without federal funding, like the Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast, which hosts 11 annual trainings on equipment and worksite safety, according to executive director Dana Doran.
In addition to worksite risks, the NIOSHfunded centers and programs often tackle mental health challenges, drug addiction, and diet-related disease.
In the fishing sector, for instance, opiate addiction is a significant enough concern that fishermen at the FPSS training were taught to administer the overdose reversal drug Narcan.
Staff at the Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health at the University of Iowa have trained rural healthcare
providers on risks farmers might face, like hearing loss from exposure to loud noises, said director T. Renee Anthony.
Erika Scott, deputy director of the Northeast Center, set up mobile health clinics at logging sites with the PLC to research high rates of hypertension among the state’s 3,000 loggers.
It took years to convince loggers of the importance of public health research, said Doran. “We’ve built that trust together. And that trust will potentially be lost.”
‘Left Behind’
At the FPSS safety training, more than 50 fishing captains and crew learned to put out fires, make mayday calls, plug leaks, and deploy safety suits.
Attendees cheered each others’ efforts to light flares and use water pumps and traded stories of nightmarish near-misses on slippery decks or sinking boats.
For Al Cottone, a fourth-generation fisherman in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and a FPSS instructor, cuts to the trainings would be “tragic.”
In the decade he has been involved with FPSS, Cottone said the number of attendees at an average training has doubled from 20-25 to 40-50.
“There are so many people who are going to be left behind, because getting this in the private sector, this type of training, it costs a lot of money,” Cottone said.
Copyright 2025 Reuters.
Business Moves
National
Nearmap, itel
Thoma Bravo-backed Nearmap, headquartered in Lehi, Utah, agreed to buy insurance technology provider itel, based in Jacksonville, Florida, from private equity firm GTCR. The deal values itel at over $1.3 billion, including deb. GTCR declined a comment on the deal value. The deal highlights the revived deployment of dry powder by buyout firms as the industry’s recovery from high interest rates was disrupted by tariff-driven turbulence. The exchange of private assets in the secondaries market has also come to the forefront, with the freeze in IPO market, the traditional liquidity source for private equity, forcing many managers to sell their holdings at a discount.
itel provides its services to all of the top 100 insurance carriers in North America. Founded in 1993, itel uses its proprietary database and technology to reduce costs for insurance companies in the property and casualty segment.
The company also assists policyholders with damage assessments through its mobile platform. Raymond James and Bank of America acted as the financial advisers to itel, while Latham & Watkins served as its legal counsel.
GTCR bought itel in August 2021 from PNC Riverarch Capital. The firm said that the insurance tech firm had doubled its revenue over the past three years.
Motion Specialty, Lloyds of London
Motion Specialty has been approved as a
Lloyd’s of London coverholder, founded by former Hiscox executives Dan Alpay and Alex Kickham.
The business writes on behalf of Lloyd’s Syndicate 1301, managed by Inigo Ltd., and is supported by Johnson and Johnson, the Charleston, South Carolina-based independent wholesale US broker.
Motion Specialty initially focuses on high value homes (HVH) and standalone flood insurance, targeting the wholesale-to-wholesale distribution channel.
Founders Alpay and Kickham have more than 25 years’ experience and bring extensive knowledge across HVH and flood underwriting, in addition to the wider property catastrophe space. Motion Specialty has nationwide appetite in addition to underwriting in key catastrophe prone states.
Novel Financial Holdings LLC, Forza Insurance Holdings
The former chief executives of Partner Re and Howden Tiger are joining two other industry veterans to form Novel Financial Holdings LLC (Novel). Novel will manage policyholder-owned reciprocal exchanges through ownership of attorney-in-facts (AIFs) and manage traditional stock insurance companies through direct ownership and service contracts, according to a media statement.
Key executives include:
• Jacques Bonneau, former CEO and president of Partner Re, will serve as Novel's chairman.
• Rob Bredahl, who currently serves and will continue to serve as vice chairman of
Howden Re, is Novel's CEO. Bredahl is also executive chairman of Howden Capital Markets and Advisory.
• Chris Coleman, most recently the group chief financial officer for Aspen Insurance Group, will be Novel's CFO.
• David Drury, who was previously executive vice president of underwriting at SiriusPoint, will be head of analytics and risk.
Novel recently acquired Forza Insurance Holdings, which owns the attorney-in-facts of SureChoice Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange and Elevate Reciprocal Exchange.
These policyholder-owned insurance companies are managed by Novel and write business through a strategic partnership with SageSure, an MGU focused on catastrophe-exposed property markets in the United States.
East
Davis & Towle Insurance Group, Tobey and Merrill Insurance
Insurance agency Davis & Towle Insurance Group, headquartered in Concord, New Hampshire, announced its acquisition of Tobey & Merrill Insurance in Hampton.
While the agency will operate under Davis & Towle’s ownership, it will keep the Tobey & Merrill name and staff.
In addition, Davis & Towle said it will also merge its own affiliate in North Hampton, D.B Warlick & Co, with Tobey & Merrill. Davis & Towle acquired D.B Warlick in 2024. Davis & Towle has 13 locations across the state.
Midwest
First MainStreet Insurance, Rentz Agency and Midwest Health Benefits, Ruffcorn
First MainStreet Insurance (FMSI), a division of TrueNorth Companies headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has partnered with Rentz Agency and Midwest Health Benefits, based in Morris, Minnesota. The agency has long served the Morris community with property/casualty and health insurance solutions.
FMSI also finalized a merger with
Ruffcorn Insurance, headquartered in Keokuk, Iowa, which includes Capps Insurance (West Burlington) and Muntz Insurance (Farmington), strengthening FMSI’s presence in southeastern Iowa.
Ruffcorn Insurance is led by Ryan Ruffcorn.
Coterie Moves to Appleton, Wisconsin
Coterie, a small business MGA, is relocating its headquarters from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Appleton, Wisconsin.
Relocating the company’s headquarters to Appleton provides a reduction in operational costs and improved efficiencies for the firm, while also supporting the company’s planned growth and expansion.
Last year Coterie raised $27 million in new capital investment. In total, Coterie raised more than $100 million by last March.
South Central
COVU Inc., Uno Insurance Services
COVU Inc., an AI-native customer servicing platform for the insurance industry headquartered in Redwood City, California, acquired Uno Insurance Services, a fast-growing Texas-based agency with a strong prescence in Houston’s Spanishspeaking communities.
This marks COVU’s second acquisition and the company’s first major acquisition in the Texas market.
Uno Insurance Services has grown revenues an average of 26% over the past three years by acquiring and integrating small local agencies throughout the Houston area.
The agency has a primarily Spanishspeaking customer base, and strong carrier relationships including Progressive, Southern Vanguard, and Allstate.
Southeast
World Insurance Associates, Owens Insurance Agency, Stokes Farnham Insurance Agency
New Jersey-based World Insurance Associates acquired two agencies in South Carolina, Owens Insurance Agency, in Greer, and Stokes Farnham Insurance
Agency, in Travelers Rest.
Terms have not been disclosed.
Owens, providing commercial, personal, life and health, and bond insurance products, has had a presence in the area since 1952. Christopher Crist was the owner.
Shane Lynn was the CEO of Stokes Farnham agency, which also has served clients in the state since the 1950s.
Both agencies are now divisions of World Insurance Associates.
Skyla Insurance Services, Policyline Insurance
Skyla Insurance Services, a subsidiary of Skyla Credit Union headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, acquired Policyline Insurance, an employee benefits and insurance brokerage in the Carolinas.
Policyline owner Geoff Ricks was named president of Skyla Insurance Services. '
Ricks is one of the founders of Policyline, which began in 2003 and was formerly known as Piedmont Benefits Group, based in Cornelius, North Carolina. In 2015, the firm expanded to offer insurance options for clients.
International
Helvetia Holding Ltd, Baloise Holding Ltd.
The shareholders of the Swiss insurers Helvetia Holding Ltd. and Baloise Holding Ltd. have approved the merger to form Helvetia Baloise Holding Ltd..
Upon the closing of the merger, Helvetia Baloise will become the second-largest insurance group in Switzerland and one of the top 10 listed European insurers by market capitalization, with a business volume of 20 billion Swiss francs (US$24.2 billion) and locations across eight countries as well as a global specialty business.
The two companies describe the deal, which is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2025, as a merger of equals.
Thomas von Planta has been elected as future chairman of the Board of Directors of Helvetia Baloise Holding Ltd., together with all proposed further new members.
The registered office and headquarters of the group will be in Basel, with a major office maintained in St. Gallen.
National Bennett Himes is joining Zurich North America, headquartered in Schaumberg, Illinois, as the new head of underwriting for U.S. middle market. Himes succeeds John Diaz, who will lead Zurich’s customer and distribution management function. Himes has over 24 years of property and casualty insurance experience, including 22 years with Chubb North America. He most recently served as executive vice president and casualty leader for Chubb’s middle market division, covering the U.S. and Canada.
vice president, Chubb Group and chief investment officer, reporting to Boroughs.
Boroughs has served as chief investment officer of Chubb and predecessor company ACE since joining the firm in 2000. He was appointed executive vice president, ACE Group, in March 2014. Before joining ACE, Boroughs was director of fixed income at Tudor Investment Corporation and managing partner and director of global leveraged investment activity at Fischer Francis Trees & Watts.
industry, specializing in sales performance and management. Most recently, she was regional director for personal lines/ small commercial and regional sales leader for personal lines Assured Partners.
Company LLC, for eight years.
Cowbell, headquartered in Pleasanton, California promoted Matthieu Chan Tsin to senior vice president, Cowbell Resiliency Services (CRS), a new initiative launched to help U.S. and U.K. businesses strengthen their cyber defenses in response to the growing scale and complexity of AI-driven threats. Before joining Cowbell, he held senior roles at AIG, in the U.S. intelligence community and in academia and has worked in 11 countries.
Chubb Limited, with U.S. headquarters in Warren, New Jersey, named Tim Boroughs vice chairman, Chubb Group and executive chairman, asset management. Chris Hogan has been promoted to senior
Hogan joined Chubb in 2023 from Goldman Sachs where he served for 22 years, most recently as a fixed income portfolio manager, head of the global securitized investment team and co-chief investment officer for GSAM’s fixed income hedge fund.
Zurich North America, headquartered in Schaumberg, Illinois, appointed Tobias “Toby” Cushing as head of construction. Cushing returns to the construction team after serving most recently as deputy chief underwriting officer at Zurich. Since joining Zurich in 2022 as head of construction casualty, he has held several underwriting leadership roles. Prior to joining Zurich, he held senior positions at The Hartford, including head of construction.
World Insurance Associates LLC, headquartered in Iselin, New Jersey, named Michelle Youshock head of personal lines, replacing Jim Hickey, who is taking over carrier consolidation efforts. Youshock, based in Las Vegas, Nevada, has nearly two decades of experience in the insurance
Intact Insurance Specialty Solutions, headquartered in Plymouth, Minnesota, appointed Aaron Belair as president of technology for its North American operations. Based in San Francisco, California, Belair formerly served as head of liability, profin and technology for RSA Luxembourg in Europe. Since joining Intact in 2019, Belair has held various leadership positions spanning technology, multinational and, most recently, European casualty.
East
Massachusetts Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council (WCAC) appointed Kevin M. Snyder to a five-year term as a business representative.
Snyder is director of sales and marketing for A.I.M. Mutual Insurance Companies, based in Burlington, Massachusetts. He has over 20 years of workers’ compensation experience and joined A.I.M. Mutual in 2010 as a regional underwriting manager. He was promoted to senior manager-underwriting in 2016, named director of business development in 2021 and director of sales and marketing the following year.
Before A.I.M. Mutual, he was a treaty reinsurance broker with Guy Carpenter &
The MEMIC Group, headquartered in Portland, Maine, promoted Denise Amoateng to director of legal, risk and privacy and Taylor Finn to director of financial accounting. Amoateng joined the company in 2024. Licensed to practice law in Connecticut and certified in U.S. Data Privacy, Amoateng supports the chief risk officer by spearheading legal analysis, risk assessment, regulatory compliance, and data privacy initiatives while collaborating with external counsel on critical legal matters.
Finn has eight years of financial accounting and workers’ compensation experience and joined MEMIC in 2016. Finn leads the financial accounting and loss-sensitive reporting teams while supporting both the chief risk officer and chief financial officer.
Paul Roberts joined Alliant Insurance Services, headquartered in Irvine, California, as senior vice president within its employee benefits group. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the consultant has expertise in employee benefits, risk management and retirement consulting to service a diverse national client base.
Before joining Alliant, Roberts served as senior vice president in the Boston office of a Lockton Companies. Previous roles include senior vice president at USI Insurance Services.
Bennett Himes
Matthieu Chan Tsin
Kevin M. Snyder
Denise Amoateng
Protecdiv, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hired David Castillo as executive vice president (EVP) and national construction practice leader.
In this newly created role, Castillo leads strategic growth and development. Castillo has over 30 years of expertise in surety and property & casualty insurance. He previously held senior positions at USI Insurance Services, Marsh, and Willis and also served as CEO of The Gray Casualty & Surety Company.
Ryan Specialty, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, appointed Brad Storey to president of Irwin Siegel Agency (ISA), the social service industry focused managing general underwriter which is a part of the Ryan Specialty Underwriting Managers division. ISA is headquartered in Rock Hill, New York.
Storey has been with the Irwin Siegel business for over 17 years and is currently executive vice president of the managing general underwriter.
With this appointment, Howard Siegel becomes executive chairman of ISA.
Midwest
30 years, and most recently served as vice president of special markets.
Prior to joining Advocus, he served for over a decade as president of NLT Title, a division of Attorneys’ Title Guaranty Fund Inc.
South Central
Skyward Specialty Insurance Group, Inc., headquartered in Houston, Texas, recruited Corey LaFlamme to assume the role of president, captives and specialty programs.
