News
Big ‘I’ Experts Preview 2026 Midterm Elections
The 2026 midterm election is less than a week away and the balance of power in both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives is in play, with many races across the country coming down to the wire.
Over the last 70 years, control of the U.S. House of Representatives has changed six times and control of the U.S. Senate has changed eight times. Eleven of these 14 changes occurred in midterm elections, and every one of them broke against the sitting president’s party. That is likely to happen in at least the House and possibly the Senate in the upcoming midterm elections.
In this short video, the Big “I” government affairs team shares their insights into what we might see on election day. Nathan Riedel, Big “I” senior vice president of federal government affairs, Raaed Haddad, director of federal government affairs, and Carlton Bridgeforth, director of federal government affairs, draw on their years of experience and discuss potential outcomes for the election on Nov. 3.
GM Just Laid Out Its Entire Future. It Runs on AI, Eyes-Off Driving, and One Central Computer
An AI-rebooted OnStar, LMR-powered next-gen EVs, and autonomy for best-selling gas trucks and SUVs rounds out GM's sweeping road map.
General Motors aims to deliver a message: We are a modern company that can compete with and best the less experienced newcomers.
In New York City, GM's executive team, including CEO Mary Barra, President Mark Reuss, and Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson, laid out the automaker's near- and long-term future. It's all built around a new centralized electrical architecture that will underpin everything else: AI-accelerated product development, a ground-up reboot of OnStar as the center of the ownership and user experience, next-generation EVs, and eyes-off autonomy expanding throughout the lineup, including the automaker's trucks. GM's already implementing some of this internally. Owners will get their first taste in the coming months with broader rollouts starting in 2028 …
Cyber Risk
Binance Estimates $6.3 Billion Hacked in Crypto’s Biggest Heist
Hackers siphoned off $6.3 billion from crypto exchange Binance* in the biggest heist that the digital-asset industry has ever faced, the latest in a slew of security incidents afflicting the financial sector.
The world’s largest crypto trading platform suspended withdrawals and pledged to cover all losses. Binance said in a post on X that about $3 billion of the assets had been frozen on blockchain networks. In another post, co-founder Yi He said withdrawals were expected to resume by Sunday.
Scientists Identified Hundreds of New Vulnerabilities in Cars, And They're Not Mechanical : ScienceAlert
Could a car's entertainment system provide a route to its brakes?
In 2015, security researchers demonstrated that possibility in a Jeep Cherokee. They remotely accessed its infotainment system, which runs in-car entertainment, and interfered with driving functions.
Fiat Chrysler subsequently announced a recall covering approximately 1.4 million vehicles across the US to install a software update that fixed the flaw.
That attack targeted a system built into the car. A recent study examines a wider network, including the apps and online services connected to vehicles.
Researchers at Sweden's University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology analyzed 413 previously reported automotive software vulnerabilities. External applications accounted for the largest share, at 36.2 percent.
Their study, published in Software Quality Journal, also identified a shift toward externally connected software compared with earlier research.
Financial Results
Competitive property insurance market isn't underwater yet, says Markel Insurance CEO
Simon Wilson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Markel Insurance, said competition in the property insurance market is continuing to intensify, with margins narrowing as softer reinsurance conditions put further pressure on pricing, although he believes the market is not yet “underwater”, with profit still to be made.
During Markel Group’s Q3 2026 Earnings Call, Wilson highlighted that this year’s storm season, which has seen low catastrophe activity and very few hurricane landfalls, will drive softer reinsurance conditions, leading to softer conditions in the primary market.
He said, “We’re not done with the storm season yet. We remember Sandy from 2011. So, it’s not over till it’s over, but it’s trending in a way where it’s been very low catastrophe this year, so I would expect we go into a reinsurance renewal season with some very competitive terms being offered there, and that will lead to more competition as we go into next year.
CNA FINANCIAL ANNOUNCES THIRD QUARTER 2026 NET INCOME OF $0.72 PER SHARE AND CORE INCOME OF $0.75 PER SHARE
- Net income of $196 million versus $403 million in the prior year quarter; core income of $203 million versus $409 million in the prior year quarter.
- P&C core income of $397 million versus $456 million, reflects lower underlying underwriting results and higher catastrophe losses.
- P&C combined ratio of 97.0%, compared with 92.8% in the prior year quarter, including 2.8 points of catastrophe loss impact compared with 1.5 points in the prior year quarter. There was no net prior period development impact in the current or prior year quarters.
- Catastrophe losses of $78 million pretax versus $41 million in the prior year quarter.
- P&C underlying combined ratio was 94.2%, compared with 91.3% in the prior year quarter. P&C underlying loss ratio was 64.1%, up 2.2 points from the prior year quarter, and the expense ratio was 29.7%.
