News
California drought, wildfire risks grow as snow falls short
California is heading into its dry season with just a fraction of the snow it typically has across its highest peaks at the end of its winter months, raising the prospects of drought across the most populous U.S. state.
Statewide, California has just 18% of the snow a normal winter would bring to its mountains, according to the Department of Water Resources. The hardest-hit areas are in the northern Sierra Nevada range where just 6% of the normal snow was recorded, followed by the central region with 21% and southern region with 32%.
Unlike the eastern U.S., California and many Western states receive most of their water between October and April before the dry season begins. The state measures its snowpack on April 1, traditionally the peak, to determine how much water will be available for residents, businesses, and agriculture. Snow at the highest elevations acts as a natural reservoir, holding water until it melts late spring and early summer.
The lack of snow may usher in drought across much of California, raising wildfire risks later in the year and further stressing crops and wildlife as resources dry up.
Appeals court revives part of Vesttoo-related suit against Gallagher Re - Business Insurance
A federal appeals court has reinstated part of a lawsuit by Porch.com accusing Gallagher Re of failing to meet its obligations as a reinsurance broker in connection with a program tied to the collapsed Vesttoo operation.
In Porch.com v. Gallagher Re Inc., the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday found that while some of Porch’s breach-of-contract claims were properly dismissed, others could proceed.
The dispute stems from a reinsurance arrangement for Homeowners of America Insurance, a Porch subsidiary, that involved White Rock, an Aon-managed segregated account company, and was backed by collateral tied to Vesttoo, the Israel-based insurance-linked securities platform that filed for bankruptcy in 2023 amid allegations it used fraudulent letters of credit.
Nationwide enters centennial year stronger than ever
Entering its 100th year of operation, Nationwide is in its strongest financial position to date after a fifth consecutive year of record growth.
Nationwide's 2025 financial performance strengthened the enterprise's position as a modern mutual built for long-term stability, disciplined growth and customer value, driven by robust performances from both its financial services and property & casualty businesses. At the same time, as one of the nation's largest, most diversified insurance and financial services companies, Nationwide paid more than $20.2 billion in claims and benefits to its members.
"Years like 2025 demonstrate the power of our modern mutual approach, which takes a long‑term view while staying relentlessly focused on delivering for customers today and into the future," said Kirt Walker, Nationwide Chief Executive Officer. "Our diverse portfolio, strong capital position and iconic brand allow us to grow with intention, navigate volatility and remain strong and stable for those who rely on us."
Strong Foundations for Future Growth
Nationwide recorded $73.2 billion in total sales and premiums for 2025, up 7% from 2024's $68.5 billion sales record. Much of the growth reflects an extension of sales through institutional partners, along with an expansion of Nationwide's portfolio through strategic transactions, said Nationwide Chief Financial Officer Tim Frommeyer. The company's key measurement of profitability, net operating income, surpassed $4.29 billion, up from $3.13 billion in 2024. Total adjusted capital rose to its highest level ever, $32.8 billion, well above what's required for a AAA-level rating, providing a strong foundation that will benefit customers well into the future.
State News
Florida Premiums Drop Amid Post-Reform Stability, New Triple-I Insurance Brief Shows
Legislative reforms targeting legal system abuse and claim fraud in Florida have continued to help stabilize the Sunshine State’s property/casualty insurance market, contributing to rate-filing reductions by dozens of property and auto insurers operating in the state as claim-related litigation plummets, according to the Insurance Information Institute’s (Triple-I’s) latest issues brief, Florida: State of the Risk.
“Florida consumers are experiencing tangible benefits of the state’s legal system reforms,” said Sean Kevelighan, CEO of Triple-I. “Premiums are stabilizing, competition is increasing, and homeowners and drivers are seeing real savings while insurance coverage remains readily available.”
With 18 new property insurers entering Florida since the reforms and expanding market share among existing carriers, renewed competition in the private home insurance market has facilitated the lowest number of policies administered by Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-run insurer of last resort, in over a decade. Policies in force declined by 50% from 2024 due to successful depopulation efforts. Later this year, current Citizens policyholders will benefit from an average statewide rate decrease of 8.7%, the largest in the insurer’s 24-year history.
Telematics, Driving & Insurance
Allstate Joins Mobile Insurance App Leader GEICO; Top Carriers Expand Telematics Services: Kenova
Keynova Group, a competitive intelligence firm that benchmarks consumer financial services, including insurance, announced that Allstate now ties with GEICO for the distinction of having the top mobile insurance app—marking its first top-spot appearance on recent scorecards.