LaFlamme has over 20 years of experience and joins Skyward Specialty from The Hartford, most recently serving as head of programs. The company also named Kirby Hill to the role of chairman, captives and specialty programs.
Southeast
assistant vice president of strategic partnerships and director of business strategy.
West
Vivien Rothwell joined Cowbell, headquartered in Pleasanton, California, as controller.
previously served at Farmers/ Zurich, Hartford Steam Boiler, American Modern and Munich Re.
Rothwell has over 20 years of experience in corporate finance and accounting, working across the real estate, insurance and FinTech sectors. She most recently served as director of accounting at NSC.
Previous roles include assistant global controller at McLarens and assistant controller, assistant vice president, finance, North America at AXIS Capital.
The Buckner Company, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, appointed Joshua Kettler as president.
As CRO, Coffman focuses on expanding Delos’ agency, carrier and B2B relationships and simplifying the producer engagement process, as well as forming alliances with specialty insurers to expand the Delos homeowners product portfolio.
Advocus National Title Insurance Company, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, named Mike Moore senior vice president of Illinois operations. Moore has been part of Advocus (formerly ATG) for over
Hiscox, headquartered in Atlanta, Georga, appointed Nick Mabunay to SVP, head of digital partnerships. Mabunay will lead digital partnerships, ensuring their strategic success and continued development.
Mabunay joins Hiscox from Next Insurance, most recently serving as director of partnerships. Before Next, Mabunay held leadership roles with Liberty Mutual Insurance, including
Kettler has experience spanning strategy, operations and executive advisory roles. Most recently, he served as a chief of staff and strategy consultant, including roles with the executive teams at Cognixion and Better Place Forests.
He also served as a key partner to the head of global sales and customer experience at Patagonia.
Delos Insurance Solutions, headquartered in San Francisco, California, appointed Jeremy Coffman to the newly created role of chief revenue officer (CRO). Coffman
Venbrook Group LLC, headquartered in Woodland Hills, California, promoted Jeff Lang to the newly created position of president, retail property and casualty. Most recently, Lang served as the firm’s executive vice president, retail division. Lang joined Venbrook in 2022. Previous roles include executive vice president, P&C practice leader at USI Insurance Services, vice president - major account segment leader at Chubb and regional vice president at ESIS.
Golden Bear Insurance Company, headquartered in Stockton, California, hired Greg Hohman as chief underwriting officer.
Hohman has experience and expertise in the excess and surplus lines sector, most recently serving as chief underwriting officer at Munich Re Specialty Insurance.
Previous roles include head of domestic casualtynational accounts, Zurich North America. Hohman oversees both admitted and surplus lines underwriting across all lines of business and branch offices at Golden Bear.
David Castillo
Mike Moore
Corey LaFlamme
Kirby Hill
Nick Mabunay
Vivien Rothwell
Jeremy Coffman
Jeff Lang
Closer Look: Claims
As Insurance Execs Eye AI for Fraud Detection, Deloitte Predicts Billions in Savings
By Allen Laman
With a growing share of insurance executives viewing generative artificial intelligence as a tool for streamlining and improving functions like fraud detection, Deloitte predicts that AI technologies could save the property/ casualty insurance industry tens of billions of dollars in the next few years.
advanced analytics could generate potential savings of 20% to 40%, depending on the implementation, type of insurance, and sophistication of fraud detection systems, according to the report.
Deloitte wrote in a report that by implementing AI-driven technologies across the claims life cycle and integrating realtime analysis from multiple modalities, P/C insurers could reduce fraudulent claims and save between $80 billion and $160 billion by 2032. Insurers that integrate multimodal capabilities using AI and
“Multiple techniques such as automated business rules, embedded AI and machine learning methods, text mining, anomaly detection, and network link analysis could score millions of claims in real time,” Deloitte said in the report. “Combining data from various modalities, such as text, images, audio, and video, could help identify patterns and anomalies and enhance the investigative process by reducing false positives, increasing detection rates of fraudulent claims, and saving on costs associated with
fraud investigations.”
Soft fraud, which involves inflating a legitimate claim and accounts for 60% of all incidents, currently has a detection rate between 20% and 40%, Deloitte data shows. Hard fraud, characterized by taking premeditated actions to create false claims, accounts for 40% of claims fraud. It has a detection rate between 40% and 80%.
In a June 2024 survey conducted by Deloitte, 35% of insurance execs chose fraud detection as one of the top five areas for developing or implementing gen AI applications over the next year.
Kedar Kamalapurkar, managing director and a leader in the insurance sector claims practice at Deloitte Consulting LLP, said AI technology can address hard and soft claims fraud and help prevent claims.
Hard Fraud
Kamalapurkar explained that as technology advances, committing hard fraud can become easier. Generative AI has the potential to create images that are difficult to detect. Whether by replicating damage or making old damage look new, the phony images could go unregistered by AI systems from vendors that create estimates based on photos.
Adding digital fingerprints to accepted images is one way Kamalapurkar has seen claims technology begin to catch up. The fingerprints serve as DNA stripes that alert companies when duplicate images are submitted. Kamalapurkar has also seen vendors share fingerprints across client bases to broaden detection.
“Those companies have existed for a couple of years,”
he said, “but I think the ability to integrate them into the process without adding a lot of extra time—that’s what allowed it to become more efficient.”
He didn’t recall seeing an AI model that could accurately determine if an image was real or fake across more than a subset of vehicle types as recently as six or eight months ago. Since then, the models have become more effective at detecting deepfakes, he said.
“As you get more virtual, it increases the probability that you are experiencing some of this,” he said of claims fraud related to image deception. “And our ability to detect it is going up. And AI is really going to be critical because it can find almost the pixel-level … variation in a photograph. Or detect that the entire photograph itself is generated by artificial intelligence.”
Soft Fraud
Proving soft fraud is more difficult, but AI offers some hope for claims investigators.
Kamalapurkar said AI models have the power to pull together disparate pieces of information that previously required much more cost and effort. This data can provide insights that previously required more work and higher costs, such as tapping into advanced sensors and video cameras to determine what happened in an accident, who was at fault, and how the impact ties to injury causation. To do this, companies are tying automobile impact data from vehicles, estimates, and damages to medical information, he said.
“There’s models that exist in the market that more objectively, and backed by
medical science, prove what is likely to have happened versus not,” Kamalapurkar said. “It still requires this thought of, ‘If I go to a jury, is anyone going to care?’ And that’s what the debate is.”
Regardless of any debates on how valuable the technology will ultimately prove to be in a court setting, these data insights provide a deeper perspective on a claim. And even if they do not stop the fraud, Kamalapurkar sees the
implementation of this kind of technology as a deterrent. He said implementing anti-fraud technology raises the barrier to entry for hard and soft fraud, and sends fraudsters to other targets.
Prevention
Kamalapurka also believes AI can prevent claims by curating personalized information and alerts to policyholders. Combining historical claims data from an insurer and sen-
sor information from inside a car can prompt recall or service discussions on an individual basis. Location information can lead to encouraging drivers to park in lots that are home to fewer accidents.
“I think my broad thought on AI in this case is AI plus human is going to be better than human alone or AI alone,” Kamalapurkar said. “Because you need context and experience that both of them would have.”
Study Shows AI Spots Suspicious Claims Earlier Than Traditional Approaches
Machine learning models detect suspicious claims two weeks after submission— much faster than traditional methods, according to a new CLARA Analytics study on fraud detection in property/ casualty insurance claims.
The research, completed in November 2024, analyzed 2,867 claims from 2020 to 2024 using an unsupervised machine learning approach.
The study found that 9% of open claims were identified as high potential for special investigation unit referral. Michigan and Arizona showed the highest percentages of potential fraud indicators.
The model’s predictions closely matched actual SIU referrals made by adjusters but detected potential cases significantly earlier—as soon as two weeks after the first notice of loss.
Network analysis revealed important connections between attorneys and med-
ical providers that traditional methods might miss.
The findings suggest that cohort modeling across claim development periods can effectively identify cost and treatment outliers while mapping connections between providers and attorneys that may indicate fraudulent activity.
“This research represents a significant advancement in how the insurance industry can approach fraud detection,” said Pragatee Dhakal, director of Claims Solutions at CLARA Analytics. “By leveraging advanced analytics, we’ve shown that insurers can identify potential fraud much earlier in the claims process, potentially saving billions in fraudulent payout.”
targeted, offering a preventive advantage extending beyond direct cost savings.
“What’s particularly promising about this approach is that it doesn’t rely on pre-established fraud indicators,” Dhakal added. “By using unsupervised learning techniques, the system can potentially identify novel patterns of fraudulent activity that might not match historical cases.”
The researchers employed cohort modeling across claim development periods and mapped frequency connections to providers and attorneys. The method allows a more comprehensive view of potential fraud patterns than traditional indicator-based approaches alone.
The study also highlighted the importance of the “Sentinel Effect,” where the awareness of being monitored leads to improved behavior. Insurers known for effective fraud detection are less likely to be
The findings could transform how insurers approach fraud detection, combining human expertise with sophisticated analytics to create more effective prevention systems, the researchers said.
Spotlight: Political Risk
Political Risk Cover Demand Rises, but GWP Growth Lags: Report
By L.S. Howard
Demand for political risk insurance is likely to rise by 33% due to tariff uncertainty and the instability of the current trading environment, according to Howden’s 2025 survey of multinational corporates with revenue of more than $1 billion.
Rising geopolitical tensions, financial market flux, trade uncertainty, supply chain recalibration, and competition for critical minerals are driving demand for protection in the form of credit and political risk insurance (CPRI), said Howden’s report, titled “Opportunity in Flux.”
“CPRI continues to act as a growth enabler by protecting investments, facilitating trade and driving economic activity at a time of heightened global instability,” the report said.
Howden said a key takeaway from the report is the growth opportunity that this sector
Looking ahead, whilst the rise of protectionism and tariff uncertainty may stunt the crossborder trade and investment flows that underlie demand in the CPRI market in the short-term, new and different opportunities will emerge to offset some (if not all) of the impact from an economic and trading slowdown.
offers for insurers and their clients.
“Even the series of economic and geopolitical shocks in recent years has done little
A large share of CPRI premiums stem from a small and loyal customer base that has proved adept at weathering economic crises. Risk aversion amongst potential new buyers is growing and this will bring incremental new demand to market, as demonstrated by US-focused Canadian exporters increasing coverage enquiries by ~10% in 1Q25.
Government intervention for domestic exporters will also benefit the market. For example, Spain, which exports significant volumes of olive oil, motor parts, chemicals and steel to the US, has announced a package of direct aid, soft loans and export credit insurance worth €14 billion to help protect the finances of its most tariff-exposed companies.
Howden’s 2025 survey of multinational corporates with revenue >US$1 billion provides further evidence of rising demand in response to the instability of the current trading environment. Even amongst companies that have not purchased political risk insurance (PRI) over the past five years, 33% are more likely to do so due to tariff uncertainty (see Figure 25).
to hold back performance, with net combined ratios in the range of 70-80 rivalling the best underwriting in the market,” the report said. Source: Howden; editor’s note: The
“This is not down to some random aberration in the loss environment—this period has brought a sequence of economic and geopolitical
Change in the likelihood of purchasing PRI due to US tariffs – companies that have purchased PRI in 2020-25 vs those that have not (Source: Howden, Editorial Institute)
shocks with COVID-19 (and the accompanying recession), higher inflation, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and now tariff uncertainty—but more a reflection of strong underwriting standards and alignment of interest with policyholders that is limiting losses flowing into the market.”
Substantial Market Premium Base
“With a premium base of $49 billion spanning six distinct product segments,” the size of the CPRI and surety market surpasses more high-profile specialty insurance markets, including marine and energy, Howden said.
The six product segments discussed in the report are: U.S. admitted surety & fidelity; international surety; trade credit; non-payment; export credit agencies; and political risk.
While the market has performed strongly, CPRI premium growth has not developed at the pace of other more volatile and/or longer-tailed business lines, Howden said.
For example, the report explained, the property market grew up to 3x faster than trade credit between 2019 and 2023, while cyber achieved close to 5x the growth rate during the same period.
Amid the softening of the broader insurance cycle, Howden argues that now is the time to draw in additional new entrants and for existing CPRI carriers to accelerate ventures into new asset classes and territories, increase commitments, and drive innovation.
The biggest challenge—and Howden’s stated call to action
for the market—is ensuring deployable capacity and underwriting flexibility keep up with clients’ changing needs.
Supply-Demand Imbalance
“The perceived complexity of certain CPRI products and a desire to operate in a narrow window of volatility by re/insurers has led to a supply/ demand imbalance in certain areas of the market,” Howden said, noting that conditions have eased in the insurance market over the past year.
Strong CPRI results have nevertheless not always correlated to underwriting appetite. Figure 20 shows that insurance premium growth in certain product lines has been lacking when measured against other (often more volatile and / or longer-tailed) classes of business, with the property market growing up to three times faster than trade credit between 2019 and 2023 and cyber achieving close to five times the growth rate during the same period.
Index of gross written premium growth for multiple lines of business – 2019 to 2023 (Source: Howden, NAIC, ICISA, Swiss Re) 225
Perceived (and often misplaced) barriers have held the CPRI market back from reaching its full potential. Alongside cautious deployment appetite of incumbents, many non-participating underwriters see the product as esoteric with high headline risk and perceived correlation to the asset side of insurers’ balance sheets.
The distinct characteristics of CPRI, a market driven more by macroeconomics than the ebbs and flows of the insurance cycle, alongside exceptional performance and pent-up demand, provides a compelling case for increased capital commitments.
“Pressures remain in the reinsurance market, where the participation of only a handful of recognised lead underwriters and underlying caution is manifesting in rigidity that can be detrimental to growth and ultimately relationships,” the report said.
