St. Patrick's Day
St. Patrick’s Day 2026: Date, History, and Traditions
Although the holiday originally started as a Christian feast day celebrating the life of St. Patrick and the spreading of Christianity to Ireland, today, it is a day of revelry and a celebration of all things Irish. Don’t forget to wear green!
A Young St. Patrick Finds God
The man who would eventually become St. Patrick was born in Britain (part of the Roman Empire at the time) as Maewyn Succat in the late 4th century. His family was Christian, but it’s said that Maewyn himself was an atheist throughout his childhood.
That would change at age 16 (around A.D. 400) when Maewyn was kidnapped from his home on the west coast of Britain by Irish pirates, who proceeded to carry him off to Ireland and force him to work as a shepherd herding sheep. After 6 years, he escaped his captors, walking nearly 200 miles through the Irish landscape and convincing a ship to carry him back to Britain. This harrowing experience certainly had an effect on Maewyn, who was convinced it was the Lord who protected him and delivered him safely home.
Upon returning home, Maewyn received his call (in a dream) to preach the Gospel—in Ireland, of all places! He spent the next 15 or so years in a monastery in Britain, preparing for his missionary work. When he became a priest, his name was changed to Patricius, and he returned to the land of his captors to begin his teachings.
Although some Christians already lived in Ireland at the time, the country was largely pagan, so spreading a foreign religion was not an easy task. Patricius traveled from village to village to share the teachings of the Lord and was eventually successful enough to found many churches there.
2026 Outlook/Predictions
Economic Volatility Dominates 2026 Emerging Risks, as AI Looms Long-Term
Insurance risk leaders face near-term economic pressures while bracing for AI-driven risks, according to Emerging Risk Survey by Casualty Actuarial Society and Society of Actuaries.
Risk leaders in insurance and financial services face a bifurcated risk landscape — managing immediate economic and geopolitical pressures while preparing for a technology-driven future, according to the 2026 Emerging Risks Survey, jointly published by the Casualty Actuarial Society and Society of Actuaries.
The survey provided a list of 17 risks and asked respondents — chief risk officers, chief actuaries, lead consulting partners, and senior thought leaders — to identify the one that would have the greatest impact in their company in 2026. Economic concerns dominated the 2026 outlook, with 60% of C-suite respondents identifying a risk in the economic (34%) or geopolitical (26%) categories as the greatest near-term threats to their organizations, followed by technological (19%), environmental (14%) and social (7%).
Financial volatility was the top specific risk concern, with 25% of executives citing greater-than-normal financial volatility as the single most impactful risk in 2026, followed by geoeconomic and globalization shifts cited by 19%.
The economic focus reflects caution about market conditions. Survey respondents expect moderate economic growth in North American and global markets, with over 60% anticipating moderate inflation levels. Labor market sentiment is notably pessimistic — more than half of respondents expect a weaker North American labor market in 2026, as job growth is likely to continue at a slower pace than recent years due to cautious corporate spending and demographic headwinds, the report said.
Commentary/Opinion
The Trillion-Dollar Gap: How User-Centered Design Built Tech’s Giants—and Why Insurance Must Follow
Here’s an uncomfortable truth: the same user-centered design practices that built Apple, Google, Amazon and their peers into companies collectively worth over $10 trillion barely exist in insurance.
Executive Summary
The most valuable companies in history share one trait the insurance industry often ignores: a focus on user-centered design. With no design leadership at the top of their organizations, most insurance companies will continue to lag tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Google and Netflix, according to Haden Kirkpatrick, an innovation, corporate strategy, product and transformation executive serving the insurance, InsurTech and technology industries.
Appointing a Chief Design Officer with P&L responsibility and direct CEO access is just one way to change this, Kirkpatrick advises.
In the first part of a two-part article series, he makes a case for increased focus on user-centered design in insurance, revealing metrics like a McKinsey Design Index, which proves that design drives shareholder returns.
In Part 2, Kirkpatrick addresses the excuse that insurance is inherently difficult to design, offering proof points that contradict this—revealing a handful of insurers that have made designing best-in-class customer experiences central to their operating models.
