2026 Outlook/Predictions
Top workers comp stories of 2025 - Business Insurance
*Stories about rates and mental injuries were among the most popular workers compensation-related stories on Business Insurance’s website this year.
- Pennsylvania bill would require up to $250 per month for cannabis
- Florida employers enjoyed a cut in workers comp rates
- California hiked advisory comp rate for first time since 2015
- Ohio high court denied permanent disability for physical/psych condition
- New York lawmakers limited new mental stress law
- Kentucky lawmakers tried to amend injury to include psych
- Appeals court ruled for worker who lied about prior injury
- States considered changes to PTSD laws, expansions and benefits limits
- Liberty Mutual was hit with $103M jury award
- Appeals court ruled against worker with long history of injuries
Top National Insurance Journal Stories of 2025
Mergers and acquisitions were among big stories last year and they continued to catch the attention of readers in 2025.
The three largest insurance brokers — March, Aon and Arthur J. Gallagher — announced or closed multi-billion-dollar acquisitions in 2024. Within the last 12 months, insurance M&A remained a hot topic.
But M&A was one of many topics readers of Insurance Journal clicked on and shared this year. Others included: numerous broker-poaching lawsuits; third-party litigation funding; the affect of tariffs on the insurance industry; John Neal’s fall; the Federal Emergency Management Agency and national flood insurance; sharing of driver data; ongoing J&J talc product liability; cyber breaches; and the sunset of the Safeco brand.
Most Popular Best's Review Articles and Rankings From 2025
Over the past year, Best’s Review readers have been most interested in the following insurance news coverage:
- “Top Global Insurance Brokers – 2025 Edition” provides a ranking of the top 20 global brokers based on 2024 total revenue and recaps key developments from the past year.
- “Insurance Industry Embraces AI Innovation as Technology Advances ‘Exponentially’” looks at how insurers have welcomed artificial intelligence to help customers and better understand risk.
- “Changes at the Top: Industry Leaders Announce Retirement Plans in 2024” looks at executives who said they intended to step down last year.
6 Insurtech trends for 2026
The global insurtech market reached roughly $20 billion in 2025 and is expected to peak at $23.5 billion in 2026, according to Fortune Business Insights.
By 2034, the sector is predicted to reach $132.71 billion at a compound annual growth rate of 24.1%. Meanwhile, North America dominated the global market share in 2025 at 47.9%.
“Insurtech is primarily driven by the adoption of technologies that enhance the customer experience, streamline operations and reduce costs,” Fortune Business Insights said. “Insurers are increasingly relying on AI, data analytics, cloud computing and automation to deliver more personalized efficient results. As a result of these factors, the markets has experienced tremendous growth, with more end users exploring the possibilities of enhanced insurtech solutions due to the proliferation of digital solutions and insurance services.”
At the same time, roughly half of all U.S. businesses use some form of AI but less than 5% have begun replacing jobs with the technology.
The vast majority (48%) say AI is being deployed to support existing teams, enhance productivity and fill gaps created by talent shortages rather than reduce headcount, while demanding new skills like data literacy, automation fluency and prompt engineering become baseline expectations across most functions.
News
Verisk Pulls Plug on $2.4 Billion AccuLynx Deal After FTC Review Delay
Data analytics firm Verisk said it pulled the plug on its planned $2.35 billion acquisition of roofing software maker AccuLynx, pinning the termination on a regulatory review delay.
Verisk said the decision follows a notification from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that the agency had not completed its review of the transaction by the termination date of December 26.
AccuLynx has notified Verisk that it believes the deal termination is “invalid.” Verisk said it “strongly disagrees” with the assertion and plans to “vigorously defend” its position.
The deal termination could drive incrementally higher share repurchase activity from Verisk in 2026, Raymond James analysts said.
Verisk had unveiled its plan to acquire AccuLynx in July, a deal that was initially expected to close by the third quarter of 2025
ROADMEDIC® Debuts Satellite IoT Smart Airbag Platform Enabling Instant 9-1-1 Drone Response at CES 2026
The LiDAR Saving Lives Public Safety Coalition (LSL) today unveiled the ROADMEDIC® Airbag Deployment Satellite IoT Clearinghouse, a first-of-its-kind, automaker-supported, end-to-end digital platform that transforms airbag deployments from software-defined vehicles (SDVs) equipped with Smart Airbags™ into real-time, actionable intelligence for Next-Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) Drone First Responders (DFRs).
Purpose-built for the emerging SDV era, the ROADMEDIC® Clearinghouse—developed by Roadside Telematics Corporation—converts the moment a smart airbag deploys into a machine-generated emergency signal, transmitted via satellite IoT and delivered directly into real-time policing stacks at 9-1-1 Real Time Intelligence Centers (RTICs). Often within 2–3 seconds of airbag deployment.