“Some of the larger capacity providers continue to stall, due in large part to negative news flow around the risk landscape but also at times a fundamental lack of understanding of the product.”
However, the report said that CPRI market leaders have shown “these challenges can be overcome with highly attractive, diversifying underwriting income achieved by building up experience and expertise.”
Market Opportunity
“There is room for a greater growth rate in today’s world;
CPRI presents a compelling case from both a buyer and capacity provider perspective in supporting businesses to invest and trade through heightened volatility whilst delivering market-leading underwriting results,” according to a press statement accompanying the report.
“The CPRI market’s outstanding long term performance is testament to the deep sector expertise that pervades the value-chain. With demand for CPRI protection rising, now is the time for the market to step up even further,” commented Matthew Strong, deputy CEO, Howden CAP and head of credit and political risk, in the statement.
“This will enhance global economic growth by increasing commitments and innovating, as well as providing businesses, lenders, and public sector entities around the globe with the certainty they
need to trade and invest with confidence,” he continued.
“Opportunity is the key takeaway to emerge from our report. Yes, risk is up in a highly fractured world, but providing protection to help clients trade and invest through such uncertainty is precisely why CPRI exists,” according to Phil Bonner, managing director, global specialty treaty, Howden Re.
“Our market does this in a way no other can whilst achieving exceptional performance, as demonstrated by underwriting results that rival any other product line of insurance,” Bonner said.
“As demand for protection rises in response to global instability, our call to action for the market is to not only provide adequate supply but to also offer underwriting flexibility and imagination that keep up with clients’ changing needs,” Bonner said.
Closer Look: Reinsurance Global Reinsurers Stand Strong Amid Investment Volatility, Natural Disasters
The reinsurance industry has shown significant improvements in operating performance in recent years. Despite facing substantial insured natural catastrophe losses globally, reinsurers achieved robust earnings growth in 2023 and 2024, exceeding their cost of capital. This is largely attributed to structural changes introduced in early 2023, alongside favorable pricing in reinsurance markets.
By Johannes Bender
entered 2025 with a robust capital position, bolstered by excellent underwriting performance in short-tail lines, solid net investment income, and recovering fixed-income asset values over the past two years. In turn, we think global reinsurers are well positioned to manage the elevated natural catastrophe losses seen in first-quarter 2025, alongside the recent financial market volatility, and so maintain our stable view of the sector.
conservative investment portfolios. However, the sector could face exposure to equity market losses in the short term, potential asset impairments in the medium term, and challenges in the longer term from the potential effects on illiquid holdings such as real estate, as well as private debt and equity. Another key focus area is claims costs, which may be influenced by the announced tariffs.
annual earnings, reducing the catastrophe budget available for the remainder of the year.
Reinsurance Capital Adequacy Stands Strong
However, adverse developments in certain U.S. casualty loss reserves remain a key risk for the industry.
Based on these improvements, the reinsurance sector
Chart 1
Global reinsurers will see a limited hit from declines in global equity markets, following tariffs and reciprocal tariffs announced by the U.S. and other nations, given their
Current equity market volatility follows an already bumpy start to the year, with the January 2025 California wildfires resulting in estimated industry insured losses of up to $50 billion. Reinsurers are expected to absorb a substantial portion of these costs within their
According to S&P Global Ratings’ insurance capital model, industry capitalization, as illustrated in charts 1 and 3, is assessed at varying confidence levels (99.50%, 99.80%, 99.95%, and 99.99%). Based on year-end 2023 financials and surveys, the global reinsurance sector demonstrated robust capital adequacy, maintaining a surplus of approximately $21.5 billion at the highest confidence level of 99.99%.
Hypothetical equity portfolio declines of 15%, 25%, or even 35%, while significant, remain manageable with projected
Source: Howden; editor’s note: The 33% figure is derived from the sum of the red bars on the right, excluding “stay the same,” i.e., 30%-15%+18%.
net hits of about $4.7 billion, $7.8 billion, and $11.0 billion, respectively. Across all three scenarios, sector capitalization would retain its redundancy at the 99.99% confidence level, with unrealized investment losses on equities absorbable by the $21.5 billion capital buffer (see chart 1).
Although year-end 2024 surveys are still being collected, we anticipate similar capital results, given the industry’s strong operating earnings and the generally stable nature of reinsurers’ investment strategies, which typically show minimal variation year over year. Furthermore, our hypothetical stress scenarios exclude potential earnings contributions or management actions, such as suspending share buybacks, which could further reinforce the sector’s resilience.
Amid this volatile investment environment, the global reinsurance sector’s conservative portfolio is helping maintain stability (see chart 2). The sector’s largest asset allo-
cation remains concentrated in high-quality, fixed income securities, with at least 90% classified as investment grade. While potential interest rate fluctuations can lead to temporary unrealized gains or losses on these securities, most unrealized losses are expected to unwind over time, as we have seen in the years since 2022 when spikes in interest rates led to losses in fixed-income portfolios. This
reflects the robust financial and liquidity profiles of the top-19 reinsurers, the relatively short durations of their fixed-income portfolios, and prudent matching of cash inflows and outflows. These factors collectively enable the sector to hold such investments to maturity, mitigating the impact of market volatility.
The Sector Remains Resilient
The global reinsurance sector
remains robustly capitalized and equipped to absorb losses stemming from severe events (see chart 3). However, significant risks persist, including the adequacy of property/casualty reserves and the potential for substantial losses from multiple major natural catastrophes, such as hurricanes and earthquakes. Stress testing for tail risks, such as multiple natural catastrophes quantified by the 1-250 net aggregate probable maximum loss (PML), or a 20% unfavorable industry reserve development, reveals the sector’s capital adequacy would lose its 99.99% redundancy but retain resilience at the 99.95% confidence level.
California Wildfires Hit Catastrophe Budgets
The Los Angeles wildfires (Palisades and Eaton) have resulted in substantial industry estimates of insured losses, ranging $40 billion-$50 billion (see chart 4). Reinsurers are expected to absorb a significant portion of these costs, primarily stemming from personal lines (approximately continued on page 26
Chart 2
Chart 3
Closer Look: Reinsurance
80%-85% of total insured losses) rather than commercial lines (about 15%-20%). We estimated that the top-19 global reinsurers will shoulder roughly 20% of the related losses, consuming 35%-40% of their annual natural catastrophe budgets. Despite this challenging start to the year, we project the sector will retain 60%-65% of its 2025 natural catastrophe budget, providing sufficient capacity to withstand additional events and still meet its cost of capital. However, the reduced buffer for natural catastrophes highlights the need for cautious risk exposure management as the year progresses.
U.S. Casualty Reserves and Claims Inflation
S&P believes unfavorable developments in casualty loss reserves remain a key risk to the reinsurance sector. As a result, reinsurers’ casualty reserves are expected to need close monitoring amid challenges from both economic inflation and persistent social inflationary pressures—the latter stemming from increased litigation costs and higher jury awards, particularly in the U.S.
Under S&P’s revised global macroeconomic outlook for the U.S., we project inflation will remain closer to 3.0% in 2025, driven by rising tariffs that elevate prices throughout the domestic supply chain and
for end consumers. Given that the U.S. remains the largest market for property and casualty business for most global reinsurers, we will continue to closely monitor their exposures and reserving policies, especially throughout 2025.
What Comes Next?
S&P Global Ratings believes the top-19 rated reinsurers are well positioned to navigate market turbulence without immediate consequences for our ratings or outlooks. Historically, most reinsurers have demonstrated strong resilience in managing downside risks. However, the duration and severity of prolonged stress, along with prevailing challenges within the reinsurance sector, will play a critical role
in shaping future rating assessments. Our continued stable view on the sector is underpinned by robust capital adequacy and strong credit fundamentals. It is also based on our expectation that reinsurers will adapt proactively to volatile and evolving environments, leveraging defensive strategies to manage risks while optimizing their use of capital.
Nevertheless, extended periods of macroeconomic uncertainty or instability could hinder premium growth across geographies. In addition, escalating global trade tensions may deteriorate credit conditions, indirectly exerting pressure on reinsurers’ investment portfolios.
S&P Global Ratings believes there is a high degree of unpredictability around policy implementation by the U.S. administration and possible responses— specifically with regard to tariffs—and the potential effect on economies, supply chains, and credit conditions around the world. As a result, our baseline forecasts carry a significant amount of uncertainty. As situations evolve, we will gauge the macro and credit materiality of potential and actual policy shifts and reassess our guidance accordingly.
Bender is a director in S&P Global Ratings, based in Frankfurt. He is lead analyst for insurance markets in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, global reinsurance and Central & Eastern Europe. He joined S&P Global Ratings in November 2004. Previously, Bender worked for three years at German public-law insurer SV SparkassenVersicherung, mainly in asset management controlling.
News & Markets
Oregon OSHA Fines Contractor for Repeatedly Violating Excavation Safety Rules
The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division fined Hillsboro-based Renner Trucking and Excavating Inc. $80,804 for repeatedly violating rules intended to protect workers from trenches caving in.
Oregon OSHA issued a citation to the company on May 12 following an inspection that found two employees working in a trench with no protective system in place. The trench was roughly 3 feet wide by 12 feet long and more than
5 feet deep. It was part of work-to-build a home in Beaverton.
The division conducted the inspection under a program that focuses enforcement resources on trenching and excavation hazards.
Oregon OSHA cited Renner Trucking and Excavating Inc. for three violations of the Oregon Safe Employment Act. Those violations were: Failure to provide a sufficient protective system to protect employees from a trench collapse. It was a first-repeat violation with a penalty of
$39,696.
Failure to ensure a competent person was available to identify and address existing and predictable trench hazards. It was a first-repeat violation with a penalty of $39,696.
Failure to provide adequate protection for employees from loose rock or soil potentially falling from the face of the trench onto their heads. It was a serious violation with a penalty of $1,412.
The total penalty issued to the company included a standard reduction based on the size of the company. Employers have 30 calendar days after receiving a citation to file an appeal.
Hawaii Governor Signs Hotel Tax Bill to Help With Climate Change Through Mitigation
By Audrey McAvoy
Hawaii’s governor signed legislation that boosts a tax imposed on hotel room and vacation rental stays in order to raise money to address eroding shorelines, wildfires and other consequences of climate change.
The signing, which comes nearly two years after a Maui wildfire killed 102 people and wiped out almost all of Lahaina town, marks the nation’s first such levy to help cope with a warming planet.
Officials estimate the tax will generate nearly $100 million annually. The money will be used for projects like replenishing sand on eroding Waikiki beaches, promoting the use of hurricane clips to secure roofs during powerful storms and clearing flammable invasive grasses like those that fueled Lahaina’s wildfire.
Gov. Josh Green, speaking at a bill signing ceremony, said Hawaii needs to build more firebreaks and pay a fire marshal, a new position created after Lahaina that Green expects to be staffed within the next two months.
Green said other states and nations will need to act similarly to address climate disasters roiling the planet.
“There will be no way to deal with these
crises without some forward-thinking mechanism,” Green said.
The measure adds an additional 0.75% to the daily room rate tax starting Jan. 1. Green said this amounts to an extra $3 tax on a $400 hotel room rate.
It also levies a new 11% tax on cruise ship bills starting July 2026, prorated for the number of days the vessels are in Hawaii ports, to bring cruise ship taxes in line with room taxes on land.
Travelers to Hawaii already pay a significant room tax. With the new law, the state’s existing 10.25% tax on shortterm accommodations will climb to 11%.
Together with other state and county taxes, visitors will pay a nearly 19% levy on their accommodations — one of the highest rates in the country.
Hawaii’s hotels ultimately supported the bill, saying it would help improve the visitor experience. Green said the industry looked at “the greater good” for tourism, Hawaii and the planet.
Green initially proposed a bill that would put revenue from the tax increase into a dedicated fund, but lawmakers instead
put the money into the state’s general fund. Their compromise measure calls on the governor to request funds from the Legislature for projects in the following areas: protecting native forests, plants and animals; enhancing climate resilience; and mitigating the effects of tourism on the environment. Green said they will collaborate to implement the law.
State Rep. Adrian Tam, the chairperson of the House tourism committee, said the state must earn the public’s trust that it will spend the money transparently and in the best way possible. He noted Hawaii’s tourism economy relies on a brand that’s in part dependent on a pristine natural environment.
“The visitor industry will struggle if we do not take action now,” said Tam, a Democrat representing Waikiki. “There will be nothing left for them to showcase to the rest of the world if our beaches are decimated, wildfires have taken over our towns and hikes left unmanaged.”
Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
News & Markets
California Joint Law Enforcement Efforts Lead to 4,800 Stolen Vehicles Recovered
Joint law enforcement operations in Bakersfield, Oakland, and San Bernardino have made 6,727 arrests, recovered 4,842 stolen vehicles and confiscated 313 dangerous firearms, according
to an announcement from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.
The ongoing joint law enforcement operations took place in Bakersfield, Oakland and San Bernardino. Through
state, county, and city partnerships, the California Highway Patrol began saturating high-crime areas in 2024 to reduce roadway violence and criminal activity.
Crime trends before and after the operations began point to a reduction in crime in Oakland, a decrease in homicides and shootings in Bakersfield, and an increase of arrests and recovered stolen vehicles in San Bernardino, according to Newsom’s office.
Following the launch of the CHP partnership in April 2024, Bakersfield experienced changes in crime trends. The joint enforcement operation led to 3,315 arrests, including 680 felony arrests, 1,174 stolen vehicles recovered and 87 firearms seized.
By the end of 2024, Oakland had reduced crime in all categories, with an overall reduction of 34%, compared to the previous year. Since the joint efforts began in February 2024, officials have made 2,101 arrests, 1,504 of those felonies, recovered 3,578 stolen vehicles, and confiscated 192 illicit firearms.
