Research
Insurance Shopping Bucked Traditional Year-End Slump, Remaining Elevated in Q4 2025
Insurance shopping is now a routine activity for consumers rather than a rare event prompted by a car or home purchase. TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) analysts drew this conclusion after tracking three years of steadily increasing insurance shopping rates in the quarterly Insurance Personal Lines Trends and Perspectives Report
Shopping for auto insurance jumped 10.6% in 2025 and property insurance shopping rose 5.3% YOY, signaling a clear trend: Consumer insurance shopping habits are changing. The question is whether this is a permanent shift or a temporary surge — and how can insurers make the most of it?
The newly released TransUnion® Q1 2026 Insurance Trends and Perspectives Report dives into the details to supply answers to insurers. It examines current factors influencing consumer behavior; how insurers can use data to identify which customers represent the greatest lifetime value; and how insurance firms can compete as insurance shopping transforms into a more retail-like experience.
At this point we can safely say that regular insurance shopping is just the new normal. Part of the reason we think this will continue for the foreseeable future is that it’s driven by how people shop as well as why. PATRICK FOY, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR TRANSUNION’S INSURANCE BUSINESS
News
Maritime insurance premiums surge as Iran conflict widens | Reuters
As the conflict in the Gulf widens, maritime insurance premiums for war coverage are surging -- in some cases by more than 1000% -- dramatically driving up the cost of moving energy through a critical maritime corridor.
The conflagration sparked by Saturday's Israeli-U.S. air strikes against Tehran has paralyzed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a major shipping chokepoint. Iran on Monday said it would fire on any ship trying to pass, and at least nine vessels have suffered damage in the area since the conflict began.
War risk insurance allows ship owners to claim against any damage to their vessel or the cargo resulting from conflict or terrorism. Policies are typically annual, although some cover one-off voyages through risky waters, including war zones.
The spike in premiums underscores how the war is raising costs for ship owners, traders and energy companies moving cargo through the Strait, adding to fears the conflict -- which shows no signs of abating -- could stoke inflation if it goes on, said analysts.
"The hull war market has reacted more immediately," due to the risk of large, concentrated losses if multiple vessels are hit in the same area, said Stephen Rudman, head of marine, Asia, at global insurance broker Aon, adding that if the situation escalates materially, further rate correction is likely.
OpenAI sued for practicing law without a license
OpenAI has been accused of practicing law without a license in a lawsuit brought by Nippon Life Insurance Co. of America.
According to the insurer’s complaint, which was filed on Wednesday in the Northern District of Illinois, OpenAI’s artificial intelligence platform ChatGPT pushed a woman seeking disability benefits to breach a settlement agreement and file dozens of motions that “serve no legitimate legal or procedural purpose.”
Graciela Dela Torre reached a settlement with Nippon in January 2024, but later asked her attorney to reopen the case after suspecting potential errors, the complaint says. When Dela Torre’s attorney reminded her that she signed a document releasing Nippon from any further causes of action and that the case had been dismissed, she uploaded his response to ChatGPT and asked if she was being “gaslighted.”
ChatGPT affirmed, leading Dela Torre to fire her attorney and attempt to challenge the settlement herself, the complaint says. She asked ChatGPT to generate proposed legal arguments and documents, which she used in a motion seeking to reopen the case.
“ChatGPT was aware of the settlement agreement between the parties,” the complaint says. “Nevertheless, it generated legal arguments and drafting assistance that encouraged and reinforced Dela Torre’s desire to challenge the agreement.
Class action claims GEICO added strangers to auto policies
The suit alleges GEICO used third-party sources to find drivers and add them to existing insureds' auto policies.
A class action lawsuit filed in Florida federal court on January 28 accuses GEICO of violating state and federal consumer laws by adding drivers to insureds' auto policies without confirming they actually know the new driver.
According to the plaintiff Allison Kane, GEICO's standard practices allegedly utilized third-party information to find licensed or permitted drivers and add them to existing insureds' auto policies for an extra premium, regardless of whether the original insured knew the new addition.
The class action suit alleges GEICO failed to verify the residency of drivers they added to existing policies, and did not provide affected insureds with any underlying data or the identity of the consumer reporting agency it used to obtain driver information.
In the class action, Kane looks to represent any GEICO customers in the U.S. who were sent a document informing them the insurer would add a driver to their policy based on third-party information and paid increased premiums for that addition. The suit alleges breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, unjust enrichment and violation of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Financial Results
Guidewire raises fiscal 2026 revenue outlook to $1.448B as large deals and AI momentum accelerate
CEO Mike Rosenbaum stated that "Q2 was another strong quarter with ARR growing 22%" and highlighted Guidewire's position as the "stand-alone leader in delivering mission-critical core systems for the P&C insurance industry." He emphasized that the company is now fully a SaaS provider, with a pricing model aligned to direct written premium rather than seat-based subscriptions, ensuring that "as insurers grow premium, expand lines of business and modernize their operations and become more efficient, our growth aligns directly with that value creation."