The Q1 2026 edition is the latest of Kenova’s semi-annual Mobile Insurance Scorecards. The Q32025 and Q12025 editions had GEICO alone in the first place for mobile apps.
In a more overarching category, Overall Score for mobile user experience, Progressive and GEICO are co-leaders about the 12 largest U.S. auto and property insurance carriers—consistent with the two comparable scorecards published in 2025.
In addition, Progressive continues to rank highest for mobile web, also consistent with last year’s two reports.
AI in Insurance
Risk-based pricing and AI will decide P&C winners in climate change era: Intact CEO
Intact Financial Corporation is signaling that scale, risk-based pricing and heavy investment in data and artificial intelligence (AI) will be central to how it navigates a tougher property/casualty landscape, as climate losses, geopolitical volatility and distribution disruption continue to reshape the market.
In his 2025 annual report letter, chief executive officer Charles Brindamour (pictured) said the group delivered “outstanding financial performance” despite a year marked by Canadian wildfires, UK flooding, European heatwaves and severe ice storms in Ontario and Québec.
For 2025, Intact reported net operating income per share (NOIPS) of $19.21, up 33% year over year, with a 21% return on equity (ROE) and estimated ROE outperformance of 7.4 percentage points versus the industry. Over the past decade, NOIPS has grown at a 12% compound annual rate and ROE outperformance has averaged 6.7 points.
Brindamour framed that performance as the product of a long-term “game plan” built around four pillars: clear definitions of success, an outside-in view of structural trends, disciplined use of the company’s strengths, and sustained investment in talent.
Announcements
OLD REPUBLIC FORMS NEW PROPERTY INSURANCE COMPANY
Old Republic International Corporation (NYSE: ORI) – today announced that it is forming a new operating company, Old Republic Property, Inc., to underwrite specialized property insurance products through a national retail broker distribution network.
The company will be led by Patrick Hagerty as President. A graduate of Villanova University, Mr. Hagerty brings over 20 years of extensive property underwriting and leadership experience, with a track record of building and leading underwriting teams grounded in technical expertise, portfolio management, and long-term profitability.
In making this announcement, Craig R. Smiddy, Old Republic International's President and Chief Executive Officer, noted that, "Property insurance is a core line that aligns well with Old Republic's long-standing strategy and focus on diversified growth in Specialty Insurance. Patrick's leadership experience, underwriting discipline, and cultural fit, together with Old Republic's brand, resources, and financial strength, position Old Republic Property to build a high-quality specialty franchise over time."
Old Republic Property is the seventh new specialty operating company that Old Republic has launched since 2021, adding further diversification, depth, and underwriting talent to the Old Republic Specialty Insurance Group.
Commentary/Opinion
The billion-dollar bet that turned insurance into entertainment
Here is the paradox at the center of the American insurance industry: the companies that dominate market share today got there not by explaining what they sell, but by refusing to mention it. Warren Buffett’s GEICO spends more than $2 billion a year on advertising. Almost none of it describes a policy. Almost all of it produces comedy.
I’ve spent a career studying how the screen reshapes commerce—as President and CEO of The Museum of Television & Radio (now The Paley Center for Media), as Harvard Law School’s inaugural Visiting Professor of Entertainment and Media Law, and as a bipartisan adviser to four presidential administrations on media, communications, and technology policy (Carter, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama). What GEICO, Progressive, Allstate, and Liberty Mutual have built is something I have not seen any other industry replicate: a competitive landscape where the primary corporate asset is not the product or the distribution network, but a comedy franchise.
The numbers bear this out. The GEICO Gecko has been on television longer than most sitcom characters. Progressive now runs two parallel comedy franchises simultaneously—Flo, who has become a genuine pop culture icon, and Dr. Rick, the “parenta-life coach” whose campaign about new homeowners turning into their parents won a Bronze Lion at Cannes. Allstate’s Mayhem, played by Dean Winters as a dark-comic personification of catastrophe, proved so successful that the company launched a second franchise, “Knowers,” alongside it. Liberty Mutual’s LiMu Emu has higher name recognition than most cable news anchors.