Since October 2024, when the collaborative law enforcement effort began in the area, officials have arrested 1,311 individuals, including 249 for felony conduct, seized 90 stolen vehicles and removed 34 illicit firearms.
D.A. Says Former California Police Officer on Workers’ Comp Went to Festival, Skied
Aformer Westminster, California, police officer and her stepfather were charged in a large-scale workers’ compensation fraud case after an investigation revealed the officer collected more than $600,000 in disability payments while reportedly engaging in physically strenuous activities.
Nicole Brown, 39, of Riverside, faces 15 felony charges, including making fraudulent statements to obtain compensation and filing false insurance claims.
Prosecutors say Brown claimed she was unable to work due to a head injury sustained during an arrest in 2022 but was later seen dancing and drinking at the Stagecoach Music Festival. Witnesses also reported seeing her skiing, snowboarding, running 5-kilometer races and attending
conferences.
Brown’s stepfather, Peter Gregory Schuman, 57, of Buena Park, a licensed attorney, was charged with two felonies for assisting in the scheme. During a disability evaluation meeting, Schuman allegedly spoke on behalf of Brown and misrepresented her condition.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office alleges Brown falsely claimed debilitating symptoms such as light sensitivity, dizziness, and inability to process thoughts, all while continuing to engage in high-energy activities. Her actions reportedly cost the city more than $600,000 in salary and medical expenses.
in state prison and the loss of her pension. Schuman faces up to eight years and possible discipline from the State Bar of California.
If convicted, Brown faces up to 22 years
Deputy District Attorney Katie Lubinski of the D.A.’s Insurance Fraud Unit is prosecuting the case.
My New Markets
Commercial Marine Insurance
Market Detail: As Marine specialists, Lucantha Marine Insurance has an in-depth understanding of the market and long-established relationships in the industry. Lucantha provides agents and clients with knowledgeable advice, exceptional service, and creative solutions to their commercial marine insurance needs.
Commercial hull and P&I risks: “Six pack” charter vessels, excursion vessels, pilot boats, ferries, tug and towing vessels, research vessels, builders risk and cargo vessels.
Marine contractors: Dock builders, marine artisans, marine construction, dredging operations, pile drivers and diving contractors.
Monoline marine liabilities: Excess marine liabilities (P&I, moll, etc.), Bumbershoot, marine general liability, ship repairers legal liability, wharfingers liability, charterers legal liability, stevedores legal liability and tower’s legal liability Lucantha covers needs around the globe, including the Caribbean, North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia and transit in between.
Available Limits: Not disclosed.
Carrier: Not disclosed.
States: All 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Market Detail: BizCHOICE Transportation provides comprehensive program solutions for contract carriers performing delivery services in the last mile and trucking/middle mile segments of the transportation industry.
BizCHOICE evidences individual coverage by certificating insureds participating in our programs.
Programs offer affordable payment plans by way of settlement
deduction of weekly premium. Insureds gain 24/7 access to the BizCHOICE Contract Driver Portal, which provides loss control services and business resources to help keep their businesses on the road to success.
Programs and products: AL, GL and Excess products are administered using BizCHOICE Risk Purchasing Group, which promotes group buying power for individually underwritten risks operating under contract with one of our approved aggregator logistics partners.
BizCHOICE offers a complete commercial insurance program that includes auto liability and physical damage, cargo legal liability, commercial general liability, excess/umbrella liability and work injury coverages (OCAC and/or all states workers’ compensation). Has pen. Available Limits: Not disclosed.
Carrier: AmTrust; admitted; rated A-/ Excellent by AM Best. States: All 50 states and the District of Columbia, except Alaska and Hawaii. Contact: Lawrie Bolger, lawrie.bolger@ specialtyprogramgroup.com, 800-8521968.
Adventure and Entertainment Program
Market Detail: Adventure and entertainment insurance program provides comprehensive coverage for adventure businesses that operate in a high-risk environments and face unique challenges. This program is for operators demonstrating and leading their industries with a committed and fostered risk management approach.
Target Classes: Zipline/aerial parks, river outfitters.
Coverages: Monoline general liability or package policy, including property, inland marine and crime. Optional coverages include HNOA, liquor liability, and more. Also available with Excess Liability. Submission Requirements: Supplemental application, five years currently valued loss runs, full financials,
operations manuals including risk management procedures. Additional requirements based on class written. Has pen.
Available Limits: Not disclosed.
Carrier: Not disclosed.
States: All 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Market Detail: WSG’s casualty broker/ underwriters have decades of experience helping agents place the complex coverages clients need. WSG has both in-house authority and brokerage relationships to deliver fast quotes with coverage tailored to myriad types of business operations.
Although WSG can assist with any business class, the company has expertise with construction (residential and commercial contractors and project specific/wraps ups); real estate (habitational, lessors risk, and OL&T); hospitality (hotels, motels and vacation rentals; restaurants, bars, taverns and nightclubs); retail including strip malls and convenience stores; healthcare; entertainment, recreation and sports; and special events.
Highlights: General liability, products liability coverage, product recall, foreign liability, excess and umbrella liability. Has pen.
Available Limits: Not disclosed.
Carrier: Non-admitted.
States: Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas.
Construction insurance specialists cite a number of factors in describing the 2025 construction industry as a market in transition. There is uncertainty about the year’s economic outlook, potential impacts of tariffs on the supply chain for materials, project delays, and the ongoing and perhaps worsening issue of labor shortage. All of these forces are pressuring contractors of all sizes.
The effects are seen in the data. “Broad-based monthly declines in construction starts represent a troubling signal for the sector,” said Eric Gaus, chief economist at Dodge Construction Network. According to Dodge, total construction starts were down 9% in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.03 trillion. Nonresidential building starts declined 3%, residential starts fell 4%, and nonbuilding (highway, bridge, utility/gas, and other public works) starts decreased 22%. On a year-to-date basis through April, Dodge reported total construction starts were down 3% from last year.
The Associated General Contractors of America reported that construction spending fell for the third month in a row in April, declining 0.4% from March and 0.5% from a year earlier—the first year-over-year decrease since April 2019. “Ever-changing announcements about tariffs on key construction inputs, along with potential retaliatory measures by U.S. trading partners, are making owners hesitant to commit to new projects,” said Ken Simonson, chief economist of AGC, in early June.
The rollercoaster environment surrounding U.S. trade policy and the economy’s short-term outlook in general have been the main drivers of uncertainty for construction industry outlook in the first half of 2025 and, likely, going forward as well.
“Unless contractors and investors have greater certainty about what costs and demand to expect, private construction is likely to continue declining,” said Jeffrey D. Shoaf, AGC’s CEO. “That will make the U.S. less competitive and damage the prospects for economic growth.”
While the data may not be encouraging, construction insurance specialists remain relatively positive. While they do have concerns about project delays, the good news is most delays have not yet turned into project cancellations.
Unless the delays turn into years and not months, the insurance industry will likely not feel the bump, said Kirk Chamberlain, executive vice president, leader of Hub International’s construction practice. “Delays in the process bum out the brokers a bit as they’re trying to place insurance and make money, but we haven’t seen a ton of delays turn into cancellations, which is good news for us,” said Chamberlain.
Darren Tasker, regional head of construction in the Americas for Allianz Commercial, added that while there is more uncertainty in the construction world now than in 2024, building has not stopped. “Still a ton of projects in the pipeline. Contractors still have a massive back order of contracts,” he said.
At the same time, Tasker
acknowledged that “from an insurance binding perspective, construction business is a little bit slower.” Brokers may not be binding new business at the same speed and consistency as last year, but that trend could change at any moment, and there’s still plenty of opportunities in the construction insurance market, he maintained.
‘We’ve seen pockets of slowdowns, but ultimately we feel pretty good about the remainder of the year.’
Chamberlain also sees opportunities ahead. He believes there is plenty of building happening now and even if the U.S. enters a recession, and some sectors of the construction industry slow even further, the bulk of the construction market will “power right through it.”
Robert DiBiase, executive vice president, national director, Alliant Construction Services, is another optimist. “There’s a significant amount of mega projects out there, whether it be airports, hospitals, infrastructure, large projects in the Northeast, and certainly out West,” he said. “We’ve seen pockets of slowdowns, but ultimately we feel pretty good about the remainder of the year.”
Data Centers
The data also identifies that one encouraging source of development in construction is new data center projects. Data center construction starts reached unprecedented levels in 2024, according to Dodge, with projects totaling over $9
billion last year.
“We do a lot of data centers, and that’s just exploded over the last 12 to 18 months,” Chamberlain said. The size and complexity of risk when building data centers have also exploded, he added. “The first generation of data centers were not particularly complicated from a design or construction perspective,” he said. That’s changed. “About a year and a half ago there was a noticeable shift … Two or three years ago, they were routinely $600-$700 million [to build]. Now, they’re routinely a couple of billion.”
Chamberlain said that the rise in project value has a lot to do with size and scale but also the addition of power. “You can’t build these things without power.” First-generation data centers were built in locations where they could “plug in” to power, such as in northern Virginia, for example. “Now we’re seeing them pop up everywhere, and because they’ve gotten so big they’re bringing their own power with them,” he said. “They’re building their own power plants.”
Brendan Sullivan, senior vice president, construction and infrastructure at NFP, noted that the insurance market for data center construction has matured over the past few years as the complexity of building and risks have grown. “It was kind of interesting when you started working on them. At first glance they’re like a big warehouse with a lot of air conditioning, but then you look into the risk and they are a very technical build,” he said. “That adds a level of complexity around insuring the building,” he said.
According to Sullivan, the continued on page 30
Special Report: Construction
How Brokers Help With Escalating Costs
Contractors must take into consideration all these moving risk targets, including at times their contractual guaranteed price risk. Brian Cooper, U.S. national construction practice leader for Gallagher, said that asking the contractor, and the project owners, about things such as escalating costs could help insulate both parties against uncertain risks.
“We were advising them to have escalation clauses in their contracts so that if it’s a macro event, like we’re talking about with tariffs and things like that, that they’re not taking 100% of the risk on a project,” Cooper said. “The owner has the project for 50 years, so the owner’s got to take some of that risk, too.”
Cooper said that offering advice on contractual terms and conditions to ensure “a fair allocation of risk” for things outside of their control, like price escalations, is critical today.
“And approaching things from a negotiating standpoint with the client saying, ‘Listen, we know that, for example, electrical switching gear has a long lead time. Even though we won’t need it on your project for a year and a half, it’s best that we order and pay for it now so that we can be assured that it’s going to be there,’” Cooper said. “So, negotiating payment terms and offsite storage, things like that, that are very important in an environment like now can mitigate some of these risks from the uncertainty out there.”
Allianz Commercial’s policies typically have an escalation clause. “So, there’s a buffer; it could be 5%, it could be 10%, it could even be as high as 15%, so if the values increase within that band, they already have coverage,” Darren Tasker, regional head of construction in the Americas for Allianz Commercial, explained. Only if the price escalates beyond that buffer would they be underinsured. “So, they might come to us to do a midterm adjustment or midterm endorsement to increase the limit on the values of the policy and endorse the policy,” he said. “That’s why we tend to not go to our full capacity. We want to still be there for our clients if this does happen and still have some available capacity.”
Cooper added there have been some project delays in today’s climate, primarily in the large project space due to financing and interest rate concerns. “But that’s just what happens every time there’s uncertainty out there.”
continued from page 29
coverage is not just for building the building but also for all the special aspects that go into that building. “Is it up to code for what they need? Are there going to be professional errors?”
Also, there’s a significant amount of high-value technology that goes into building a data center. “We’ve had clients who’ve had water damage. Water damage is bad for any type of building, but when you have computer equipment— sometimes $10 million to $50 million of computer equipment that could be damaged—you can have much higher impacts from claims,” Sullivan said. “We’ve had clients who’ve had water backflow into the server room—it’s $10 million of damage if they get six inches of water. So, it’s things like that that you have to think about and get coverage for.”
Sullivan agrees data centers are likely the fastest-growing area in the construction industry today. “It’s a huge growth area for us, and everybody, right now,” he said. “Almost every carrier that you talk to, you ask them what’s their highest growth area. And if they’re not focused on something like wood frame construction for multifamily, they’re going to tell you data centers,” he said. “It’s where we’re seeing a lot of new builds.”
Brian Cooper, U.S. national construction practice leader for Gallagher, said that data centers are being built worldwide, but building is on the fast-track in the U.S., where most of the new building is happening in more rural areas.
They’re built in areas where there may not be infrastructure like in high-traffic urban areas,
he said. “But they still need sufficient sources of cooling water and electricity,” he said. “So, that is generating a lot of work other than just the building of the data center itself, but all the infrastructure needs of those data centers and manufacturing facilities, chip plants, battery manufacturing, etc.,” he said.
Dodge Construction Network data confirmed that data center construction is a bright spot, with spending on data centers growing by double-digit, yearover-year increases in each month since November 2021. In late May, data center construction spending was up 33% year-over-year as AI-driven demand for computing power remained strong.
Chamberlain sees broad interest and appetite from name brand, legacy insurance carriers in this space in some form. “Certainly, on the builder’s risk side,” he said. “These are really big deals with large premiums, even when they’re taking quarter-share participation in it, there’s still millions of dollars of premium at stake, so it’s worth it for the underwriters,” he said.
But amid all the growth, Chamberlain does have a few worries about where this is all headed. “I think the trajectory at which these things are growing, these individual [data center] campuses are genuinely threatening to outrun the ability of the property insurance market to support them,” he said, adding that the market may already be at capacity for some regions.