While tech companies obsess over customer journeys, prototype relentlessly and run thousands of experiments annually, most insurers still build products the same way they did in 1985—with actuaries in a room, regulators in their heads and customers as an afterthought (if at all).
Much of this gap goes back to the same cultural limitations we’ve discussed in prior articles on the yawning gaps in insurance innovation. User design sprints and UX testing methods generally have smaller sample sizes, which actuarially minded professionals don’t trust. And legacy thinking is a major culprit here. Design thinking was invented in the 1950s and ’60s but didn’t really take hold until David Kelley of IDEO took it to industrial scale in the early 2000s.
Predict & Prevent
Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH) Launches WildfireStrong - No Fuel. No Fire.
Today, the nonprofit Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH)® launched WildfireStrong – No Fuel. No Fire.®, a national campaign focused on reducing wildfire losses through consumer education and proactive fuel management.
The No Fuel. No Fire. campaign is rooted in a foundational fire science principle: the fire triangle. Fire requires oxygen, heat, and fuel to burn—and fuel is the only element that homeowners and communities can control.
Although peak wildfire activity typically occurs during the summer months, wildfire risk reduction should begin and continue much earlier. Spring is the most effective time to remove wildfire fuel, after winter freezes and before hot, dry conditions arrive. Just as households undertake seasonal spring cleaning, clearing debris and dead vegetation around homes can significantly reduce or even prevent wildfires.
"Wildfire mitigation is spring cleaning your yard with a purpose," said Leslie Chapman-Henderson, FLASH President and CEO. "By removing dead vegetation, clearing debris, and creating an ignition-free zone around homes in spring, people can reduce wildfire risk before the summer fire season begins."
Financial Results
Unpacking Q4 Earnings: Markel Group (NYSE:MKL) In The Context Of Other Property & Casualty Insurance Stocks
As the Q4 earnings season wraps, let’s dig into this quarter’s best and worst performers in the property & casualty insurance industry, including Markel Group (NYSE:MKL) and its peers.
Property & Casualty (P&C) insurers protect individuals and businesses against financial loss from damage to property or from legal liability. This is a cyclical industry, and the sector benefits when there is 'hard market', characterized by strong premium rate increases that outpace loss and cost inflation, resulting in robust underwriting margins. The opposite is true in a 'soft market'. Interest rates also matter, as they determine the yields earned on fixed-income portfolios. On the other hand, P&C insurers face a major secular headwind from the increasing frequency and severity of catastrophe losses due to climate change. Furthermore, the liability side of the business is pressured by 'social inflation'—the trend of rising litigation costs and larger jury awards.
The 33 property & casualty insurance stocks we track reported a strong Q4. As a group, revenues beat analysts’ consensus estimates by 2.9%.
Markel Group reported revenues of $4.01 billion, up 7.6% year on year. This print exceeded analysts’ expectations by 3.7%. Overall, it was an exceptional quarter for the company with a beat of analysts’ EPS and net premiums earned estimates.
"In 2025, the Markel Group delivered meaningful progress. Operating income was $3.2 billion and adjusted operating income exceeded $2.3 billion, with every reportable segment making meaningful contributions," said Tom Gayner, Chief Executive Officer.
InsurTech/M&A/Finance💰/Collaboration
AIG, McGill Announce Collaboration to Potentially Transform Subscription Market
McGill and Partners and American International Group said they collaborating to perhaps disrupt the subscription market—using agentic artificial intelligence to deploy capital to clients.
AIG said the digital-first platform of the London-based independent broker allowed the insurer to conduct a detailed analysis of McGill’s specialty portfolio and create underwriting criteria to enable real-time underwriting through McGill.
Gangkhar Raises $4.25 Million Seed Round to Scale AI-NativeEmbedded Protection Infrastructure Globally
Gangkhar Announces Closing of Seed Funding Round Led by AnthemisDelaware, USA – Gangkhar, an AI-native embedded protection infrastructure platform, today announced the successful closing of its $4.25 million seed round, led by Anthemis with participation from Accion Ventures, Sancor Ventures, Seedstars, EWA Capital and Simma Capital. The round builds on early backing from Rally Cap, which supported Gangkhar at the pre-seed stage and played a key role in the company’s early development.