Rosenbaum noted increased demand for InsuranceSuite and InsuranceNow, attributing this momentum in part to the urgency for insurers to modernize legacy systems in response to generative AI advancements. He pointed out the closing of "another 15 InsuranceSuite Cloud deals and 2 InsuranceNow deals" in Q2, including a major win with a Canadian insurer representing over $8 billion in direct written premium.
On notable deals, Rosenbaum cited long-term agreements with Aviva U.K. and expansions with Tokio Marine North America and Donegal Insurance Group, as well as another win at Zurich Germany. He also mentioned strong adoption for new products, stating, "We have an ability to uniquely address the growing demand for pricing and rating agility in insurance markets," and highlighted the first PricingCenter deal and 25 data and analytics deals in the quarter. The new embedded AI solution, ProNavigator, launched with 9 deals.
CCC Intelligent Solutions Touts AI Claims Expansion, EvolutionIQ Deal and $500M Buyback at Morgan Stanley Talk
Key Points
CCC positions itself as a mission-critical SaaS AI platform with a large multi-sided network connecting insurers,
~30,000 repair shops and
- ~6,000 parts suppliers, processing $1 billion in claims a day and maintaining
- ~99% gross dollar retention, which management says underpins its competitive moat.
The company closed the acquisition of EvolutionIQ (Jan 2025) to expand into disability and workers’ compensation, targeting a global TAM of about $35 billion (~$15B U.S.), and expects core organic growth of 7–10% plus roughly 200 basis points of incremental growth from EvolutionIQ while AI-based solutions account for about 10% of revenue.
CCC Intelligent Solutions (NASDAQ:CCCS) outlined its positioning in the property and casualty (P&C) insurance economy, recent expansion into new claims markets, and key themes around artificial intelligence, claims volume trends, and capital allocation during a Morgan Stanley-hosted discussion with CFO Brian Herb and Head of Investor Relations Bill Warmington.
Herb said CCC frames its total addressable market (TAM) at roughly $35 billion globally and about $15 billion in the U.S. He added that the “most immediate” opportunity tied to CCC’s existing products and solutions is about $7 billion, compared with what he described as roughly $1 billion of run-rate revenue today.
He said CCC has 40 clients using Estimate STP at varying penetration rates and that about 5% of total claims currently run through the product. He noted one large national carrier is running 20% of its volume through Estimate STP.
On claim volumes, Herb said CCC is seeing ongoing moderation. He said total claims were down 6% in the fourth quarter of 2025, but attributed part of the decline to weather-related events in 2024—specifically hurricane storms on the East Coast—that created a tougher comparison. On a normalized basis, he said claim volume was down about 3% and that moderation continued through 2025.
AI in Insurance
From Data Chaos to Intelligent Insurance Ops | Genpact
AI ambition is high in insurance, but readiness is not. Learn how agentic AI and modern data foundations can help unlock real value.
The insurance world is drowning in data. From claims documents and medical records to property assessments and regulatory filings, insurers face a relentless flood of information every day. Yet, this mountain of data doesn't always translate into a competitive edge.
For years, the industry has tried to manage this complexity using siloed databases, rule-based automation, and manual reconciliation. Think legacy data warehouses, static reporting systems, and workflows anchored in point-in-time snapshots. These traditional approaches break data into parts and treat it as something to store and retrieve, not something alive, connected, and continuously evolving. So, even though there's a ton of information at hand, insurers end up with fragmented insights, delayed responses, and operational friction that slows everything from underwriting to claims processing, frustrating both employees and customers.
The industry is caught in a cycle of reacting to the past rather than shaping the future.
This is where agentic AI can change the game.
Agentic AI is goal-driven. It can be designed to plan, reason, and help execute complex, multistep actions to achieve business outcomes. Traditional AI is like a calculator. You give it a problem, and it gives you an answer. Agentic AI is like a trusted assistant. You give it a goal, and it can figure out the best way to get there, gathering information, coordinating actions across systems, surfacing exceptions for human review, and reporting progress along the way.
NAIC group nearly set to kick off pilot test to evaluate insurers' use of AI -
A National Association of Insurance Commissioners group moved closer Tuesday to launching a multistate pilot of a new artificial intelligence system evaluation tool this spring.
The Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Working Group addressed industry feedback during the call. Industry trade groups are critical of the effort.