And the sheer size of the risks is an issue. “We’ve got a client that’s doing a $12 billion-plus campus in the Midwest. Fortunately, it’s not
in a hurricane zone, but it’s in a convective storm zone and partly in a floodplain, he said. “The biggest concern we have from a CAT perspective is convective storms, and that’s because these are highly concentrated PMLs (probable maximum loss) values,” he said. “You could have multiple billions of dollars of value in a 20-acre site, easily. So, it’s very easy to see how an F3 or F4 tornado could tear through the middle of Iowa or Nebraska and just rip one of these things to shreds in a single storm.”
Infrastructure and More
Another bright spot for construction is infrastructure, according to DiBiase. “There’s still a lot of infrastructure work that’s out there, especially in the Northeast. In New York, there’s a significant amount of work that’s going on,” he said. “There’s a lot of projects that have been funded by the government that are in process, and most of those are on the public infrastructure side. We’re seeing growth all over the country … that’s certainly the brightest light that we can speak to right now.”
Sullivan agreed that infrastructure is likely to continue growing this year even though overall construction builds are slowing down. “Recently I heard that drawings from architects and engineers are down about 50% from the year before, which is a precursor you see when construction slows. But we’re still seeing a huge investment in infrastructure. Also, we’re seeing a lot of multifamily in areas like Austin.”
Despite economic uncertainty, Sullivan said many of NFP’s clients are still getting equity
and capital partners to invest in key areas where population is expanding. “We’re seeing a lot more infrastructure on electricity being built and also roadwork. … We’re seeing a lot more solar, as well.”
Sullivan said contractors are tailoring their programs for the increased costs in materials.
“You’re seeing that these guys are growing very quickly. It’s honestly taking a client who used to be a $600 or $700 million contractor, and now they’re more in the $5 billion, $6 billion, $7 billion range. They’ve grown quickly through acquisition and through increased work and increased material costs.”
For Sullivan, it is an interesting time in the construction insurance market. “There’s so much information that’s available, there’s technology to mitigate and avoid risk, but at the same time, there’s so much political uncertainty in other areas,” he said. That makes it hard to control some risks. “So, you just have to react the best way you can and jump in and help your clients evolve.”
Cooper said, generally speaking, uncertainty equals risk. “And there’s just a lot of uncertainty on a lot of levels,” he said. “If you have an opinion about something today, in a week from now, it’s probably going to be different.”
That makes for a very dynamic and fast-moving construction market that adds risk to almost every facet of the business of construction, he added.
Opportunity in Uncertainty
Alliant’s DiBiase sees a blue sky ahead even though contractors see a little gray. “I certainly agree that there’s pockets of gray out there, but
at the end of the day, we don’t see a significant slowdown,” he said. “We see, for lack of a better word, hesitation.”
The Associated Builders and Contractors reported in midMay that nearly 22% of contractors had a project delayed or canceled in April due to tariffs, up from 18% in March, while 87% of contractors were notified of tariff-related material prices increases.
Despite these headwinds, contractors remain busy. ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu said that backlog for construction projects rose in April and is now at the highest level since September 2023. Backlog has increased significantly over the past year for contractors with greater than $100 million in annual revenues, but backlog work has risen only modestly for the smallest contractors, ABC reported.
“There’s opportunities out there,” DiBiase said. “There may be people taking a deep breath and saying, ‘OK, I may
want to slow down the project a little bit.’ An owner who’s looking at a building, whether it be in Florida or Texas or wherever, and the interest rate environment causes uncertainty,” he said. “I think the gloom-and-doom people really are looking at it differently than we are because we’ve been through these pockets,” he said. “When I look back to 2008, 2009 where we saw a significant dip … There was a pretty worrisome outlook for a lot of people,” he said.
“Don’t get me wrong, there was a dip, but there also was a significant bounce back rather quickly over the course of 12 to 18 months,” he said.
“I think the economists look at this a little differently,” DiBiase said. “They may be taking a longer-term view versus what I look at in the next 18 months. I think when we come back in 18 months and talk about this, it’ll be a little blip on the radar versus a significant downturn.”
Spotlight: Environmental Liability
What to Know About Construction and Environmental Liability
How do per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) impact the environmental liability market in construction, or do they?
Do all contractors need environmental liability coverage? And if so, how can agents and brokers encourage them to purchase the cover?
These are a few questions answered by Dennis Willette, Westfield Specialty’s senior vice president and head of environmental, in this Spotlight interview.
Describe the overall environmental liability market today. Any trends you are seeing?
Dennis Willette: Environmental means a lot of things to a lot of different people. So, when you try and quantify rates or terms or conditions, there’s much to discuss. But in terms of the marketplace in general, the marketplace has stayed somewhat stable. I would say there’s been a little bit of tightening and contraction, which I think is good. … Rates are becoming somewhat stable depending on the market and depending on the section—softening in some areas, but mostly stable. Terms are tightening for some specific areas and exposure points, but availability remains fairly abundant.
For the construction sector, have you seen any recent claims trends in environmental liability?
Willette: The prevalence of mold, the activity of mold in the marketplace in terms of a loss frequency driver, remains steady. … Also from a trend
standpoint, one of the things we’re really keeping an eye on is a demand for faulty workmanship coverage. There are significant losses attributed to that sector. That’s a coverage area that we watch closely when it comes to construction; even though it’s more on the professional side, it’s an area we watch closely. … We watch it because faulty work can cause a pollution condition, in which case that would be a covered claim.
What about PFAS? Is it an issue for construction?
Willette: It’s an evolving issue. It’s dynamic, it’s evolving, it’s changing, and anything that changes that quickly from a regulatory standpoint presents challenges from a coverage standpoint. … Nobody’s immune from PFAS exposure. However, there are industries that I think are fairly well insulated, and I would say a large swath, if not the majority, of the construction industry is at the lower end of the exposure spectrum from a PFAS standpoint. And why and how that comes to life for us is, I would say, the vast majority of our programs don’t include an exclusion.
So, a program that covers a contractor for pollution and professional, the majority of those programs do not include a PFAS exclusion.
There are some classes of business and sectors that have an increased exposure with PFAS. One of them is fairly straightforward, which is any sort of fire sprinkler contractor that has their hands on chemical, non-water-based fire
retardants, fire suppressants. Many of those systems historically have contained PFAS materials. There has been a push going forward to remove PFAS-containing materials and replace them with non-PFAS-containing materials. So, while the industry and long-term exposure is improving, when you’re offering pollution on an occurrence basis as we do, and you have contractors working around any sort of PFAS-containing materials—especially those like a foam that can disperse and potentially contaminate—we take a fairly conservative approach and exclude PFAS.
How can agents educate clients on why they might need environmental liability coverage?
Willette: Contractors buy what they need to. Now we are seeing an increase in contractual obligations requiring both pollution and professional coverage, which I think is good. That means that either owners, clients, lenders, general contractors, construction managers, those larger entities that are subcontracting up business, they see the risk, they see where the exposures are, and they’re cascading those down to their subcontractors. So, I think that’s really positive. … But contractors don’t always understand or [they] underestimate their exposure. Everybody loves to say, “I’m a street and road contractor; I don’t have a pollution exposure. I don’t have a professional liability exposure.” I can tell you that they do.
Dennis Willette Westfield Specialty’s senior vice president and head of environmental
And there are real examples, tangible examples of where those exposures lie.
For example, a street and road contractor could very easily inadvertently fill and block a sewer line. And all of a sudden whatever’s supposed to flow through, it’s going to go back the other direction. If that happens, and sewage backs up into a residential home, into an apartment building, into a retail or office building, that’s going to cause significant property damage. And if it’s a sewer line, that is going to be a pollution condition. The release of that material is a pollution condition, and that can be a very costly restoration. That’s one example but there are tons of examples. Anytime you put a shovel in the ground, you’re dealing with the potential of striking, identifying, or creating some sort of pollution condition that likely won’t be covered by a general liability policy due to the total pollution exclusion.
Spotlight: Umbrella
Six Things to Know About Umbrella Insurance
By Allen Laman
From rising courtroom verdicts to notable underwriting shifts, here are six things independent agents and brokers need to understand about today’s umbrella market.
What Is an Umbrella Policy?
An umbrella liability policy is designed to pick up where underlying liability insurance policies leave off.
This could mean that once the underlying coverage is exhausted due to the payment of a claim, the umbrella policy can begin to pay on the balance that is owed to the claimant. It could also mean that the loss was excluded on the underlying liability policy, and the umbrella can pick up coverage because there is no exclusion for the loss.
Patrick Wraight, director of education at Insurance Journal’s Academy of Insurance, shared that an umbrella policy, especially one issued by a different company than the one that issued the underlying coverages, might have different coverage terms,
conditions, and exclusions than those underlying liability policies.
By comparison, an excess liability policy is like an umbrella in that it picks up where those underlying policies cease making payments, but it is designed to pay claims in the same way that the underlying policies pay the claim.
Pressure on Umbrella Pricing Remains
The broader commercial insurance market may be experiencing increased capacity, but umbrella pricing remains strained. In some cases, $2 million or $3 million is replacing the traditional $5 million lead umbrella layer.
When unpacking this trend, Society Insurance, a mutual insurance company based in Wisconsin, pointed to third-party litigation funding and social inflation—both of which are increasing the severity of claims.
Data from Marathon Strategies shows that jury awards exceeding $10 million (and even $100 million) are becoming more common, with a 27% increase in nuclear verdicts from 2022 to 2023. And all the
while, carrier capacity is being managed more conservatively, with many insurers reducing the limits they’re willing to offer.
How Underwriting Has Changed
Society Insurance reports that umbrella policy underwriting has become more selective and data driven. Carriers are placing greater scrutiny on loss history, safety protocols, and risk management practices, and insurers are deploying smaller, more targeted layers where multiple carriers participate—instead of offering large, single-layer limits.
Insurers are also pushing for higher underlying limits before umbrella coverage kicks in. Agents should be prepared to educate clients on these shifts and help them present their risk in the best possible light, Society advises. This includes emphasizing proactive safety measures, staff training, and claims history transparency.
Why Carrier Financial Strength Matters
Concentrating solely on the contractual language of a commercial umbrella policy
is a misstep, according to Chris Longo, CEO and managing director of McGowan Excess & Casualty. Speaking during an Academy of Insurance webinar, Longo emphasized a point that still rings true today: the importance of evaluating a carrier’s financial strength and claims-handling experience.
“So, the financial strength of the carrier, you want them to be around for many years so that they can pay umbrella claims,” Longo said. “You want to make sure that they have the ability to pay as well as handle umbrella claims,” he said, adding that their experience in the umbrella marketplace is important, too.
Securing an umbrella policy with a carrier that doesn’t have experience in handling large, severe claims could present problems. Longo stressed that insurers must be prepared to defend those claims competently.
He pointed to AM Best ratings as the industry’s most common reference point for financial strength.
Reshaping How Personal Lines Clients Think About Liability
It’s a simple truth: Many personal lines clients with limited assets don’t see the need for umbrella insurance.
Marjorie Segale, president and founder of Segale Consulting Services and vice president of education and founder for Insurance Community Center, saw this firsthand as an agent. In a webinar with the Academy of Insurance, she stressed the importance of helping clients understand that it isn’t about their personal worth.
“It’s the amount of damages that another party can claim against your client that gives rise to the need for this policy,” she said. “It is critical.”
Many umbrella policies are narrowly crafted to follow what is being provided in a particular homeowners or auto policy, and the forms vary, Segale said. Because client exposures shape coverage options, agents and brokers must understand those risks to offer the right product and select the right carrier.
Commercial Umbrella Outlook
According to USI Insurance Service’s
recently released 2025 Commercial Property & Casualty Mid-Year Addendum, umbrella and excess rates for middlemarket buyers are expected to be flat to up 10% in the next six months, while risk management buyers can anticipate increases of up to 20%, depending on prior loss history and class of business.
The insurance brokerage and consulting firm reported that umbrella and excess liability lines capacity remains adequate and that rate increases are generally stabilizing for most insureds. USI’s addendum said that social inflation remains a persistent challenge for liability lines as social dynamics continue to evolve.
49 results for ‘golf & country clubs’
Closer Look: Underwriting
Underwriters of the Future Are Constant Partners With Agents, Carrier Exec Says
By William Rabb
The future of underwriting will be built on closer relationships between carriers and insurance agents, with carriers working hand-in-hand with agencies to maximize profits from books of business.
That was the word from Chad Combs, vice president of personal lines underwriting for Ohio Mutual Insurance Group. He was a keynote speaker at this year’s Insurance Innovators USA conference in Nashville.
“I believe underwriting today is fundamentally broken. I don’t think that the expertise that we have, the processes that we have, all that we’ve built is well-suited to solve the needs that we really have as an industry today,” said Combs.
In conversations with agents, it has become clear to him that carriers are not doing nearly enough to focus on an agency’s entire book, or on a geographic region, or on growth areas.
And carriers are often seen as simply reacting to consumers’ claims and agents’ requests. But to truly succeed in coming years with a younger crop of producers, carriers and their underwriters must become proactive influencers, nudging agents to develop the top accounts, sometimes with years of effort, said Combs, who has been with Ohio Mutual since 2014 and was previously head of standard auto underwriting with Nationwide Insurance.
In most cases, insurance carriers will need to be more than policy providers and a
safety net for agents. That may mean becoming a wake-up call to agencies that are not cultivating the best clients and are not truly growing their books of business, Combs said.
“The underwriter of the future, the carrier of the future, is an expert at empowering agents. That’s what we have to be really good at,” he said.
That means consistent coaching of agents, using analytics and data to help mitigate catastrophic losses, building excellent client profiles, automating some tasks, and actually managing agencies’ entire books of business. The current model of rewarding agents mostly on new business should shift to include more and better renewals.
“Agents are busier than ever. They need to filter through their book and find the three or four policies where they can make a difference,” he noted.
Carriers should be prepared for a key question from agents: “What’s the number-one policy I should touch in order to add maximum benefit,” Combs asked the crowd. “Could you
answer that question? These are the kinds of things you need to do if you’re going to actually help that agent move forward.”
