News
Insurance Insights Europe 2025 Kicks Off in London | Insurance Innovation Reporter
Speakers addressed topics such as innovation and strategy, AI, public/private partnerships, and the influence of insurance on society to a record number of attendees.
The Insurtech Insights Europe 2025 conference commenced yesterday at the InterContinental London—The O2, in the U.K. capital’s borough of Greenwich. The show reports record number of attendees, with over 4,000 registering onsite yesterday, and a standing-room-only crowd for Lemonade co-founder Daniel Schreiber’s keynote address, with other attendees watching via livestream in overflow areas. Key themes of the show so far have included innovation and strategy, AI, public/private partnerships, and the influence of insurance on society.
In his keynote address, Schreiber asserted that AI is fundamentally transforming insurance, from customer service to risk assessment. “AI transforms them more than anything else—serving customers and assessing risk,” he commented.
Los Angeles Wildfires
Wall Street Brokers Start Trading Insurer Claims From LA Fires
Wall Street brokers have started selling insurers’ claims tied to Los Angeles’ deadly wildfires, which may trigger a payout from the utilities blamed for the destruction, according to people familiar with the matter.
Investors are buying so-called subrogation claims, obtaining an insurer’s right to compensation from a utility if it’s found liable for fire-related damage. The claims are meant to help insurance companies recover losses incurred from disasters.
Commentary/Opinion
Stormy Weather: Potential Gains and Pitfalls of Emerging Tech | Insurance Innovation Reporter
As we enter Q2 of 2025, the mixed effects of newer technologies will continue to manifest, as we head into a changing demographic environment.
We have made it through the first full quarter of 2025, and it is fair to say that the road ahead contains both great opportunities and notable uncertainty. One quarter is but a blip in time. We’ve watched the economic volatility increase markedly since New Year’s Day, but the longer-term trends remain the same, albeit with a shorter runway into the future.
Many of the emerging technologies, of course, offer some remarkable benefits to carriers in both the near and long term. The continued push toward cloud computing fundamentally changes how systems are deployed and managed, and if managed effectively, can create levels of flexibility and adaptability that would have been unimaginable until recently. As positive as this is, it creates a dramatically increased importance on the need to effectively govern and manage priorities for organizations. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.
Rob McIsaac is the President and CEO of RPM Ventures NC, LLC, an organization focused on developing deep and actionable insights that are specific to the insurance industry in North America
Climate/Resilience/Sustainability
"Distress Signal". Last decade was Earth's hottest ever as CO2 levels reach an 800,000-year high, says UN report
Last year was the hottest year on record, the top 10 hottest years were all in the past decade and planet-heating carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at an 800,000-year high, a report Wednesday said.
In its annual State of the Climate report, the World Meteorological Organization laid bare all the markings of an increasingly warming world with oceans at record high temperatures, sea levels rising and glaciers retreating at record speed.
“Our planet is issuing more distress signals,” said António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General. He noted that the report says the international goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.8 Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times is still possible. “Leaders must step up to make it happen — seizing the benefits of cheap, clean renewables for their people and economies,” he said.
Climate Tech and Insurance – The Intersection We Can’t Ignore
InsurTech Consulting and our 'Connected’ newsletter are proud media partners of ClimateTech Connect with a special 20% discount for our subscribers”. Use code:Connected20, register HERE
The insurance industry has long been in the business of managing risk, but the challenges of climate change are testing the limits of traditional models. More frequent and severe hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and other extreme weather events are driving up insured losses, forcing a reckoning across underwriting, claims, and risk mitigation. As insurers grapple with these realities, a new sector is emerging at the intersection of technology and climate science: Climate Tech.
Climate Tech is more than just a buzzword—it’s a necessary response to a rapidly shifting risk landscape. With AI, data analytics, and emerging technologies, Climate Tech has the potential to revolutionize how we model, predict, and mitigate climate-related risks. But what does this mean for insurance? And how can insurers move beyond reactive strategies to actively drive resilience in the face of climate change?
To explore these pressing questions, I spoke with Megan Kuczynski, Founder and CEO of ClimateTech Connect. With the inaugural ClimateTech Connect conference taking place in Washington, DC, on April 15-16, Megan is leading the charge in bringing together industry leaders, technologists, and policymakers to tackle these challenges head-on.
AI in Insurance
The Case for TPAs in an AI Claims Environment | Insurance Thought Leadership
While third-party administrators have a long history of serving the insurance industry and have bright prospects, they face a once-in-a-generation change: generative AI.
AI Incoming
Prognostications on the impact of AI are ubiquitous – with insurance claims ripe for transformation. Several opportunities exist for AI to enhance or redefine the claims process, such as:
- Fraud Detection
- Claims Prioritization
- Claims Processing
- Settlement
- Subrogation
While the possibilities are nearly endless, the trend is clear – AI is changing the nature of the claims business in a way that will affect the relationship between third-party administrators (TPAs) and carriers.
