News
A record year for private equity megadeals; insurance tech investments rise
S&P Global Market Intelligence offers our top picks of global private equity news stories and more published throughout the week.
Private equity megadeals set a record in 2025, but that record is not expected to stand for long.
There were 22 private equity- and venture capital-backed acquisitions worth at least $5 billion in 2025, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. The combined value of these megadeals reached a record $311.08 billion, eclipsing the previous record set in 2021.
The supersize deals are fueled by near-record levels of private equity dry powder and a flight-to-quality trend by large, institutional investors, resulting in concentration of dry powder with a small number of bulge bracket private equity firms. Managers of multibillion-dollar buyout funds have the capital to pay top dollar for prized assets. By targeting well-known, brand-name businesses, the dry powder gets deployed into what looks like safe bets.
The pending $55.2 billion acquisition of video-game maker Electronic Arts Inc., announced in September 2025, stands alone as the largest private equity buyout of all time. More of these deals are likely, according Scott Voss, a managing director at HarbourVest Partners LLC.
"I think we're going to see multiple $50 billion buyouts," Voss said.
Read more about private equity megadeals setting a record in 2025
Large Swath of U.S. Faces Winter Storm Losses: What Insurance Covers and How to Recover
Large Swath of U.S. Faces Winter Storm Losses: What Insurance Covers and How to Recover
Winter storms swept through a large swath of the U.S. this weekend, bringing heavy snow, ice, and freezing temperatures, and leaving homeowners, drivers, and businesses to contend with property damage, financial losses, and other disruptions.
Winter storms caused nearly $6 billion in insured losses nationwide in 2022, the second-highest year on record for winter storm insured losses in the last 10 years, according to Aon. The third costliest winter event since 1950 occurred in December 2022, amounting to $3.5 billion in insured losses. Winter storms included snow, ice, freezing, and flooding. In comparison, the 2021 Polar Vortex, which primarily affected the Midwest, Great Plains, and Texas, caused roughly $18.6 billion in insured losses, illustrating how costly winter weather events can be.
Financial Results
Berkley operating income rises on strong underwriting, investments
Commercial insurer W. R. Berkley reported a rise in fourth-quarter operating profit on Monday, helped by steady underwriting performance and gains from its investment portfolio.
Insurance spending has held firm even as companies cut back elsewhere, with buyers prioritizing protection against risks amid a backdrop of rising tariff uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and mounting climate-related catastrophes.
Commercial carriers have helped sustain that resilience by adjusting swiftly to market-cycle shifts and navigating inflationary pressures, moves that have contributed to stabilizing underwriting performance, according to a report by McKinsey & Company.
The Greenwich, Connecticut-based insurer’s net written premiums rose 2.1% to $3 billion in the quarter.
Property and casualty insurance giant Travelers also reported strong results last week, with stronger underwriting performance and higher investment returns.
A strong quarter for the markets, driven by investors’ optimism regarding the economy amid the Federal Reserve’s rate cuts, improved the investment portfolios of major insurers.
Net investment income for the commercial lines insurer came in at $338.2 million in the fourth quarter, up from $317.4 million last year.
W. R. Berkley reported an operating income of $449.6 million, or $1.13 per share, for the quarter ended December 31. That compares with $410.4 million, or $1.02 per share, last year.
The company reported a combined ratio of 89.4% for the quarter, down from 90.2% in the year-ago period. A ratio below 100% shows that an insurer earned more in premiums than it paid out in claims.
2026 Outlook/Predictions
Global Insights Center: Year Ahead 2026 | Insights | The Hartford
Risks and opportunities in 2026 will likely be driven by consumer activity, accelerating AI infrastructure investment, and expanding healthcare demand.
As we look to 2026, the Hartford’s Global Insights Center is of the view that the U.S. economic outlook will likely be driven by the direction of consumption, artificial intelligence (AI), and healthcare. These may emerge as the three main themes and macro factors shaping the U.S. economy in the year ahead. AI, however, could also present some headwinds, which we will discuss throughout this report. Other areas matter as well, such as housing, which we will also address.
Watch the Consumer, AI, and Healthcare
Top Trends in Property and Casualty, 2026: Building the Intelligence-Ready P/C Carrier
In 2026, P/C carriers will be forced to move beyond incremental modernization as rising market complexity makes intelligence-led operations a competitive necessity.