That future relationship may mean years of nurturing. Where it often falls apart is not following up with agents, Combs said. He gave the analogy of giant bamboo plants. Nurseries have found that with some species, they must water the plants regularly, for years, without seeing results. Only after the fourth year will the plant’s growth explode.
The same holds true for some agencies, Combs argued. Underwriters must keep at it, identifying a few growth opportunities and policies every month until, at some point, the agency has become a top performer.
Some policyholders need more attention than others. For many agents, a normal book may include about 500 homeowner policies. Only about 10% of those may need regular attention or extra work, he noted. Carriers must help agents to recognize those
accounts that need the work.
“We have to prioritize,” Combs said.
Agents, like drivers, may consider themselves to be strong producers. In the near future, it will be the carrier’s job to show agencies how and where they can make improvements, with insights into books of business, training, product strategy, and new tech and tools, he added.
Once that’s accomplished, carriers can get step back and let the agents succeed, he said.
“The underwriter of the future empowers agents, aligns goals, then gets out of the way,” he said. “We have to ask ourselves: Do we want to be caretakers, or do we want to push it forward?”
Chad Combs, Vice President Personal Lines Underwriting, Ohio Mutual Insurance Group
A panel discussion at this year’s Insurance Innovators USA conference. (IJ)
DIY Home Inspections Are Taking Over, Firms Say
By William Rabb
The future of home inspections is here, and it’s in the hands of … the homeowner, according to leaders of two firms that have developed DIY systems now being used by prospective insureds across the country for pre-policy property surveys.
“Do-it-yourself inspections are here!” said Craig Locante, head of survey business for EXL Survey and Business Control, who spoke at the recent Insurance Innovators USA conference in Nashville. “It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ but ‘How can I implement it?’”
EXL is one of the largest of several companies that now offer apps to facilitate computer or smartphone-based inspections. EXL has teamed up with TruePic to produce software that is used by three of the top five personal lines insurance companies in the United States to get homeowners involved, Locante said.
It works like this: The insurance carrier emails or text-messages the policyholder with a link to the app. The property owner answers
several questions in a survey, then shoots photographs of the property, inside and out.
The photos are verified by TruePic’s artificial intelligence software, which can quickly determine if the images are genuine or have been cribbed from the internet, or include the neighbor’s house (which may have a newer roof, for example), explained Craig Stack, co-founder and president of TruePic.
“If it’s a picture of a picture, that can be detected,” Stack told the audience. And AI can find location metadata to ensure the images were shot at the policyholder’s address.
And while some insureds may initially be reluctant to share photos of an existing water stain on a ceiling or a tree limb hanging over the house, Locante said most are happy to participate in the process—especially when they hear that the DIY approach avoids some of the cost and all of the intrusion of a physical inspection by a home inspector.
“When given the option, 80% choose the convenience of a digital self-survey,”
Locante said. “They’d rather do that than have muddy boots coming through in the house.”
Commercial property owners may be asked to take videos of structures and equipment, Locante said.
Carriers also have embraced the DIY idea, he said. One reason is the significant return on investment: Surveys and software can identify the true value of buildings and contents, showing if the proposed coverage is enough. Homeowners tend to underestimate values and underinsure their properties for a number of reasons, including forgetting about remodeling or upgrades, not to mention inflation and escalating repair costs, he noted.
In 65,000 DIY inspections for three large carriers in the last 12 months, the EXL/ TruePic approach was able to show that the majority of properties would have been underinsured—an average of $245,000 in underinsured value per home, Locante said.
The app-based inspections produced an extra $598 in premium per policy and a total of $40 million in additional premium in the first year, he noted.
DIY inspections began to proliferate during the COVID pandemic lockdown, but their popularity has continued to accelerate since then. An estimated 60% of insurance-required home inspections in the U.S. are now being done this way, he said.
Valuable lessons have been learned along the way. Customer satisfaction has proved to be crucial for carriers, Stack noted, so firms have worked to make the process as easy as possible for the homeowner. Other lessons learned include limiting the volume and type of questions posed to the insured. Traditional, on-site surveys by inspection firms have often included more than 50 data points.
“It’s not practical to ask the policyholder to answer 50 questions,” Locante explained.
With so many questions, surveys may not be completed, and the accuracy of answers may be suspect. Instead, EXL has learned to focus on a few key questions, such as the age of the roof, if a business is being managed at the site, and if it’s a primary or secondary home. Then, the owner is asked to take “a reasonable number” of photographs.
An underwriter then needs to review the answers and the photographs, to judge if anything has been overlooked, and to assess the risk and replacement cost for the property, said Locante, who once worked in underwriting for Liberty Mutual Insurance. EXL and TruePic’s generative AI assists underwriters in all of that, by rapidly producing concise property reports, he said.
Other DIY inspection apps available on the market include Tap Inspect, myInspections, Flyreel, Spectora, and more, according to the Apple App Store.
Spotlight: Cyber Risk Management
Tackling Cyber Risks: The Vital Role of Brokers in Third-Party Data Protection
By Don Okolie and Deepti Chauhan
Last year’s global IT outage due to CrowdStrike’s faulty update disrupted hundreds of businesses and essential services across multiple countries, pointedly illustrating a growing threat to organizations worldwide. Cyber threats are rapidly outpacing the ability of traditional insurance and risk management strategies to mitigate them, with two of the world’s largest participants in the insurance carrier and broker market—Zurich and Marsh McLennan—stating that they are worried about the future.
This stark warning highlights an urgent issue: Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report indicates the dependence on third-party service providers increases an organization’s vulnerability to cyberattacks. Sharing sensitive customer data, including personally identifiable information (PII), with third-party vendors exposes organizations to significant risks, from reputational damage to regulatory penalties and operational disruptions.
The Scope of the Challenge
Within the insurance sector, cybersecurity has evolved from a peripheral concern to a core business priority for both insurers and their clients. As claims processing becomes more complex and critical functions like data management, underwriting, and customer service are outsourced, insurers are exposed to a broader cyber threat landscape.
Data breaches affecting
insurers have been known in some instances to originate from their third-party service providers, each of which presents an entry point for malicious actors to exploit weaknesses in the supply chain.
A study by Security Scorecard Research indicates that up to 59% of breaches among the top 150 insurance companies involved third-party attack vectors.
These cyber threats not only reveal critical vulnerabilities within the sector’s supply chain, but they also come at significant financial cost. In 2023, according to IBM Security the global average cost of a data breach reached $4.45 million, with sectors such as insurance experiencing even higher costs due to the sensitive nature of data involved.
Importantly, this is not just an insurance carrier issue—it affects everyday
consumers, as well. To absorb the costs of compromised data and increased security measures, insurers might have little recourse but to increase premiums, shifting or sharing the cost burden with their customers. Additionally, these cyberattacks compromise consumers’ sensitive personal information, undermining the trust place they in insurers.
The Broker’s Role in Mitigating Cybersecurity Risks
In today’s evolving landscape, brokers play an important role that extends far beyond policy placement—they are critical in ongoing risk management. While traditional insurance models solely focus on coverage, modern risk management requires continuous engagement to address evolving cybersecurity threats. Brokers can offer crucial guidance during the pre-placement stage and throughout the policy
lifecycle, helping to protect both carriers and their customers from third-party risks.
Here are a few ways brokers can mitigate cybersecurity risks for their customers related to third-party providers.
Pre-Placement Advisory: Conducting Rigorous Due Diligence
Before selecting a third-party provider or vendor, brokers can assist clients in evaluating the cybersecurity posture of potential vendors (directly or through proficient consultants).
Some key considerations include:
1. Assess which third parties require in-depth cybersecurity due diligence, so as to focus commensurate efforts on vendors that do pose a real risk. Some parameters to consider:
• If a vendor or subcontractor accesses the client’s network using own devices/ infrastructure (i.e., non-client owned
and/or managed devices).
• Where the client is procuring applications, software, IT products (non-consumables), or cloud services (including APIs) which will integrate or have a touch point with client’s network.
• Where client data (non-public/ PII/PHI/SPII/PCI/Client Confidential, as per client’s Data Classification Policy) is exported out of the client network and shared with vendor.
2. Verify if the vendor or subcontractors have relevant security certifications or attestations (provided by an authorized and reputed agency) for the service or product being provided. For example, ISO 27001 may be considered when vendors are providing services which are executed in client environment and there is a need to have a comprehensive ISMS, and SOC 2 may be considered for data security controls if client data— especially clients in North America—is being transferred to the vendor’s application in vendor environment.
3. Validate if vendors have mitigated gaps identified during the due diligence and assess the residual risk. The residual risk can help in tailoring the policy and providing clarity on policy limitations.
Vendor Selection, Negotiation and Contracting
Brokers could counsel clients to integrate specific cybersecurity clauses into contracts with third-party providers and negotiate said contracts to address cybersecurity concerns identified during the due diligence phase. Further, brokers can help
businesses establish clear lines of responsibility for cyber incidents and ensure that they have the necessary legal protection.
‘In today’s evolving landscape, brokers play an important role that
extends far
beyond policy placement—they are critical in ongoing risk management.’
Ongoing Engagement: Ensuring Transparency and Continued Oversight
Brokers can guide insurers to achieve greater transparency through continuous monitoring and governance of their customers’ third-party providers. This can be achieved through:
• Providing updates about emerging cyber threats and ensuring that vendor and third-party policies and practices are up to date.
• Monitoring or auditing the security posture of the vendor or third party as per pre-defined qualifiers and frequency and providing guidance on policy changes (including validation of security certifications such as ISO, SOC, adherence to NIST, GDPR, and so on).
• Providing guidance on cost-effective strategies for transferring cyber risks (to insurance companies or other third parties).
• Assisting in incident simulations and testing to help the organization learn from a potential incident and improve its cybersecurity posture in the future.
Brokers may also offer broader risk management services, such as cybersecurity consulting, threat monitoring, and penetration testing. Moreover, brokers may also assist with claims related to third-party breaches, such as liability for damage caused by data breaches affecting
customers or partners
Actionable Steps for Insurers and Customers
By further investing in a proactive, advisory role, brokers can help both insurers and their customers reduce cybersecurity risks associated with third-party providers. Through vigilant due diligence, continuous monitoring, and robust certifications, brokers can empower insurers to mitigate against potential data breaches.
In a continuously and rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape, broker-driven partnerships built on trust, transparency, and a shared commitment to data protection are essential for safeguarding sensitive client information and ensuring long-term business success.
Okolie is global head of insurance underwriting practice, and Chauhan is information security leader of Genpact.
Idea Exchange: Is It Covered?
Logic & Language and Forms & Facts Certificates of Insurance…Or How I Got a Job in the Prison Laundry
As best as I can recall, the first article I wrote about certificates of insurance (COIs) was in 2002, over two decades ago. For the next four years, I wrote more on that subject than any other property/casualty issue, culminating with the publication of a white paper in January 2007. That white paper is still available by searching for “Certificates of Insurance Resources” at IndependentAgent.com.
By Bill Wilson
Following the publication of that white paper, the Big “I” offered a three-hour webinar in 2007 attended by about 3,000 industry professionals over several broadcasts. This article shares the title of that original webinar. The webinar was updated and presented again in 2010 and 2013. In the years following that, it seemed that the entire issue, for the most part, had
settled down. The last seminar or webinar in which I discussed COI issues was 2017.
I believe the last time I addressed a certificate of insurance issue in this Insurance Journal column was at least four years ago. However, increasingly in the past year or so, I’ve received quite a few inquiries about COIs, with many of the questions being identical to those from 20-plus years ago. Perhaps this is due to a new generation of industry personnel, as well as a new generation of contractors, lenders, etc.?
While I retired from the Big “I” at the end of 2016, I still serve as a volunteer faculty member on their Virtual University (VU) and get questions from their member agents almost daily. In late April, the VU faculty received the inquiry below from a Michigan agent.
“We are in the process of launching a client portal for our commercial clients where they have the ability to re-issue previously issued Certificates of Liability Insurance
(ACORD 25) and issue new certificates for holders, as well. The program we are using [name of online system redacted] allows us to give them access to ‘free form’ the summary portion of the Description of Operations.
“If a client issues a certificate through that portal, we are notified and able to track who issued it as well as what language they put in the Description of Operations field. The goal is to teach clients to only put job numbers, location addresses, or the like in that field so they can satisfy requestor requirements.
“There is a chance, though, that they could instead write in other things such as stating Additional Insured status is granted, Waivers of Subrogation provided, etc. My question is whether our agency would be at risk from an E&O standpoint if a client wrote language on a certificate that is not true and a claim occurred.
“Since it’s trackable that they are the
ones who wrote it instead of us, that is what leads me to question if we could avoid being held at fault.”
After retiring from the Big “I” at the end of 2016, I started blogging from my website at InsuranceCommentary.com. I wrote a COI article in 2017 called “Should Customers Be Able to Modify Certificates of Insurance” and an article in 2021 called “Beware of Online COI Systems.” Both of those articles address issues raised by the aforementioned Michigan agent that I’ll summarize here.
First, as for the agency’s potential for an E&O claim, if the customer puts information on the COI that isn’t accurate, only a qualified attorney can answer that question definitively. My non-legal expert opinion is…yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I suspect your liability could extend to the customer, the COI requestor, the customer’s (and your) insurers, and other parties such as additional insureds or potentially even the public as claimants.
But, aside from the professional liability exposure, there are other issues. All but a few states now have statutes, regulations,
or insurance department directives prohibiting a COI from including any information that conflicts with what the policy forms provide. Noncompliance with these lawful orders can result in loss of license, fines, or worse.
Note that the ACORD 25 references an “Authorized Signature” for the issuer of the COI. Authorization is granted by the insurer(s) listed on the COI. Is your customer authorized by those insurers to issue, or complete in some way, COIs on their behalf?