Progressive Had a Remarkable Run. Now Comes the Hard Part. - The Globe and Mail
Progressive's (NYSE: PGR) earnings per share have ramped from a trough of about $1 in 2022 to close to $20 in 2025. Big swings come with the territory in property and casualty insurance, where hard markets let insurers raise premiums and soft markets are more competitive, eventually bringing margins back down.
With shares down around 25% over the past year, the magnitude of this swing has come into focus. Prior to this cycle, the company's EPS had never crossed the $10 mark. The durability of Progressive's recent earnings run now depends on how much was driven by its underwriting skill versus a favorable turn in the cycle.
The company remains one of the industry's best underwriters, using decades of claims history and telematics data to price risk with more precision than most. Its long-term goal is to maintain a combined ratio below 96%.
For this measure of insurer profitability, the further the company lands below 100%, the greater the profit. Progressive was far better than that in 2025, with a combined ratio of 87.4%, showing how strong this cycle has been. But its clearest advantage in this cycle was growth.
While the entire industry became more profitable as rates rose over the past few years, Progressive grew the fastest. Its net premiums written jumped roughly 16% annually from 2021 to 2025.
That combination of disciplined underwriting and share gains is the engine that drove earnings from a trough of about $1 per share in 2022 to over $19 in 2025. That same discipline works in reverse, because if the market softens and pricing gets more competitive, the company is unlikely to chase growth at the expense of profit margins.
Fraud
Insurance Fraud Must Be Recognized as Part of the Global Fraud and Organized Crime Agenda
LinkedIn blog: Dennis Toomey, Director, Fraud and Financial Crime @ PwC
Fraud no longer exists at the periphery of economic crime. It is increasingly organized, technology-enabled, borderless, and interconnected with broader criminal ecosystems. Across sectors, fraud now exploits jurisdictional gaps, fragmented intelligence, digital scale, and the limitations of traditional response models. Insurance fraud must be understood within that same reality.
For too long, insurance fraud has been treated primarily as an industry loss issue, often viewed through the narrow lens of opportunistic abuse, claims inflation,victimless or isolated bad actors. That view is now outdated. The modern insurance fraud threat is far more complex. It increasingly intersects with organized criminal activity, vehicle crime, identity exploitation, cyber-enabled deception, document fraud, and cross-border financial networks. In many cases, what appears to be a single fraud event is in fact one visible piece of a broader and more coordinated criminal enterprise.
That is why the recognition of insurance fraud within the second edition of INTERPOL s global threat assessment is so significant. It reflects an important shift in thinking. Insurance fraud is not merely a private-sector problem. It is part of a wider public safety, economic security, and transnational crime challenge that deserves greater attention from governments, law enforcement, regulators, and industry leaders alike.
AI: Insurance Fraud Wake-Up Call | Insurance Thought Leadership
Fraud is hardly a new problem, but it is a serious issue, and recent fundamental changes in societal norms are exacerbating fraudulent conduct and making detection and deterrence less of a priority than warranted. The scope and scale of fraud are truly shocking, especially among government-funded medical and social programs currently under scrutiny, where enormous costs are somehow tolerated.
Fraud not only creates significant economic loss but also undermines confidence in its public and financial institutions, including insurance. Yet preventing and combatting fraud is seemingly episodic and random.
All of this serves to bring renewed attention to the long-standing concerns about ever-expanding fraud in general – and specifically insurance fraud. Insurers need to heed the wake-up call.
COST OF INSURANCE FRAUD
Quantifying insurance fraud's impact is difficult and spans from premium fraud to claims fraud, whether opportunistic or through deliberate scheme. According to the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud (CAIF), insurance fraud costs American consumers more than $300 billion a year. This amounts to an individual policyholder $900 annual “tax,” as insurer costs are passed on in form of premiums. Claims fraud is said to occur in about 10% of property-casualty insurance losses. Medicare fraud alone is estimated to cost $60 billion every year.
Podcast Sponsor
Audio Version - 'Connected: The Podcast' --- Sponsored by Pulse Podcasts
The ‘Connected’ Podcast by Alan Demers and Stephen Applebaum, is a condensed audio version of the day's ‘Connected' newsletter, a daily scan of all the happenings in the world of Insurance & InsurTech News.
Pulse Podcasts: Introduce a new way for your audience to hear your voice! We are a podcast creation service that helps businesses turn their written content, like blog posts and news articles, into beautiful podcasts. Our platform writes the script, records the voices, and mixes the audio to create engaging content for your audience. It's affordable and has super-fast turnaround!
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE BELOW