U.S. Forecaster Expects ENSO‑Neutral to Continue, While El Nino Risk Builds
The U.S. Climate Prediction Center says ENSO‑neutral conditions will likely persist from April through June 2026, with an 80% probability, while the risk of an El Niño developing climbs to 61% for May‑June and could last through the end of the year. Warmer subsurface Pacific temperatures and westerly wind anomalies are driving the shift. Meteorologists warn that a strong El Niño would bring cooler, wetter summers to the U.S. Midwest and wetter conditions in Brazil and Argentina, but drier weather in Indonesia and India. The downstream effect could suppress coffee and cocoa yields into early 2027.
How Insurance Leaders Can Leverage AI Without Sacrificing Trust
Capgemini’s WNS unit outlines how insurers can embed control, privacy and compliance into AI deployments while still fostering cross‑jurisdiction collaboration. Techniques such as geographic data restrictions and federated learning enable model training without moving raw data. High‑impact AI use cases...
NFL’s Race-Based Hiring Rule Under Scrutiny After Florida AG Says It Violates Law
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier warned the NFL that its Rooney Rule could face enforcement action under state law, demanding the league suspend the rule for its Florida franchises by May 1. The Rooney Rule, introduced in 2003 to boost minority...
GAO: Wind Risk Linked to Larger Insurance Premium Jumps Than Wildfire
The Government Accountability Office released a report showing wind risk drives far larger homeowners‑insurance premium jumps than wildfire. Between 2019 and 2024, homes in severe or extreme wind zones pay about 58 % more—roughly $1,294 annually—than those in major wind areas,...
Strong Underwriting, Investment Income Bolster P/C Income in 2025, Says Moody’s
Moody’s analysis of twenty U.S. property‑casualty insurers shows net income surged 29% to $69 billion in 2025, driven by stronger underwriting and higher investment returns. The group’s combined ratio improved to 88.4 from 91.7, reflecting lower catastrophe losses that fell 9%...
From Volatility to Value: How Carriers Can Build Durable Growth
EY Americas insurance leader Jeff Gill warns that growth in today’s insurance market can no longer rely on cyclical upswings. Structural volatility—driven by softening P&C premiums, social inflation, tighter capital and regulatory pressure—requires carriers to make deliberate, disciplined choices. He...
Hands-Free Driver Systems Don’t Improve Safety: NTSB
The National Transportation Safety Board warned that hands‑free driver‑assist systems, such as Ford’s Blue Cruise, do not improve safety and can increase driver distraction. Two fatal 2024 crashes involving Mustang Mach‑E SUVs highlighted drivers looking at phones or searching for charging...
How Insurance Can Turn Maintenance Into Measurable Competitive Advantage
Deferred maintenance across U.S. public infrastructure costs roughly $1 trillion, and the broader built environment faces even larger hidden exposure. Insurers are now building proactive maintenance engagement platforms, exemplified by HelixIntel, to connect directly with policyholder upkeep activities. This operational integration...
Viewpoint: How Will the Middle East War Affect the Insurance Sector?
S&P Global Ratings warns that the Middle East conflict could linger into early April, threatening the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting global supply chains. Insurers and reinsurers are likely to see rising claims in specialty lines such as marine, aviation,...
Allstate Joins Mobile Insurance App Leader GEICO; Top Carriers Expand Telematics Services: Keynova
Allstate has risen to tie with GEICO for the top mobile insurance app in Keynova’s Q1 2026 scorecard, marking its first appearance at the summit. Progressive and GEICO share leadership in the overall mobile user‑experience rating among the 12 largest U.S....
Senator’s Probe Reveals Lack of Transparency in Remote Assistance Use in Self-Driving Cars
Senator Edward Markey’s Commerce Committee report uncovers a stark lack of transparency among autonomous‑vehicle makers about their use of Remote Assistance Operators (RAOs). The investigation revealed that companies such as Waymo employ overseas RAOs, often without U.S. driver’s licenses, and...
Top 5 Spring Weather Risks for Homeowners
Spring brings a predictable surge in U.S. home‑insurance claims, driven by wind, hail, heavy rain, and thaw‑related plumbing stress. Mercury Insurance highlights five primary risks—roof damage, water‑related failures, clogged gutters, falling trees, and basement flooding—and offers a seasonal checklist to...