The ACORD 25 Forms Instruction Guide (FIG) provides examples of “authorized representatives” as “producer, agent, broker, etc.” Does your agency/company contract and do related documents grant authority for a customer (or any unlicensed agency employee) to complete or issue a COI? The ACORD 25 FIG says, “The ACORD Certificate should be issued only in compliance with company instructions.”
As for the Description of Operations field itself, the ACORD 25 FIG says, “As used here, records information necessary to identify the operations, locations and vehi-
cles for which the certificate was issued.” It says nothing about listing additional insureds, job numbers, or making any reference whatsoever to compliance with contracts or other information.
A few years ago, I heard from several Michigan agents about a large contractor in the state that was using a proprietary COI system and requiring the agents of subs of the contractor to upload COIs to this system while charging the agent $15 for this honor and privilege. The contractor’s construction contract allegedly required very specific additional insured wording on the COI, as well as a cancellation notice statement and an indication that coverage was provided for “Liability insurance including contractor’s obligations under the indemnification provisions of this contract.” No CGL policy covers all of a contractor’s obligations to indemnify. In the specific question that generated this article, what’s to keep a customer from putting anything they want to in the Description of Operations field of the COI? Even if the agency is notified of this electronically, how soon can anyone act to review the statement. Consider how many certificates a large contractor could be issuing weekly. Is the agency staffed to monitor this activity, and can they do it quickly enough to intercept a problem COI before it’s received by the requestor? Highly unlikely.
Readers, what do you think?
Note that there is a Comments section (find this article online at InsuranceJournal.com) for your feedback on this article. Is anyone using a system like this in this way? What is your experience? Are your staffs, especially newer hires, up to date on COI issues? Would you have any interest in a webinar on COIs from perhaps the Insurance Journal’s Academy of Insurance? Inquiring minds want to know.
Wilson, CPCU, ARM, AIM, AAM, is the founder and CEO of InsuranceCommentary.com and the author of six books, including the Amazon 4.8 star “When Words Collide…Resolving Insurance Coverage and Claims Disputes” which BookAuthority ranks as the #1 insurance book of all time. He can be reached at Bill@InsuranceCommentary.com.
Idea Exchange: Risk Management
Smoke in the Rearview: Lessons in Wildfire Preparedness from an Agency CEO’s Evacuation Experience
In 2024, my family and I were forced to evacuate our home due to an approaching wildfire. After two decades in the insurance industry helping countless clients prepare for disasters and the unexpected, nothing compares to facing down a disaster yourself. When the alert came, I was simply a homeowner trying to keep my family safe. It was emotional and intense. But it also served as a powerful reminder of just how vital wildfire preparation really is. Fortunately, my family and our home escaped the fire. But what was helpful to us in the moment and what would have gotten us through if we had been impacted was the fact that we had a plan. Our go-bags were ready with our valuables. Our pets had already been relocated. Our important documents were digitized and backed up, and our home inventory, including photos and videos, were safely stored in the cloud. That preparation gave our family the clarity and confidence to navigate the situation. And as an agent, it proved that clients need more than coverage. They
need a plan, and they need someone to guide them long before a disaster strikes.
Before the Fire Starts
By Rajni Kapur
Time is the most limited resource the moment an evacuation becomes a reality. Things move quickly once an evacuation order is made, and homeowners must be prepared to act. My family’s experience reminded me of the role we play as agents in equipping people with the tools and knowledge they need when the unthinkable happens.
When a wildfire is not imminent, homeowners can effectively increase their defenses to make the limited time available in an evacuation count. For example, preparing go-bags, creating a home inventory, and upgrading their homes to meet the current recommended wildfire construction standards can help limit concerns in an evacuation scenario.
Agents and brokers should consider recommending the following to their clients:
• Review insurance coverage annually. Make sure clients understand their dwelling limits, personal property coverage, and additional living expenses (ALE) provisions. With rising construction costs and inflation, many homeowners are underinsured without realizing it.
• Consider construction standards. Agents should suggest clients invest in recommended home improvements to increase their wildfire defenses. Homes built before 2010 are not required to have the same fire-resistant features as more modern homes due to changes in construction standards. Installing fire-resistant siding, double-paned for tempered glass windows, ember-resistant venting, and fire-safe landscaping can all lend to creating a more defensible home. Maintenance tasks such as clearing brush from gutters and overgrown foliage from the side of a home should also be prioritized. These small tasks and upgrades can dramatically improve a home’s ability to survive in a wildfire.
• Create and maintain a home inventory. Encourage clients to do a quick video tour of their home once a year. Open drawers, show major appliances, and document anything of value throughout the attic and garage spaces. Store it in the cloud where it’s safe and accessible as these records can be very beneficial to the insurance claims process.
• Prepare a go-bag and evacuation plan. Every household should have a ready-togo bag for each person with at least a few days’ worth of essential items, valuables, and keepsakes. This is especially
important for families with kids, pets, or elderly members. This way, a household can move quickly while keeping the more vulnerable members of the home safe.
• People and pets first. In an evacuation, it is crucial to have a plan for the vulnerable members of a household like children, the elderly, or pets. In some cases, it may make more sense to evacuate them before an evacuation order is officially made. Whatever makes the most sense for a household should be discussed and included in a plan before a wildfire event.
• Digitize and back up important documents. Insurance policies, IDs, banking info, mortgage documents, and other valuable documents should all be stored securely online or on a USB drive in the go-bag. Homeowners should know exactly where to find this information and how to access it quickly.
What Homeowners Often Forget in the Chaos of an Evacuation
Even with a plan, evacuation is overwhelming. I realized firsthand how easy it is to forget what matters most and now emphasize that to clients.
Essentials usually come to mind first, but people often leave behind irreplaceable items that cannot be made whole by insurance like family photos and keepsakes. A simple reminder to think about sentimental items ahead of time can mean everything when seconds count.
‘As agents, we have the opportunity to lead these conversations early and help clients not just recover from disaster but get ahead of it.’
Another common problem that arises in an evacuation is confusion about what insurance actually covers. Many clients assume evacuation costs like hotel stays, meals, and supplies are included,
but that is not always the case. These typically fall under ALE coverage, and not all homeowners understand the limits or how to access those benefits. Having that conversation with insureds proactively can help avoid surprises later.
Documenting the value of a home inventory cannot be overstated. When evacuating under pressure, the last thing homeowners are thinking about is documenting their belongings. But filing a claim becomes much harder without that documentation. A comprehensive video walk-through of a property that shows open drawers and cabinets, major appliances and electronics, furniture, attic items, and more can make all the difference. Videos should be stored in multiple secure places such as cloud storage or an external hard drive and updated at least once a year or after major purchases or home upgrades.
Three Immediate Steps to Take When Evacuation Becomes a Reality
When an evacuation order comes through, property owners should act immediately. It can be difficult in the chaos to know what to do first, but those property owners who planned effectively will be equipped to handle it. Consider working with your clients to ensure they understand the importance of the following steps in an evacuation:
• Stay connected and communicate. Monitoring local alerts is crucial. Clients should sign up for and pay attention to
regional emergency notifications and local fire maps and have a plan to inform family or neighbors of their whereabouts and destination.
• People, pets and go. Homeowners should put their evacuation plan into action immediately and address where their children, elderly family members, and pets will go. Go-bags should already be packed for each person in a household with medications, copies of important documents such as passports, Social Security identification cards, valuables, and at least a few days’ worth of essential items. When the evacuation notice hits, everyone in a household should be prepared to grab their go-bag and head to a pre-determined, safe destination.
• Gather and protect key documents. Ensure clients know that their digitized key documents such as insurance policies, ID cards, banking info, home inventories, and their home walkthrough video should travel with them whether safely secured on the cloud or a USB drive.
Be
the Resource Before the Emergency
Evacuating my home changed the way I view my work. While I have always believed in the importance of preparation, I now know just how personal it is. Wildfire threats are growing, and too many homeowners do not realize how underprepared they are until it’s too late. As agents, we have the opportunity to lead these conversations early and help clients not just recover from disaster but get ahead of it. That’s what makes our role so powerful. Wildfires come with little warning, but with the right plan and a trusted insurance advisor, our clients do not have to face them unprepared.
Kapur is CEO of All Solutions Insurance, one of the largest independently owned insurance agencies in California placing over $34 million in annual premiums. Kapur has 21 years of experience in the insurance industry, starting as an independent agent and rising her way up the ladder to CEO. She can be reached at 951-247-2003 or rajnik@allsolins.com.
Idea Exchange: Tariffs and Insurance
Tariffs, Tension, and Risk: How Trump’s Trade War Is Reshaping the Insurance Landscape
President Trump has ignited global trade tensions with the rollout of a sweeping new tariff regime to promote domestic manufacturing and aimed at what he calls restoring balance to America’s economic relationships. This includes placing elevated tariff rates on dozens of countries running trade surpluses with the U.S., along with a dramatic escalation of duties on Chinese goods—some reaching a whopping 145%.
By Samuel Licker
As of this writing, the tariffs affect imports from the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and many other nations. And while a 90-day pause has been granted for most countries, China was explicitly excluded, prompting swift retaliation in the form of tariffs of up to 125% on U.S. goods and a halt on exports of rare earth metals critical to American manufacturing and defense. In response, financial markets have suffered their worst declines since the outbreak of COVID-19, which may have prompted the Trump administration to temporarily carve out exemptions for popular consumer electronics like smartphones and laptops. Still, the economic landscape remains anything but stable.
For the insurance industry, these developments present no direct regulatory threat—but they do create a host of second-order risks that are increasingly difficult to ignore. Insurers depend on stable markets, healthy businesses, and predictable economic cycles. Tariffs undermine all three to the extent they rattle investment portfolios, disrupt commercial activity, and destabilize global supply chains. As a result, insurers must recalibrate everything from asset allocation strategies to underwriting assumptions, while identifying new opportunities to provide value in an increasingly uncertain world.
The challenge now is less about bracing
for impact and more about adjusting to a new normal.
Markets on Edge, Portfolios in Flux
At the heart of the insurance sector’s exposure to tariffs lies its dependence on investment returns. Most carriers maintain large, diversified portfolios—particularly in fixed income—that generate income to fund operations and pay claims. While these portfolios are generally conservative, they’re not immune to the turbulence that tariffs introduce into global markets. For instance, as tariffs increase input costs and fuel inflationary pressure, the Federal Reserve may be compelled to reverse course and raise interest rates. Higher rates, in turn, can benefit insurers by lifting yields on newly acquired bonds. But they also erode the value of existing bond holdings—particularly concerning for insurers with long-dated portfolios. Moreover, if tariff-driven disruptions
begin to squeeze corporate margins, bond defaults may rise—especially in exposed sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, and retail. For insurers, this represents a double hit: weakening asset values and rising credit risk.
Equity holdings are also vulnerable. Market volatility triggered by global trade uncertainty can whipsaw stock prices, impacting insurers’ capital positions and, potentially, their risk-based capital ratios. It’s a reminder that while tariffs are set in Washington, their financial fallout is global—and deeply systemic.
Commercial Lines Caught in the Crossfire
Beyond investment portfolios, tariffs can have a chilling effect on the underlying demand for insurance products—particularly in commercial lines. When international trade diminishes, factories idle, or businesses close, the need for coverage decreases accordingly.
Take marine and cargo insurance. A decline in import and export activity means fewer goods in transit—and less revenue for insurers writing those policies. Similarly, business property, general liability, and workers’ compensation policies tied to sectors reliant on international inputs or customers may see falling premium volumes as those businesses slow or shutter. For insurance companies with concentrated exposure to trade-intensive industries, the revenue impact could be meaningful.
Tariffs also tend to stall capital investment. Companies uncertain about the cost of inputs or the reliability of supply chains often defer expansion plans. That means fewer insurable assets—new plants, equipment, inventory—to bring into the fold. In short, tariffs don’t just constrict global commerce; they shrink the insurance universe.
Business Interruption Gets Political
In the wake of COVID-19, business interruption (BI) insurance evolved from a niche offering into a frontline coverage.
Now, it’s being tested again—this time by political risk. Supply chain breakdowns caused by retaliatory tariffs or blocked access to raw materials can halt production, cancel orders, and lead to significant losses for policyholders.
For insurers, this raises hard questions. How should BI policies respond to government-imposed trade barriers? Are tariffs a covered cause of loss? Do existing models account for politically driven disruption in an increasingly polarized world?
Many insurers are already re-examining their BI and contingent business interruption policies, factoring in broader geopolitical exposures. This includes not just the risk of claim frequency but also the adequacy of pricing in industries increasingly vulnerable to cross-border volatility. As trade risk becomes harder to quantify, coverage terms and exclusions are likely to evolve—potentially prompting both litigation and innovation.
A Catalyst for New Products
But it’s not all doom and gloom—there’s also opportunity. As businesses seek protection from tariff-related losses, insurers have an opportunity to develop new, targeted offerings. Much like cyber coverage or pandemic-triggered policies emerged from specific market needs, tariff-related products could be the next frontier in risk innovation.
Imagine custom policies designed to protect manufacturers, importers, and exporters against cost overruns, supply chain disruptions, or shipping delays tied directly to trade policy. These policies might be structured around clearly defined triggers—such as the imposition of a new tariff rate or the suspension of a trade agreement—and calibrated to particular industries.
Reinsurers, too, can adjust their pricing and portfolio strategies, using AI and advanced analytics to model tariff-sensitive risks more precisely. By identifying exposure across verticals like electronics, automotive, agriculture, and construction, insurers and reinsurers can rebalance away from volatility and toward more resilient sectors like domestic services, infrastructure, and health care.
Strategic Investing Amid Volatility
On the investment side, market swings caused by tariff anxiety may offer well-capitalized insurers the chance to act offensively.