AI in Insurance
Root CEO Alex Timm: AI Agents and the Evolving Future of Auto Insurance
Root, Inc. (NASDAQ: ROOT), the leading technology company in car insurance, shared an editorial by Alex Timm, Founder and CEO of Root Insurance. In the editorial, Timm states the importance of insurance companies preparing for the new frontier of agentic commerce.
The rapid adoption of AI agents could fundamentally transform the auto insurance industry by enabling consumers to effortlessly automate the comparison shopping process. This technological leap shifts market power away from expensive brand marketing campaigns and toward carriers equipped with advanced risk-pricing algorithms and seamless API integrations.
Timm emphasizes that agentic commerce could accelerate industry change, meaning that massive spend on brand awareness could no longer be as critical for success. Timm highlights the fact that “AI agents don’t value sports sponsorships, arena logos, or catchy jingles; they value the best price and coverage for each individual consumer.”
AI is already creating insurance claims. Is your business covered?
AI, and other emerging technologies, are likely already part of how your business operates, and so are the risks. If AI causes a loss tomorrow, would you know what is covered and what is not?
Few leaders have a clear answer.
Businesses today are investing heavily in emerging technology. AI, automation, robotics, drones, and autonomous systems are transforming how these organizations operate and how they create competitive advantage. But adoption is outpacing everything built to manage it, including risk management measures. As legal challenges move through the courts and regulators wrestle with how to govern AI, insurers are grappling with how to quantify the risk.
AI: What it will and won’t replace
This month marks 14 years of my writing for and developing content for InsuranceNewsNet. When I started working here, one of the industry’s big news stories was the development and rise of roboadvisors.
Remember roboadvisors? They are an automated asset-allocation system that works something like this:
“Client is 55 years old with moderate risk tolerance. Put 60% in stock ETFs and 40% in bond ETFs.”
At the time roboadvisors became more common, the question was whether they would eventually replace professionals giving investment advice.
Now, we have artificial intelligence tools that serve more like intelligent assistants, working something like this:
“Analyze this client’s retirement plan, summarize their concerns, draft an email, identify coverage gaps, and explain the tax implications.”
Legal System Abuse/Social Inflation
AM Best: Social Inflation Drives Surge in Commercial Auto Liability Claims
insurance coverage has continued to bear the brunt of rising litigation costs, outpacing economic inflation.
Social inflation has negatively affected commercial auto liability ultimate claim costs for several years, which is evident by looking at average claim severity. Economic inflation from 2014 to 2024 averaged 2.8% annually. Over the same period, commercial auto liability insurance loss payments for the first 12 months have trended upward at 6.4% annually—more than double the annual increase of economic inflation, AM Best said.
AM Best defines social inflation as the rising cost of insurance claims that exceeds general economic inflation, driven by societal and legal trends like higher jury awards, increased litigation, and expanded definitions of liability.
Claims
The 2027 Chief Claims Officer
For decades, the mandate of the chief claims cfficer was relatively clear: build a strong organization to investigate claims, control costs, manage litigation, negotiate settlements, and deliver fair outcomes.
That mandate is no longer sufficient.
The 2027 chief claims officer has a much bigger job: build the insurer's ground-truth engine—an AI-native operation that produces superior outcomes, industrializes negotiation excellence, and converts what claims learns into intelligence for the entire enterprise.
This is not simply about using AI to make legacy claims processes more efficient. AI is turning insurance into an information business—and the most important ground truth in that business is generated in claims. Claims reveal what actually happened to the risks the insurer underwrote, what drove the loss, and what ultimately determined its economic outcome.
To compete in an AI world, insurers will need to capture that ground truth, make it machine-readable, and use it to improve underwriting, pricing, reserving, and portfolio management.
That puts claims—and the chief claims officer—on the front line of this unprecedented transformation.
Taylor Smith is the founder and president of Suite 200 Solutions
Climate/Resilience/Sustainability
Mind the Gap: Cotality Wildfire Risk Report 2026
The hidden danger of conflagration
Traditional wildfire models generalize hazard from natural vegetation and terrain, giving properties the highest risk score where fuels are dense and slopes are steep, then stepping risk down as development thickens. That logic holds until fire reaches the built environment, where legacy models alone fall short, with the result being a risk mis-assessment.
When flames move from wildland fuels into a neighborhood, the fire changes character. Structures become the dominant fuel source, turning the event into a wind-driven conflagration. Homes rated low hazard by vegetation-focused models sit directly in the path of this threat, and even a perfectly hardened home remains exposed when surrounded by flammable construction. REPORT