The AI system evaluation tool is expected to enter a pilot phase in the coming weeks, with Colorado, Maryland, Louisiana, Virginia, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Rhode Island, Iowa and Vermont participating.
Insurance companies have steadily expanded their use of artificial intelligence over the past decade, moving from basic automation to more sophisticated applications throughout the insurance value chain. More recently, generative AI and advanced automation have reshaped how insurers engage with customers and manage internal operations.
Through it all, NAIC regulators have struggled to establish guardrails to preserve fairness, transparency and consumer protection. The working group proposed the AI Systems Evaluation Tool over the summer. Regulators are not required to use it, but it is another option when performing market conduct exams, regulators have said.
Regulators also said they plan to provide public updates during the spring as the pilot progresses, ahead of a summer national meeting. Officials acknowledged that some information may remain confidential but said they intend to share appropriate updates with stakeholders.
InsurTech/M&A/Finance💰/Collaboration
InsurTech funding tops $1bn in February as AI investment surges
Global investment in InsurTech firms surpassed $1bn in February, as investors swooned over artificial intelligence-driven platforms.
The total was heavily influenced by a major capital raise from Howden Group. Excluding the broker’s $703m debt issuance, venture-backed InsurTech firms raised roughly $376m across 11 deals, broadly in line with January’s activity and reinforcing the sector’s steady recovery.
Howden’s mammoth capital injection is set to strengthen its balance sheet and support future growth initiatives, including organic expansion and selective acquisitions across its international broking and advisory operations.
Among venture-backed firms, Stockholm-based pet insurer Lassie raised $75m in Series C funding, one of the largest European InsurTech rounds in recent months. The prevention-first insurer plans to use the capital to accelerate expansion across Europe while continuing to develop automation across its insurance platform.
AI-powered companies again dominated the majority of venture investment in February, in a continuation of 2026’s trend.
This should come as no surprise, as according to a 2025 study from Accenture, 71% of underwriting executives believe investment in AI and automation is critical or very critical for improving underwriting performance. Moreover, a pair of industry experts discussed this shift dramatically in a recent feature from InsurTech Analyst, as they opened up on the modern underwriting strategy.
State News
What State Farm’s Dividend Reveals About New York’s $4,000 Premium Problem
What State Farm’s Dividend Reveals About New York’s $4,000 Premium Problem
If you live in New York and manage a household budget, the rising cost of living is not just an abstract economic debate on the evening news. You feel the squeeze at the grocery store, the gas pump, and especially when your auto insurance bill arrives.
Right now, the average auto insurance premium in New York hovers around $4,000 a year. That is roughly $1,500 higher than the national average. For a family simply trying to commute to work and drop the kids off at school, that is a staggering number. But why is it so expensive to insure a vehicle in the Empire State? The answer goes well beyond inflation or the cost of auto parts. It leads directly to organized fraud, staged accidents, and a legal system that makes it incredibly difficult for insurers to fight back.
The Hidden Tax of Fake Accidents Imagine driving down a typical New York street. The car in front of you slams on its brakes for no apparent reason, forcing you into a rear-end collision. In a matter of days, the occupants of that vehicle file massive claims for severe physical injuries and extensive property damage.
This is not a hypothetical scenario. It is a highly coordinated business model for fraud rings operating across the state. In 2025 alone, New York insurers reported nearly 44,000 incidents of suspected motor vehicle fraud to state regulators. That represents an 80% spike since 2020.
Every single New York driver is essentially paying a premium inflated by someone else’s fraudulent claim. When fake injury claims and staged accidents drain the system, insurers have to account for that risk. The math is simple, even if it is deeply frustrating: high claims costs lead to high premiums.
Consumer Watchdog Announces Settlement in State Farm Insurance Rate Case Saving California Consumers Approximately $530 Million; Agreement Reduces Requested Increases, Provides Refunds, and Includes Consumer Protections
Consumer Watchdog today announced a settlement filed in State Farm General's pending California homeowner insurance rate cases that, if approved, will save California policyholders about $530 million compared with the rate increases State Farm originally requested.
The agreement, filed with the California Department of Insurance and subject to approvals, follows a full interim rate hearing and months of litigation and, includes reduced rate increases, tens of millions of dollars in refunds with interest for some policyholders, limits on new block non-renewals of homeowner policies, and additional consumer protections.
State Farm initially sought very large increases, including 30% for homeowners, 41.8% overall for tenant policies (including 52% for renters), and 38% for rental dwellings. The settlement substantially reduces those requested increases and provides refunds where interim rates proved too high. The consumer impact is summarized below.
Settlement Reduces State Farm's Requested Increases by About $530 Million
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