News
IIHS finds drivers reach for the phone more often when they're already speeding
A new study from the IIHS upends the conventional wisdom about smartphones behind the wheel.
The long-held assumption was that drivers grab their phone at low speed — in traffic jams, at red lights, or in slow-moving congestion.
Data from insurance telematics apps points the other way: in free-flowing traffic, it's the drivers exceeding the speed limit who interact with their phone the most.
IIHS president David Harkey conceded that researchers had been expecting a different picture. According to the institute, on limited-access roads — including freeways — phone use climbs 12% for every additional 5 mph over the posted limit. On ordinary roads the increase is smaller, around 3%, but the correlation is still clear.
The most worrying effect surfaced on the fastest stretches. On roads with a 70 mph limit, every extra 5 mph above the limit pushes drivers toward the phone harder than on 55 mph stretches. Researcher Ian Reagan called that especially troubling: the link between phone use and speeding turns out to be strongest exactly where the cost of a mistake is highest. MORE
Financial Results
CNA FINANCIAL ANNOUNCES FIRST QUARTER 2026 NET INCOME
CNA Financial Corporation (NYSE: CNA) today announced first quarter 2026 net income of $211 million, or $0.78 per share, versus $274 million, or $1.00 per share, in the prior year quarter.
Net investment losses for the quarter were $14 million compared to $7 million in the prior year quarter.
Our Property & Casualty segments delivered core income of $248 million for the first quarter of 2026, a decrease of $63 million compared to the prior year quarter reflecting lower underlying underwriting results and unfavorable prior period development partially offset by higher net investment income. P&C segments generated net written premium growth of 1%.
- Net income of $211 million versus $274 million in the prior year quarter; core income of $225 million versus $281 million in the prior year quarter.
- P&C core income of $248 million versus $311 million, reflects lower underlying underwriting results and unfavorable prior period development partially offset by higher net investment income.
- P&C combined ratio of 102.2%, compared with 98.4% in the prior year quarter Catastrophe impacts of $97 million pretax in both the current and prior year quarters.
- P&C underlying combined ratio was 94.5%, compared with 92.1% in the prior year quarter. P&C underlying loss ratio was 64.1% and the expense ratio was 29.9%.
Research
Sentry® survey: Large business leaders remain optimistic for 2026 despite rising stress and complex risk environment
Large business executives remain confident in their organizations' performance in 2026, even as they navigate increasing stress and a complex risk landscape. According to new research sponsored by Sentry Insurance and conducted by Wakefield Research nearly three-quarters (74%) of executives at large enterprises believe their companies will remain stable— or even thrive— this year.
The survey of 1,250 U.S. executives—including 200 leaders from large companies with more than 1,000 employees—reveals that optimism is tempered by mounting pressure. More than 9 in 10 large business executives (93%) report similar or higher stress levels compared to last year, reflecting the growing risks they face.
The findings also point to potential gaps in how organizations prioritize and prepare for risks. Fewer than one in five large business leaders (18%) say they are completely confident their current insurance coverage is adequate, and nearly all (98%) plan to reevaluate their policies in 2026.
"As the risk environment continues to evolve, many large organizations are taking a more active role in evaluating how they manage uncertainty," said Jeff Cole, Assistant Vice President of National Accounts at Sentry. "Leaders are balancing confidence in their operations with a need to reassess coverage, risk tolerance, and long-term planning."
AI in Insurance
Gallagher Launches Gallagher Blueprint, Pairing AI and Expert Insight to Produce Risk Profile Scores and Market-Ready Action Plans
Gallagher, one of the world's largest insurance brokerage and risk management firms, today launched Gallagher Blueprint, a strategic framework that combines AI-driven analytics, Gallagher's proprietary data, and deep niche expertise, to help clients strengthen their risk profile and structure stronger, cost-efficient insurance programs.
Built on Gallagher's proven sales methodology, Gallagher Blueprint aligns a client's insurance strategy, risk management priorities, and budget into a clear, customized action plan to optimize their insurance program.
"Gallagher Blueprint is a gamechanger for our clients," said Pete Doyle, CEO of Gallagher's US retail brokerage. "By combining AI-powered insights with our proprietary data and our specialists' expertise, we ensure clients have the best program available in the market. I often describe it as 'eliminating wonder.' We want to remove any doubt for our clients, ensuring they don't have to wonder if they have the best program in the marketplace – they will know they do."
Travelers Launches AI-Powered Claims Intelligence Tool in e-CARMA®
The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE: TRV) today announced the launch of Claim Insights, a new AI-powered capability for customers within Travelers’ proprietary risk management information platform, e-CARMA®.
Claim Insights helps risk managers act faster and more effectively by optimizing claim analysis, prioritizing the right claim for action at the right time and putting key insights at risk managers’ fingertips. By streamlining how claims are monitored and managed, the tool enables risk managers to stay ahead of developments, respond more quickly and maintain tighter control over outcomes.
“For risk managers overseeing a high volume of claims, knowing where to focus at any given moment is critical, and Claim Insights brings that clarity,” said Todd Mattiello, Vice President, National Accounts at Travelers. “It accelerates how work gets done and surfaces the insights needed to make better decisions, helping them manage claims with greater speed and more effectively.”
Claim Insights reflects Travelers’ ongoing investment in combining deep insurance expertise with advanced technology to deliver high-impact solutions for customers.