Four Moves That Will Keep Midsize Mutuals Competitive
Midsize mutual insurers are wrestling with the classic dilemma of protecting profitability and policyholder trust while modernizing their operations. Jennifer Overhulse outlines a four‑step roadmap—enhancing data quality, upgrading core infrastructure, forming MGA partnerships, and eventually launching a greenfield MGA—to boost...
Leave It to Me: Overconfident CEOs Less Likely to Delegate M&A Work
A new study of 3,690 public‑company M&A deals (2000‑2019) finds that overconfident CEOs are 10‑15% less likely to delegate acquisition responsibilities. Researchers measured CEO confidence via stock‑option behavior and delegation through mentions of non‑executives in press releases and SEC filings....
More Insurance M&A Deals on the Horizon?
Insurance M&A activity stabilized in 2025 after a steep 40% drop from 2023, with 211 carrier and broker deals globally, up from just over 200 in 2024. In the U.S. and Bermuda, 455 deals were recorded, but P/C carrier volumes...
Employee Hiring Referrals Can Trigger Hidden Biases
Employee referrals remain a popular hiring tool, but new research from the University of Maryland and Texas Christian University reveals a hidden "referral penalty." Even when referred candidates clear rigorous interviews and outperform peers, coworkers often view them as less...
Viewpoint: Driving Sustainable Underwriting Performance With Data and Discipline
International insurance markets are entering a new cycle phase, with rates slipping 4% in Q4 2025 – the sixth consecutive quarter of moderation. U.S. casualty lines remain an outlier, seeing price hikes driven by litigation funding and class actions. Meanwhile, heightened...
Convex’s Chairman Catlin Steps Down, Succeeded by Onex CEO Le Blanc
Convex Group announced that co‑founder Stephen Catlin will step down as chairman, retaining an honorary founder and life‑president role while staying on the board. Bobby Le Blanc, Onex CEO and long‑time Convex director, has been appointed the new chairman. The change...
‘Too Much Space,’ Says State Farm CEO on Shuttering Corporate HQ
State Farm will relocate 13,000 Bloomington employees to its Corporate South campus by the end of 2027, citing that its current headquarters occupies roughly twice the space needed. The move is part of a broader effort to trim excess real‑estate...
AM Best Analysis: P/C Industry Soared in 2025. Will It Fly as High in 2026?
The U.S. property‑casualty (P/C) sector posted a $61 billion underwriting gain in 2025, nearly three times the $22 billion recorded in 2024. A stronger combined ratio of 92.6% and a 6% rise in net premiums earned reflected disciplined underwriting and improved pricing...
NHC Announces New Forecast Cone for Hurricane Season, Storm Surge Alerts for Hawaii
The National Hurricane Center unveiled two new forecasting tools for the 2026 season: an expanded hurricane‑track cone that now incorporates tropical‑storm and hurricane watches and warnings for inland areas across the continental U.S., Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin...
Turning Claims Documents Into Decisions
Wisedocs unveiled an AI‑powered decision intelligence platform that automates the entire claims lifecycle, from intake to closure, for insurers, TPAs and legal teams. The solution’s WisePrep, WiseInsights and WiseShare modules classify, deduplicate and analyze documents—handling files over 100,000 pages—while delivering...
Headlight Glare a Real Pain for 6 in 10 Drivers: Survey
A new AAA survey shows 60% of drivers find headlight glare a major problem, with 73% saying it has worsened over the past decade. Oncoming headlights are blamed by 92% of respondents as the primary source, while glare is reported...
Aircraft Laser Strikes Drop, Second Year In a Row
Pilots logged 10,994 laser strikes in 2025, a 14 percent drop from 2024, marking the second consecutive year of decline. Since 2010 the FAA has recorded 337 pilot injuries linked to laser incidents. The agency attributes the improvement to robust reporting...
New Lawsuit Blames Costa Rica Resort for Death of Former Yankees Baseball Player’s Son
Former Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner filed a wrongful‑death lawsuit in a Philadelphia federal court, accusing the owners of Costa Rica's Arenas Del Mar Beachfront & Rainforest Resort and a Pennsylvania venture‑capital firm of negligence. The suit stems from the March 2025 death of...