As volatility increases across underwriting, distribution, and regulation, P/C carriers are re-architecting how decisions are made and executed. Modular platforms, composable rating environments, digitally enabled MGAs, and modern underwriting workbenches reflect a broader shift toward intelligence-ready operations.
AI accelerates this transition, but advantage will not come from technology adoption alone. Leaders will differentiate by operationalizing intelligence at scale, connecting clean data, unstructured content, and decision workflows through integration layers that deliver speed, consistency, and insight regardless of core system maturity.
Clients of Datos Insights’ Property & Casualty service can download this report.
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Chris Eberly is the Head of Insurance Insights, with expertise in IT leadership, transformational technology implementation, enterprise information/data management, and technology strategy for the insurance industry
Commentary/Opinion
Inside the big five: How strategy, leadership, and reserves separate auto insurance winners
The newly enhanced Private Passenger Auto Competitor Analysis delivers deeper, carrier-by-carrier insight into how America’s five largest auto insurers, State Farm, GEICO (Berkshire Hathaway), Progressive, Allstate, and USAA, are navigating unprecedented volatility.
Expanded profiles dissect each carrier’s market share by state, underwriting performance, leadership shifts, and reserve-to-loss ratio analysis. New charts reveal how State Farm has gained share through a scale-first mutual model, while Progressive continues to outperform peers with disciplined, technology-driven underwriting and profit-adjusted growth. GEICO’s intentional volume pullback is analyzed alongside its margin recovery and cost restructuring.
For the first time, state-level premium concentration maps show where each carrier’s exposure is most acute, clarifying why identical macro conditions yield vastly different results. Reserve development figures illustrate how inflation and litigation pressures flow into balance sheets, separating proactive reserving from reactive strengthening.
Leadership profiles are expanded to capture how executive changes and governance priorities shaped 2024–2025 outcomes, linking performance differences directly to decision-making.
Announcements
National Flood Insurance Launches Innovative Portal Allowing Lenders and Banks to Quote and Purchase Flood Insurance for Faster Mortgage Pre-Approvals
National Flood Insurance, a leader in flood insurance solutions, today announced the launch of a groundbreaking online platform designed specifically for lenders and banks to streamline and expedite the mortgage pre-approval process.
The new Flood Insurance Portal enables mortgage professionals to not only access multiple flood insurance quotes simultaneously, but also purchase policies directly within the platform, dramatically reducing delays in loan approvals.
The innovative portal provides lenders with a centralized solution to obtain flood insurance quotes from multiple top-rated carriers without the need to contact local agents. By entering property details, lenders can generate, compare, and purchase flood insurance policies in minutes, ensuring borrowers meet loan requirements quickly and efficiently.
"The Flood Insurance Portal is transforming how lenders manage flood insurance requirements during the mortgage pre-approval process," said Mandi Ohse, Business Development Director of National Flood Insurance.
"For the first time, lenders can quote and purchase flood insurance policies from multiple carriers in one place. This eliminates unnecessary back-and-forth, shortens closing timelines, and delivers a seamless experience for both lenders and borrowers."
Featuring a user-friendly interface and advanced rating algorithms, the portal delivers accurate, competitive quotes based on each property's unique flood risk. The ability to complete the entire process—from quote to policy issuance within a single platform provides lenders with greater control, transparency, and speed as flood insurance requirements become increasingly critical nationwide.
The Flood Insurance Portal is live and is available to lenders and banks across the nation. For more information, visit nationalfloodinsurance.org or contact customer support at mail@nationalfloodinsurance.org.
Marsh unit boosts limits for data center facility
Marsh Risk, a unit of Marsh, announced Monday that Nimbus, an insurance facility supporting the construction of large-scale data centers, has expanded its limits to up to $2.7 billion.
The added capacity includes coverage for delay in start-up and business interruption for construction projects in the UK, U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Launched last year, backed by a panel of Lloyd’s and London insurers, Nimbus initially provided up to $1 billion in construction all-risks coverage limits and $365 million for delay in start-up.
“Demand for more powerful and efficient data centers is accelerating technological innovation, particularly around AI and machine learning,” Mike Mathews, global digital infrastructure leader at Marsh, said in a statement.
AI in Insurance
Does size matter? Comparing 3 top insurance AI solutions
Insurance companies and professionals who choose to make the AI leap have many diverse tools, solutions and providers to choose from — whether big names, smaller yet established companies, or boutique operations with great potential.