Greg Abel Reveals Berkshire’s ‘Narrow AI’ Direction After Buffett Retirement
Greg Abel told Berkshire Hathaway shareholders Saturday that the conglomerate will adopt artificial intelligence (AI) only where it adds clear value, rejecting industry-wide hype in his first annual meeting as the designated successor to Warren Buffett.
His remarks, delivered in Omaha on May 2, set out a cautious deployment strategy across Berkshire's insurance, rail, energy, and manufacturing units. Buffett, who recently retired from the chief executive role, did not weigh in on AI during the session.
Narrow AI, Not Hype
Abel told shareholders that AI must improve efficiency, safety, or decision-making before Berkshire deploys it. The vice chairman pointed to railroad subsidiary BNSF, where targeted AI tools are sharpening operations, and to insurance, where the company uses technology to flag fraud and deepfake threats.
Organizers opened the meeting with an AI-generated video of Buffett, which Abel called a serious risk Berkshire manages every day.
"It has to be additive to our businesses. We're not going to do AI for the sake of AI," he said. The framing extends Buffett's long-standing skepticism of unproven tech narratives, and stands in contrast to peers cutting jobs or rebranding around AI capabilities.
Neuro-Symbolic AI Addresses Insurance’s Explainability Challenge
There is a tradeoff at the heart of enterprise AI that the industry has quietly accepted as inevitable. The more capable the model, the less explainable the output. The better it is at handling ambiguity, the more likely it is to produce a confident, coherent, and completely wrong answer.
In most industries, a wrong AI answer is simply a bad user experience. In insurance, a wrong coverage determination, claims decision, or rate that cannot be defended carries consequences that are regulatory, legal, and deeply human.
A claims handler stares at an AI-generated total loss recommendation. She agrees with the number, but the system handed her a conclusion, not a case. No reasoning chain. No rule citation. No audit trail. The policyholder is already on the line, wanting to know why. The regulator wants the same answer Monday morning. Right now, she has neither. That is not a technology gap. That is an architecture gap. READ ON
Chief Technology Officer, Rajesh Raheja is a member of Duck Creek Technology’s Executive Leadership Team
Solera Introduces AI Engine, a Cloud-Native Intelligence Layer Powering Faster Innovation Across the Automotive Ecosystem
Solera, the global leader in vehicle lifecycle management, today announced the Solera AI Engine, a cloud-native intelligence layer purpose-built to accelerate AI-powered innovation across the automotive ecosystem.
Unlike conventional approaches that layer AI features onto legacy systems, the Solera AI Engine is an infrastructure-first capability embedded directly into the Solera Cloud Platform, connecting proprietary data, orchestrating cross-product workflows, and enabling the company to move new solutions from concept to production on dramatically shortened timelines.
“The automotive industry doesn’t need more AI features bolted onto disconnected tools. It needs intelligent infrastructure that makes the entire ecosystem work better together,” said Alberto Cairo, Chief Financial Officer and Managing Director at Solera. “The Solera AI Engine is that infrastructure. It connects the data, automates the workflows, and gives us the speed to build what our customers need — when they need it.”
Announcements
RIMS rings in risk management in America’s birthplace - Business Insurance
The Risk & Insurance Management Society opens its 76th annual conference, Riskworld, in Philadelphia this week at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
The conference is expected to attract thousands of attendees and more than 300 exhibitors as risk managers, brokers, insurers and service providers gather for education, networking and business development. Business Insurance will cover the show on its website and through this special digital newsletter.
The conference will include more than 100 educational sessions focused on issues such as artificial intelligence adoption, tariffs, cyber threats and global disruptions, along with expanded networking opportunities at the reimagined RIMS HQ Lounge and the Marketplace Floor.
New this year, and in keeping with RIMS’ commitment to sustainability, organizers said the conference will no longer provide the traditional conference bag, and attendees are encouraged to bring their own bag to collect Riskworld 2026 swag.
Fraud
TrustLayer AI Analyzes 400,000 Monthly COIs to Detect Insurance Fraud - USA Today
Modern risk management is shifting away from legacy manual verification as TrustLayer continues to scale its AI-driven fraud detection capabilities. Processing more than 400,000 Certificates of Insurance (COIs) every month, the TrustLayer platform leverages a database of millions of compliance documents to identify sophisticated patterns of insurance fraud that often escape human detection.
Verifying compliance documents has traditionally been a painfully slow, manual process prone to human error. Sophisticated forgeries, such as tampered PDFs or forged carrier signatures, often go unnoticed by the human eye, leaving organizations exposed to massive third-party risk. TrustLayer’s AI-enhanced technology addresses this vulnerability by assigning confidence scores to every document and flagging anomalies that suggest a document has been altered or fabricated.
People
AIG Completes CEO Succession Plan With Anderson to Take Reins
American International Group Inc. made it official with an announcement today that Eric Anderson will become president and CEO on June 1.
Most recently a member of Aon Plc’s executive committee, Anderson will succeed current AIG CEO Peter Zaffino, who will become executive chair of the company’s board of directors.
AIG previously announced the succession plan in January. Anderson joined AIG in February. The announcement on April 27 marked the “successful conclusion” of the plan, AIG said.
Zaffino took over as CEO of AIG in March 2021, succeeding Brian Duperreault.