Investor Chicken Little and the AI Sales Channel: OpenAI Insurance Apps Trigger Uncertainty
OpenAI’s platform now hosts consumer‑facing insurance apps from Tuio and Insurify, prompting a 9% drop in insurance broker equities, which Goldman Sachs labeled “overdone.” Analysts argue the apps merely surface existing carrier APIs and underwriting flows, sending users back to...
New FAA Protocol Addresses Helicopter, Plane Safety at Airports
The FAA issued a new safety directive that ends visual separation for helicopters and airplanes in Class B and Class C airspace, requiring radar‑based spacing after a deadly 2025 Blackhawk‑jet collision. Using AI analytics, the agency identified high‑risk mixed‑traffic airports and mandated...
U.S. Auto Safety Agency Deepens Probe Into Tesla’s Self-Driving Technology
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has widened its investigation into Tesla’s Full Self‑Driving (FSD) system, now covering about 3.2 million vehicles across multiple models. The probe zeroes in on the “degradation detection” feature that should alert drivers when camera‑based perception...
Getting to the How and Why: AI Shows Its Work
AI explainability, once a barrier for insurance underwriting, is fading as next‑generation models deliver transparent insights. Modern AI now consistently outperforms traditional actuarial and rule‑based approaches across multiple underwriting tasks. By ingesting broader data sets and learning from outcomes, these...
Uber Launches Women-Only Option Nationwide to Address Safety Concerns
Uber has launched a nationwide women‑only driver matching feature, expanding a pilot that lets female riders request female drivers and vice‑versa. The rollout proceeds despite a California class‑action lawsuit alleging the policy violates the Unruh Act by discriminating against male...
Legacy Insurance Systems Cost Nearly $5M Annually in Hidden Operational Costs: Report
A survey of over 250 property‑and‑casualty insurers found legacy software can drain up to $5 million per year in hidden costs. Downtime and ticket delays consume roughly 900 hours, translating to $450,000 in lost productivity, while manual policy workflows add another $1 million...
La Niña Forecast to End Soon, El Niño Likely by Mid-2026
The U.S. Climate Prediction Center says the current La Niña will shift to ENSO‑neutral conditions by May 2026, with a 55% probability through July. A 62% chance of El Niño developing between June and August 2026 follows, likely persisting through year‑end. Warm subsurface...
Underestimated Coastal Water Heights Putting Millions More at Risk: Study
A new Nature study finds that roughly 90 % of existing sea‑level impact assessments underestimate baseline coastal water heights by about one foot, especially in the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and other Global South regions. This mis‑measurement could increase projected inundated land...
WTW: U.S. Commercial Insurance Rates Moderate to 2.9% in Q4 2025
U.S. commercial insurance rates rose 2.9% in Q4 2025, according to WTW’s Commercial Lines Insurance Pricing Survey, marking a slowdown from the 3.28% gains in Q3 and the roughly 6% increases seen from late 2023 through Q1 2025. The moderation reflects a...
The List Is Growing: More Insurance Apps on ChatGPT
Neptune Flood debuted a flood‑insurance app inside ChatGPT, joining Steadily’s landlord‑insurance tool, Jerry.ai’s car‑insurance and repair estimator, and earlier entrants Insurify, Tuio and Experian. The apps deliver real‑time, preliminary quotes via conversational AI while clearly stating they cannot bind coverage....
How to Make Performance Evaluations More Accurate
Researchers at Binghamton University, led by Associate Professor Tiffany Keller Hansbrough, are using a $1 million U.S. Army grant to conduct five studies aimed at making performance evaluations more accurate. The team argues that vague, memory‑based questions encourage "gap‑filling" and produce...
Study Shows Limits of Multitasking
A new study by Martin Luther University Halle‑Wittenberg, FernUniversität Hagen and the Medical School Hamburg shows that even after extensive training, multitasking performance never reaches true parallel processing. In three experiments participants performed a visual‑manual and an auditory‑verbal task simultaneously;...