Chris Taylor is a director within Alvarez & Marsal’s insurance practice.
Claims
EagleView Enhances Its Drone Solution to Improve Claims Triage Processes | Insurance Innovation Reporter
With drone inspections, property insurers can now order property repair estimates to better resolve claims with greater speed, accuracy, and reduced errors.
EagleView (Rochester, N.Y.), a provider of drone and asset intelligence for the insurance industry, has announced the expansion of its drone offering to provide insurance carriers with more complete options for obtaining property inspections, property analysis reports, and repair estimates.
The company’s current offering, EagleView Assess, uses American-made drones to capture imagery and then harnesses machine learning and artificial intelligence to detect roof abnormalities. According to the vendor, this helps validate and resolve claims, while also helping reduce human errors and subjectivity. EagleView Assess, in addition to its drone-based roof inspection and damage analysis capabilities, now offers property repair estimates to help insurance carriers further streamline claims processing and reduce operational costs, while also delivering more accurate and comprehensive evaluations. The result for property insurers is that the process becomes faster, more cost effective, and even more impactful, the vendor asserts.
InsurTech/M&A/Finance💰/Collaboration
Munich Re to buy remainder of Next Insurance
Munich Re is buying the 71% of Next Insurance that it doesn’t already own, strengthening its foothold in the United States and valuing the California-based company at $2.6 billion, a division of the German company said Thursday.
Ergo, the primary insurance business of reinsurer Munich Re, will become the sole owner of Next, which focuses on insuring U.S. small businesses.
Until now, Next investors have included Allianz, Alphabet and American Express.
“We will tap into a highly attractive market overseas, unlocking significant growth,” Ergo CEO Markus Riess said.
Next was founded in 2016 and now has about 700 employees and 600,000 customers.
Munich Re and Ergo have been investors since 2017.
The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter pending regulatory approval.
Med-Mal Insurer ProAssurance to Go Private After $1.3B Purchase by The Doctors Co.
The Doctors Company said it has entered an agreement to acquire ProAssurance Corp. for $1.3 billion, taking the company private.
Birmingham, Alabama-headquartered ProAssurance is a specialty insurer with expertise in medical liability, products liability for medical technology and life sciences, and workers’ compensation insurance. The Doctors Co. of Napa, California is the nation’s largest physician-owned medical malpractice insurer.
In a report on the MPL market published May 2024, AM Best said insurers in this line of business continue to face many of the same challenges as the last several years – a rising frequency of high-severity losses driven by social inflation factors as well as staffing shortages, growth in alternative care facilities, and an erosion of tort reform in some jurisdictions.
{COMPLETYE ARTICLE](https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2025/03/20/816256.htm)
Predict & Prevent
North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association Celebrates 15,000 FORTIFIED Homes, Strengthening State's Coastal Resilience
The North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association (NCIUA) reaffirmed its commitment to building a stronger, storm-ready North Carolina today at an event celebrating a major milestone: more than 15,000 FORTIFIED Roof™ designations statewide. The event also recognized the individuals and organizations instrumental in bringing the FORTIFIED program to North Carolina's coastal communities.
"While we can't control storms, leaders and homeowners are working to lessen their impact," said IBHS's CEO Roy Wright,
FORTIFIED, developed by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), is a voluntary beyond-code construction and re-roofing program that strengthens homes against high winds and heavy rain. Since adopting FORTIFIED as its resilience standard in 2016, NCIUA has invested more than $100 million to help families upgrade their homes to meet this proven standard.
"While we can't control storms, leaders and homeowners are working to lessen their impact," said IBHS's CEO Roy Wright, highlighting the proactive measures. "NCUIA and North Carolina's financial support to help homeowners reduce storm damage is a forward-thinking investment that will enable communities to recover faster from hurricanes."
FORTIFIED Roof upgrades include stronger roof deck attachment, sealed roof decks and locked-down edges. A third-party evaluator documents and verifies that each installation meets the standard, ensuring quality and consistency
Data Privacy
Auto insurer Root fined nearly $1M by New York AG
Root joins several other insurers facing fines in New York as the result of a data breach. Several other insurers have been issued penalties by the state of New York in the wake of this wide-reaching data breach, including GEICO, Travelers and Noblr.8
Auto insurance company Root must pay $975,000 in penalties by order of New York Attorney Letitia James for failing to protect the information of around 45,000 New Yorkers during a data breach.
Root does not actually write auto policies in New York, but their online quoting tool allegedly allowed bad actors access to the driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers and other private information of drivers in the state. This breach was part of an industry-wide information grab in which data thieves used stolen driver information to file fraudulent unemployment claims during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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