Gangkhar is an insurtech startup building an embedded insurance orchestration platform globally. The platform enables capacity providers and digital platforms to instantly configure, deploy, and optimize embedded protection across regions. Through its AI‑enabled optimization engine, Gangkhar uses real‑time program data to improve segmentation, pricing, and messaging so distributors can improve conversion and retention over time.
AI in Insurance
Employees in these U.S. cities rely the most on AI
Roughly half of all U.S. businesses use some form of AI but less than 5% have begun replacing jobs with the technology, according to a study by the global recruitment company Hays.
Nearly 50% say AI is being deployed to support existing teams, enhance productivity and fill gaps created by talent shortages rather than reduce headcount, the data showed, while demanding new skills like data literacy, automation fluency and prompt engineering become baseline expectations across most functions.
Despite the human and AI collaboration touted by industry leaders, nearly 4% of organizations report that when employees leave, they do not rehire, instead, they replace the role with AI or automation. At the same time, AI isn't just displacing workers, it's also creating new jobs, according to the study, as demand for professionals in AI governance, privacy and cybersecurity surges.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects:
- Over 32% growth in information security analyst roles.
- Over 17% growth in software developers.
- Over 10% growth in database architects.
Telematics, Driving & Insurance
Arity Brings Behavioral Precision to Territorial Ratemaking at CAS RPM
This week, Arity, a mobility data and analytics company behind one of the largest driving behavior datasets in the U.S., will exhibit and present at the Casualty Actuarial Society's Ratemaking, Product and Modeling (CAS RPM) Seminar. Arity experts will lead a session showing how aggregated driving behavior data can uncover meaningful, mispriced territorial risk that traditional ratemaking factors were never designed to capture.
Every carrier prices territories using some combination of internal loss experience, industry benchmarks, and third–party claims history. These inputs are foundational — but they all share the same limitation: they only reflect losses that have already occurred. They cannot measure how people actually drive in each territory today or where risk is developing ahead of claims.
Session: Driving Behavior Data for Territorial Pricing Presented by Megan Jones, FCAS and Patrick Peters, FCAS - Wednesday, March 18 at 2:15 p.m. CT (in-person and livestream)
The session will demonstrate how ZIP-level driving behavior data enables actuaries to identify and correct territorial mispricing before it shows up in loss ratios. Attendees will see how behavioral signals like hard braking events per miles, nighttime driving exposure, average trip speed, and mileage, can provide a forward-looking risk dimension that traditional territorial factors cannot.
Samsara awarded $30M over Motive’s marketing claims; Motive beats patent infringement case
In the competitive race to equip America’s trucking fleets with the next generation of AI dashcams and telematics, courtroom drama is proving as intense as the competition on the road. At stake are customers, competitive moats and a fleet telematics market valued at $10.42 billion in 2025 and expected to reach $21.95 billion by 2032.
The latest legal salvo saw Samsara awarded $30.3 million in damages from a favorable arbitration ruling on Feb. 3. Samsara disclosed the award in its updated Form 10-K filed Monday after markets closed.
Motive won the ITC case (Investigation 337-TA-1393), in which Samsara had sought exclusion orders on AI dashcams and gateways over three patents. After an evidentiary hearing in March 2025, the administrative law judge issued an initial determination on Sept. 8, 2025, finding no Section 337 violation.
Announcements
SiriusPoint reorganizes into four units - Business Insurance
SiriusPoint Ltd. said Monday that it would move to a new corporate structure with four units.
The specialty underwriter said it will now be comprised of three global business units – Global P&C Programs, Global Reinsurance, Global Accident & Health – together with a London Market Specialty division including Lloyd’s operations.
Existing North America and International Programs businesses will be combined into the Global P&C Programs division, to be run by Patrick Charles, global head of P&C Programs, the insurer said in a statement.
The London Market Specialty business unit will include Syndicate 1945 together with SiriusPoint’s London casualty, energy, property and marine operations and be led by David Govrin, president, who will also retain his role as CEO Global Reinsurance.
There will be no changes to the insurer’s global reinsurance and global accident and health businesses.
Rob Gibbs, resident and CEO of SiriusPoint International, will be leaving SiriusPoint as part of the reorganization, the company said in its statement.
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