A dip in equity valuations could unlock value for long-term investors. Rising interest rates—if managed carefully—can improve overall portfolio yield. The key is managing duration risk and ensuring liquidity remains nimble.
Sophisticated insurers will need to complement tactical investing with broader scenario planning—stress testing their portfolios not just for recession risk or rate shock but for geopolitical tension and prolonged supply chain instability. The organizations that can turn volatility into calculated opportunity may find themselves strengthened, not diminished, by the shifting economic tides.
Looking Ahead
As of mid-April 2025, the contours of the trade war are still being drawn, and the full implementation of tariffs is not yet complete. But the message is clear: We’ve entered a new phase of economic nationalism—and insurers must adjust accordingly.
Tariffs may seem peripheral to the business of insurance, but their ripple effects are anything but. They touch asset performance, policy demand, and claims behavior. They demand new thinking in underwriting, product design, and capital deployment. Most importantly, they remind the industry that systemic risk is no longer confined to storms, markets, or pandemics—it’s increasingly shaped by politics.
In a time of rising uncertainty, the insurance industry’s mandate is unchanged: assess risk, price it correctly, and be ready when the losses come. What’s changed is the nature of that risk—and the speed with which it arrives.
Licker is an associate at Michelman & Robinson, LLP, a national law firm headquartered in Los Angeles, with additional offices in Irvine, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Chicago and New York City. He specializes in corporate law, including transactions in the insurance space. Sam can be contacted at slicker@mrllp.com or 310-299-5500.
Idea Exchange: Minding Your Business
Value-Added Services to Offer Clients
The insurance consumer will not see any significant value difference between insurance companies and insurance agencies. Products, price, and service are roughly the same. Insurance is really a commodity.
By Catherine Oak
Consumers hav access insurance through insurtech/ fintech (technology-related companies) that drive the channel distribution into new, non-traditional companies. Direct writers rely heavily on clever marketing to promote their brand presence. The local independent agency no longer has a captive audience.
To differentiate from others, salespeople are forced to sell on rapport, relationships, and sales skills. Things are said, such as
“we have the best service” or “this policy has broader coverage.” Price sensitivity can often be handled by adjusting or justifying limits and deductibles.
How to Differentiate
How can the insurance industry in general, and a local insurance agency specifically, stand out and be perceived as offering an excellent, quality service to the consumer?
The answer is to provide the client with additional services and products they cannot get from the rest of the insurance industry or other agencies in town—services and products the consumer needs and desires, or new ones they don’t yet know that they need.
These additional services are called “value-added services,” and as the name describes, they are valuable to the client. Value-added services (referred to as “VAS” in this article) are add-ons to the core
services of a business. They have unique characteristics and provide benefits to the client that core services cannot. VAS can be stand-alone products, although they are usually connected to the core service and intended to enhance it.
Increasing customer expectations are the initial driver in the offering and creation of VAS. The major players in the insurance industry react to meet these consumer demands. The insurtech/fintech companies develop new and innovative VAS that create new services that the customer did not have before. But what can the local independent agency do?
Anticipate and Collaborate
Incorporating VAS into an agency will require rethinking the agency’s core beliefs and behaviors. It requires understanding the current client’s needs and then filling in those gaps. It is equally important to continued on page 48
Idea Exchange: Minding Your Business
continued from page 47 anticipate future needs and develop or seek out VAS that will be attractive to the customer. VAS should be looked at as a way to collaborate and engage the customer while strengthening existing relationships, improving retention, and fostering new client acquisitions.
Value-added services can be anything insurance customers might want or need. There are two ways to categorize VAS.
First, the VAS can be in the form of advice and assistance. These VAS typically provide information to prevent or mitigate risk, as well as to let the customer better manage their property and lifestyle. Some ideas include risk management services, human resources services, attorney services, financial management services, estate planning, business consulting, disaster planning, identity theft protection, COBRA administration, loss control, workers’ compensation claims management, security protection, etc.
Second, the VAS can be a self-service tool, where the client has the ability to better manage their account and their insured risks on their own time. Consumers like the immediate access that self-service tools provide, and the agency usually has less service work to perform.
Self-service tools are generally in collaboration with the insurance company or some other third party. Some carriers allow the customer to have limited but direct access to their account online. Third-party vendors have created client portals that enable the customer to access information and make limited changes to their accounts. These include CSR24, Zywave, CertificatesNow, etc.
Next Steps
There needs to be a realistic assessment of what can be offered by the agency based on staff, time, and money limitations. Otherwise, these services are often outsourced for a fee. A smaller agency in a rural area might not be able to provide the same services a larger agency or regional broker offers to its high-end clients. However, that same small agency can put together an impressive package of value-added services and products that will
differentiate it from its competitors. Putting together a customized package of VAS can be rewarding but also incredibly time-consuming if it becomes too elaborate. If the agency is large, it might make sense to have a full-time employee who can research, analyze, and create a series of value-added services for the agency. In a small to medium-sized agency, the owners with administrative staff will have to do this and decide what can be offered cost effectively for the firm and its clients. Some agencies provide these services only for accounts over a specific size. Some agencies will pay for these services for their clients and sometimes a particular producer may pay for them. Others may charge the client for the use of these services.
‘Education is an easy VAS
option. Some agencies offer public workshops on insurance-related topics. Training can be customized for a
specific client, as well, such as risk management, loss control, employee benefits compliance, etc.’
Start Small
There are some very simple VAS options that can be done quickly and at minimal cost.
One client did this: 1) Send an email to clients with a checklist for disaster preparation, just before a pending event such as a tornado or hurricane. 2) Videotape or photograph a client’s possessions (personal and business) for claims purposes on a bi-annual basis and store the videos at the agency.
Some agencies are also offering drone service to look over a prospect’s properties for hazards an underwriter may be skeptical about, especially with wildfires in certain areas.
Education is an easy VAS option. Some agencies offer public workshops on insurance-related topics. Training can be customized for a specific client, as well,
such as risk management, loss control, employee benefits compliance, etc. There are many sources to create an educational VAS. Internal risk management services and products can be developed from sources such as IRMI and RIMS. Advisen (www.advisen.com) provides its members with a variety of resources related to insurance products and industry-specific news and data. Imagine being able to show clients how their insurance portfolio compares to their peers through the use of industry-specific benchmarking. Or just send clients important industry news related to insurance. Doing comparisons of policy coverage forms between companies in proposals can also be helpful.
Outsourcing
There are short cuts that can be used in place of creating customized VAS. Insurance companies might offer some VAS services. Many companies will put together a package of VAS for key agents and VIP policyholders. For example, some companies offer VAS for their high-end personal lines clients, such as appraisal services, home monitoring, identity fraud mitigation, and background checks on domestic employees. Chubb’s private fire prevention services recently made the news during the California wildfires. Health insurers offer tele-medicine, health screening, and education on preventive health care. Life companies offer estate planning and retirement planning services. Other local professionals can develop VAS packages for clients. Coordinate with local CPAs, attorneys, and payroll service providers to offer their services at a discount to clients. Hire a consultant that can develop a business disaster plan and sell that service to clients.
Some companies pre-package a set of value-added services that the typical insur-
ance customer might desire. One such company is BizAssure (www.bizassure. com). Members can offer to their clients legal, HR, claims, and accounting services. This type of arrangement can put the small agency ahead of its larger competitors in the eyes of the consumer.
Free or Fee
Since these are add-ons to the primary insurance services offered for a commission, they should meet the definition of what agencies can charge a fee for by law. Therefore, a VAS can be sold to the client for a price as long as it is separately disclosed on the client invoice. Clients will love the ease of getting great additional services and products provided by their broker/agent, so don’t be surprised if a client does not mind paying a fee for these services.
Summary
Value-added services are increasing in importance to the insurance industry. There are at least three benefits to the agency. First, the client will become more of an advocate of the agency and less likely to move to another agent because of the value these services provide. Second, agencies that have VAS will have a market advantage and attract new clients. Finally, if the agency offers these additional services and products for a fee, the agency
June 16, 2025
Plateau Insurance Company 2701 N.Main Street Crossville, TN 38555
The above company has made application to the Division of Insurance to obtain a Foreign Company License to transact Life, Accident, and Health Insurance and Variable Life or Variable Annuities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Any person having any information regarding the company which relates to its suitability for the license or authority the applicant has requested is asked to notify the Division by personal letter to the Commissioner of Insurance, 1000 Washington Street, Suite 810, Boston, MA 021186200, Attn: Financial Surveillance and Company Licensing within 14 days of the date of this notice.
will bring in a new income stream. Start small and methodically when adding services and products. However, do keep the focus on insurance products. Add value to that service before adding value-added services. Don’t get bogged down handling the details of the VAS—they can be mostly outsourced. This approach often does not require significant commitment from the agency.
Oak is the founder of the consulting firm Oak & Associates, based in Northern California and Central Oregon. Oak & Associates specializes in financial and
June 16, 2025
Incline National Insurance Company 5248 Olympic Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036-4959
The above company has made application to the Division of Insurance to obtain a Foreign Company License to transact Property and Casualty Insurance in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Any person having any information regarding the company which relates to its suitability for the license or authority the applicant has requested is asked to notify the Division by personal letter to the Commissioner of Insurance, 1000 Washington Street, Suite 810, Boston, MA 021186200, Attn: Financial Surveillance and Company Licensing within 14 days of the date of this notice.
June 16, 2025
Swiss Re Corporate Solutions America Insurance Corporation
1200 Main Street, Suite 800 Kansas City, MO 64105
The above company has made application to the Division of Insurance to amend their Foreign Company License to transact Property and Casualty Insurance in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Any person having any information regarding the company which relates to its suitability for the license or authority the applicant has requested is asked to notify the Division by personal letter to the Commissioner of Insurance, 1000 Washington Street, Suite 810, Boston, MA 021186200, Attn: Financial Surveillance and Company Licensing within 14 days of the date of this notice.
management consulting for independent insurance agencies, including valuations, mergers acquisitions, sales and marketing planning as well as perpetuation planning. Phone: 707-935-6565. Email: catoak@ gmail.com.
June 16, 2025
Independence Pet Insurance Company 1209 Orange Street Wilmington, DE 19801
The above company has made application to the Division of Insurance to obtain a Foreign Company License to transact Property and Casualty Insurance in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Any person having any information regarding the company which relates to its suitability for the license or authority the applicant has requested is asked to notify the Division by personal letter to the Commissioner of Insurance, 1000 Washington Street, Suite 810, Boston, MA 021186200, Attn: Financial Surveillance and Company Licensing within 14 days of the date of this notice.
Closing Quote
How Embedded Insurance Supports Real Livelihoods in the Growing On-Demand Economy
By Dan Bratshpis
Embedded insurance is everywhere. From booking a flight or buying concert tickets to opening a bank account, insurance is now being offered to consumers at the point of need. It makes access quicker, simpler, and more appealing for people who may not have sought it out otherwise.
But while embedded insurance has become a popular concept for consumers, the commercial auto insurance industry is just starting to realize the benefits—thanks, in part, to the exponential growth of the on-demand economy.
Our research has found that the number of hours Americans are driving for on-demand economy apps such as Uber and Amazon Flex is increasing significantly.
In 2023, a majority of drivers (73%) said they were driving longer hours than just a year before—with 44% saying their driving hours had at least doubled. Yet, there’s still slow progression toward building suitable commercial auto insurance products and services for the drivers fueling this economy.
To drive for on-demand economy apps, U.S. drivers may require additional insurance, which varies between rideshare and delivery as well as by state regulations. That means traditional insurance policies can struggle to satisfy the needs of individual drivers. Most on-demand economy drivers drive part time around other jobs and priorities such as childcare, which means that traditional commercial coverage—typically designed for full-time work—doesn’t work for them. They need easy access to flexible, affordable coverage that’s tailored to their individual driving patterns.
But embedded insurance is changing the game, enabling insurers to offer on-demand
economy drivers a seamless, frictionless experience that quickly matches them to the appropriate coverage for the type of work they do (transportation or courier, for example).
Platform partners offer insurers a direct link to the driver, sharing data that enables better underwriting, leading to improved loss ratios and competitively priced insurance products. Combining data from the platform, from claims and other proprietary datapoints relevant to the on-demand driver—including location, weather, vehicle type, how the vehicle is used, where it is parked, miles driven, hours driven, driver history, driver work location, and driver insurance claims—ensures that coverage is comprehensive and adaptable to the type of work the on-demand driver chooses to do. Drivers are not only matched to appropriate insurance but also covered for risks they didn’t realize they needed.
For example, food delivery drivers might already be covered for business use, but they might not know they also require hire and reward insurance. (Editor’s Note: Hire and reward insurance is a type of commercial motor policy that allows drivers to carry passengers or parcels in return for payment.)
As a result, drivers can simply “tap and drive” with confidence they are comprehensively protected at the right price. The outcome is drivers getting more suitable products, platforms having more content
drivers, and insurers getting better underwriting results. While it sounds simple, embedded commercial auto insurance for the on-demand driver requires a specialist skill set and deep knowledge of both insurance and technology. Capacity and reinsurance companies need to see proof that their partners understand the complexity of commercial auto insurance.
For the insurance industry to truly meet the needs of on-demand drivers and partners, it must successfully combine tech and data innovations with insurance incumbents’ decades-long expertise and partnerships with platforms. Embedding insurance is not a case of dropping in a product; it needs to be co-designed around real user behavior. This approach creates a symbiotic relationship between the platform, the insurer, and the insured (driver), meaning on-demand products can be developed—such as Amazon’s embedded wallet solution, Pay-as-you-Flex, a wallet-based, by-the-minute insurance product for on-demand courier work in the UK, developed by INSHUR.
Embedded insurance, when deployed effectively, enables drivers to access the exact level of coverage they need to match their work and lifestyles, and helps insurers make sure that coverage is comprehensive and adaptable to the type of work the on-demand driver chooses to do.