InsuranceNewsNet sat down with three of the top providers of insurance AI solutions to gain their perspective on what technology can offer and where their AI developments are headed.
“As we sit here today, the possibilities to transform both our business, our carriers’ business and our industry are super exciting, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it,” Jason Render, senior VP and head of Magnum in the Americas, Swiss Re, said.
“We think it’s totally appropriate for insurers to expect real results, and at scale with AI. And so, our focus is really transforming the industry in specific areas of complexity,” Grady Behrens, global head of product marketing, Shift Technology, said.
“A persistent challenge for insurers today is maintaining enterprise-grade data quality and consistency across underwriting, rating and reinsurance. ZestyAI is designed to establish a single, trusted property data foundation that is applied consistently across underwriting, pricing, renewals, filings and reinsurance decisions,” Kumar Dhuvur, co-founder and chief product officer, ZestyAI, said.
Insurance Shifts to Modular AI Deployment | Insurance Thought Leadership
End-to-end AI promises disappointed in 2025, prompting insurers to shift toward focused, modular deployment strategies.
For many in the insurance industry, 2025 was the year of the "AI Reality Check." After a whirlwind of excitement surrounding generative models, many carriers found themselves navigating a landscape cluttered with broken promises and stalled pilots. As we look toward meaningful innovation in 2026, the path forward requires us to address the "key myth" of AI: the seductive, yet ultimately destructive, belief in the end-to-end magic pill.
Believing that AI can or should replace human judgment at scale is disconnected from the reality of what the technology is. It's far more nuanced and, ultimately, more valuable. AI excels at specific, well-defined tasks: parsing documents, extracting structured data, identifying patterns in large datasets. Humans excel at everything else: understanding context, applying judgment, managing relationships, and making decisions that balance competing priorities.
AI in insurance isn't about doing it all at once. It's about deploying AI module by module, connecting thoughtfully, and staying grounded in what the technology can and cannot do today. That's how AI moves from hype to durable business value.CONTINUES
Galina Fendikevich is the U.S. go-to-market lead at Upstage.
Claims
Starr Modernizes P&C and Specialty Claims with Five Sigma's AI Claims Platform and Clive™
Five Sigma, the AI claims technology company, today announced that Starr, a global investment and insurance organization, has selected Five Sigma's AI-native Claims Management Platform and Clive™, the Multi-Agent AI Claims Expert, to support the next phase of its digital claims transformation.
Five Sigma and Starr partner to modernize specialty claims operations with AI-native claims technology and Clive;.
"The future of claims isn't about digitizing legacy processes, it's about reimagining what's possible when you build on true AI-native infrastructure from the ground up," said Oded Barak, Co-founder and CEO of Five Sigma.
"Starr is a market leader that underwrites complexity at scale. Their decision to partner with Five Sigma reflects a strategic commitment to modernizing claims operations and advancing the standard for the industry."
David Fitzgerald, Global Chief Claims Officer at Starr said, "We chose Five Sigma because they truly understand the complexity of global commercial and specialty claims. We're giving our adjusters the best tools available, creating a single source of truth, and delivering the kind of claims experience that keeps policyholders with us for decades."
Salvato Auctions Announces Targeted Expansion Into Midwestern United States
Salvato Auctions, a rising leader in the salvage vehicle auction industry, today announced its strategic expansion with current customers into the Midwest region of the United States. Scheduled to launch in the 2nd quarter of 2026, this initiative marks the company’s first significant expansion beyond its initial launch in Texas. The move expands Salvato Auctions' ability to transform total loss claims by completely eliminating physical paperwork in the lien & title process across all 50 states. For buyers, the move expands Salvato Auctions' ability to supply insurance vehicles with lower auction fees to a diverse buyer base around the world.
This expansion will introduce Salvato Auctions' services to Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, and Wisconsin, as well as additional neighboring states based on market demand. The move follows the company’s successful launch across Texas in 2025, where insurance companies who have switched to Salvato Auctions have seen significant improvement over legacy auction vendors.
“Every insurance carrier across the U.S. wants to reduce cycle time, improve salvage returns, and deliver a better claims experience” said Peter Jebson, CEO & Co-Founder of Salvato Auctions. “We have proven with current customers that our model gets policyholders paid and vehicles titled 4 to 6 weeks faster – which drives a better experience for policyholders and adjusters, and higher net returns for vehicles. We are excited to continue delivering results like this for carriers across the Midwest, like we have already proven for current customers in Texas.”
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