Family-Friendly Workplaces Are Great − But ‘Families of 1’ Get Ignored
Family‑friendly policies have expanded to support dual‑career couples and parents, but they still overlook the growing segment of single, childless workers. Today, 46% of U.S. adults are unmarried and 29% live alone, yet HR benefits remain rooted in amatonormative assumptions....
Fatal Hit-and-Run Crashes Reach Record High: AAA
A new AAA Foundation report shows hit‑and‑run crashes hit a record high in 2023, accounting for nearly 15% of all police‑reported crashes. Pedestrians and cyclists were disproportionately affected, with one‑in‑four pedestrian fatalities and a similar share of cyclist deaths involving...
P/C Statutory Results: The Highs and The Lows
S&P Global Market Intelligence reported that U.S. property‑casualty insurers posted a record $67.9 billion net underwriting gain in 2025, driving the combined ratio just under 93.0 – the strongest underwriting performance in 19 years. Personal lines such as homeowners (53.7 loss ratio)...
Camp Mystic Ordered to Preserve Damaged Grounds After Last Year’s Deadly Flood
A Texas judge ordered Camp Mystic to preserve the flood‑damaged cabins and halt any construction on the grounds where 27 campers and counselors died in the July 2025 flood. The ruling follows a lawsuit by the family of 8‑year‑old Cile...
Register: Risky Future AI Tools for MGAs ‘Demo Day’ on March 11
Insurance Journal’s Risky Future series is hosting a free "AI Tools for MGAs" Demo Day on March 11, 2026. The online event will feature 15‑20 minute product demonstrations from Guidewire, Dyad, Joshu and Vertafore, highlighting AI‑driven workflow automation, underwriting, policy...
U.S. Safety Agency Seeks Comments on Zoox Petition to Deploy Steering Wheel-Less Robotaxis
U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened a public comment period on Amazon‑owned Zoox’s petition to operate up to 2,500 steering‑wheel‑free robotaxis. Zoox seeks exemptions from eight federal vehicle‑safety standards designed for human‑driven cars, arguing its purpose‑built autonomous...
State Farm’s California Homeowners Rate Request: It’s Settled— Almost
State Farm, the California Department of Insurance and Consumer Watchdog have reached a settlement that leaves a 17% emergency homeowners‑insurance rate increase in place while providing refunds with 10% interest for condo and landlord policies. Renter‑insurance rates will rise slightly...
Tech Firm Expands Driverless Freight Operations Across Sun Belt
Aurora Innovation announced a three‑fold expansion of its autonomous freight network, now covering ten Sun Belt routes including Dallas‑Houston, Fort Worth‑El Paso and Phoenix corridors. The fourth software release adds automated mapping and inclement‑weather navigation, while a validation regime of over...
California Utility Defeats Shareholder Lawsuit Over LA Wildfires
Edison International, the parent of Southern California Edison, secured a dismissal of a shareholder lawsuit alleging fraud over the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. U.S. District Judge Otis Wright found the utility’s statements about its Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) program too...
Zurich to Buy Generali’s Irish Unit for €337 Million in Cash
Zurich Insurance Group agreed to acquire Generali’s Irish RedClick unit for €337 million in cash, positioning Zurich among the top three life and non‑life insurers in Ireland. The transaction leaves Generali with €51 million of excess capital still on its books. The...
Sentry: Are Business Leaders Worried About the Right Risks?
More than half of U.S. executives expect growth in 2026, yet 60% feel more stressed than last year, according to Sentry’s 2026 C‑Suite Stress Index. The survey of 1,250 leaders reveals a gap between perceived top risks—supply chain, economic pressure,...
Investor Lawsuits Push Back on SEC Changes That Gave Firms More Power
In November the SEC altered its proxy‑vote rule, shifting approval from staff reviewers to company executives, giving firms broader discretion to exclude shareholder proposals from proxy statements. The change has sparked at least three high‑profile lawsuits—against AT&T, Axon Enterprises and...
Four Practical, Data-Backed Steps for Preventing Nuclear Verdicts®
The article presents a data‑driven framework called “The Apex” that outlines four practical steps—personalize the defendant, accept responsibility, give a number, and argue pain and suffering—to curb runaway jury awards known as nuclear verdicts. Analysis of 100 real verdicts shows...