This immediate awareness enables RTICs to automatically generate CAD events, dispatch Drone First Responders for rapid situational assessment, and provide law enforcement, fire, and EMS with pre-arrival incident intelligence—well before a traditional 9-1-1 voice call is ever placed.
Key Takeaways
- Focused exclusively on smart airbag deployment events from software-defined vehicles (SDVs) instantaneously connected to RTIC real-time policing stacks
- Transforms smart airbag deployments into real-time actionable intelligence for 9-1-1 RTICs
- Enables automated CAD event creation and Drone First Responder (DFR) dispatch
- Delivers pre-arrival situational awareness for law enforcement, fire, and EMS
- Extends NG9-1-1 operations with satellite-resilient crash intelligence—anywhere, anytime
Commentary/Opinion
A vicious cycle beats a virtuous one: How Warren Buffett’s Geico fell behind Progressive in the auto insurance race
[Ed.Note: A must read tale of two mega insurers and the paths taken. In many respects this contrast can be viewed even more acutely when examining the Top 10 Auto Insurers. The degree of technology embraced is no doubt the "X" factor of our time]
Warren Buffett’s failure to capitalize on the economy’s digital shift over the past two decades has hurt his otherwise enviable track record as an investor. His blind spot regarding tech didn’t stop at the stock market: It bled into how he ran Berkshire Hathaway’s operating companies as well. Across many of his wholly owned businesses, Buffett neglected technological upgrades, and Berkshire’s business value has suffered as a result.
It’s important to understand this because the majority of Berkshire Hathaway’s assets are invested not in publicly traded securities, but in operating subsidiaries like Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and Geico. While it’s true that Buffett invested aggressively in wind energy, that was largely because of government tax incentives. In the main, he preferred to milk his operating subsidiaries for cash rather than reinvest in them for the digital age. Exhibit A is Geico, which, thanks to a lack of IT investment, has fallen behind Progressive as the nation’s leading for-profit auto insurer.
Buffett has called Geico his favorite child, and for good reason. Since it began in the 1930s, the auto insurer has used a direct-sales model to keep operating costs the lowest in the industry. In a commodity business like insurance, that’s a major competitive advantage. In the 1990s, after he bought all of Geico, Buffett found a second moat when he began to brand Geico as a trusted, even beloved American company. The gecko, the caveman, the camel who celebrated hump day—all these were marketing masterstrokes, ones directly derived from Buffett’s deep understanding of the mass-brand/mass-media industrial complex. The mascots also highlight how, while Buffett was comfortable investing in marketing, he was deeply uncomfortable with, and therefore didn’t understand, investing in tech. READ ON
Happy New Year
New Year’s - Traditions, Resolutions & Date
[Ed.Note: We wish all 'Connected' viewer and listeners a healthy, productive and successful 2026 as we close out another year of seeking to inform, update and 'connect' within the P&C Insurance Ecosystem]
Alan Demers & Stephen Applebaum
Civilizations around the world have been celebrating the start of each new year for at least four millennia.
Today, most New Year’s festivities begin on December 31 (New Year’s Eve), the last day of the Gregorian calendar, and continue into the early hours of January 1 (New Year’s Day). Common traditions include attending parties, eating special New Year’s foods, making resolutions for the new year and watching fireworks displays.
The History of the New Year's Eve Ball Drop We all watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve, but the ball has its own history that began well before Times Square and out on the high seas.
Ancient New Year’s Celebrations The earliest recorded festivities in honor of a new year’s arrival date back some 4,000 years to ancient Babylon. For the Babylonians, the first new moon following the vernal equinox—the day in late March with an equal amount of sunlight and darkness—heralded the start of a new year. They marked the occasion with a massive religious festival called Akitu (derived from the Sumerian word for barley, which was cut in the spring) that involved a different ritual on each of its 11 days. In addition to the new year, Atiku celebrated the mythical victory of the Babylonian sky god Marduk over the evil sea goddess Tiamat and served an important political purpose: It was during this time that a new king was crowned or that the current ruler’s divine mandate was symbolically renewed.
Did you know? In order to realign the Roman calendar with the sun, Julius Caesar had to add 90 extra days to the year 46 B.C. when he introduced his new Julian calendar.
Throughout antiquity, civilizations around the world developed increasingly sophisticated calendars, typically pinning the first day of the year to an agricultural or astronomical event. In Egypt, for instance, the year began with the annual flooding of the Nile, which coincided with the rising of the star Sirius. The first day of the Lunar New Year, meanwhile, occurred with the second new moon after the winter solstice.