News
Homeowners rate increases slow to 4.3% as insurers bank first underwriting profit in six years
Average approved homeowners rate increases in the US have fallen to 4.3% in the first half of 2026. The line is building on a US$16.5 billion underwriting gain in 2025, its first annual profit in six years, according to a new AM Best market segment report.
The slowdown in rate increases is steep. The average approved increase was 13.5% in 2024 and 7.6% in 2025. AM Best said filings for rate increases slowed in the second half of 2025, and that the trend continued through the first half of 2026, reflecting improved results across the line and a stabilizing reinsurance market.
Early 2026 results point the same way. AM Best put the direct incurred loss ratio for the first half of the year at 48.4, its lowest point in five years.
About 4.7 Million U.S. Vehicles Still Carry Unrepaired Takata Airbags, Carfax Says - Autobody News
About 4.7 million vehicles in the U.S. have not received the fix under the Takata airbag recall, according to Carfax's September 2026 recall tracker. Meanwhile, Honda says it is still buying recalled airbag hardware from salvage yards so those parts cannot be reinstalled as replacements.
American Honda says its salvage yard buyback has removed more than 535,000 recalled inflators so far and is ongoing. The company has also asked major online auction sites to ban listings for affected airbags, according to its Takata recall fact sheet, current as of Aug. 21.
UNREPAIRED COUNT DOWN ABOUT 20% SINCE 2024
When the Takata airbag recall reached its 10-year mark in 2024, Carfax counted more than 6 million U.S. vehicles with the repair still outstanding. The current figure of about 4.7 million is roughly 20% lower, according to the company's tracker.
Carfax says the remaining vehicles are aging and changing hands, which makes their owners harder to locate. The company estimates that about 1.3 million U.S. vehicles have an open do-not-drive recall, whether related to Takata or another defect.
HUB International Evolves its Brand to Reflect a Decade of Growth and Expanded Capabilities
- A new value proposition: "Moving you forward with clarity and confidence" reflects the full breadth of HUB's capabilities across risk, insurance, employee benefits, private client, retirement and wealth management, giving clients seamless, omnichannel access to HUB's full expertise across all lines of business
- A reimagined HUBInternational.com gives clients and prospects a faster, more intuitive way to find and access HUB's full range of expertise
- A refreshed set of employee values provides current and prospective talent a clearer picture of HUB's culture — a place to grow and succeed
Hub International Holdings, Inc. (HUB), a leading global insurance brokerage and financial services firm, today announced an evolved brand. Since HUB's last brand refresh in 2016, the organization has completed more than 600 acquisitions, expanded its lines of business and capabilities, has more than 21,000 professionals and invested in innovative, omnichannel digital offerings and client experiences. The new brand reflects that growth: a global broker built to combine client-first service with enterprise-grade capabilities, technology and scale.
Climate/Resilience/Sustainability
Property resilience investments outpace insurer recognition
Commercial property owners are investing in resilience measures, such as roof upgrades, automatic sprinklers and water-monitoring technologies, but insurer recognition of those efforts is still catching up, sources say.
Property resilience remains an important differentiator for insurance buyers — even amid ample capacity and increased competition — particularly for businesses vulnerable to prolonged business interruption, said Blake Giannisis, New York-based executive vice president and North American property practice leader at Hub International
Insurers continue to push for loss-control improvements, and resilient risks can attract more capacity, increasing competition and potentially lowering costs, but individual measures do not necessarily result in a specific premium credit, he said.
Announcements
CB Insights/ITC Vegas: The most promising insurtech startups of 2026
These companies have collectively raised $3 billion in equity funding and employ more than 5,400 people.
CB Insights in partnership with ITC Vegas recently named the 50 companies they deem the most promising private insurtechs of 2026.
ITC Vegas 2026 gets underway this week at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. It's billed as "one of the insurance industry's largest global conferences focused on technology and innovation" and is expected to draw more than 9,000 insurance professionals for three days of speakers, exhibits, educational sessions, product demonstrations and networking.
Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence played a key role across every company selected for the fifth annual Insurtech 50 list. Researchers compiled the list after evaluating such factors as deal activity, industry partnerships, investor strength, hiring momentum, revenue.
Tech Update: WTW Unveils Radar AI Assistant for Radar Vision
WTW said it released Radar AI Assistant, a new natural language capability within Radar Vision, its AI-driven performance and experience monitoring tool built for insurers.
The AI technology enables pricing, underwriting, claims and portfolio management teams to identify emerging issues and uncover hidden patterns within their data, providing real-time, actionable insights for competitive advantage.
Radar AI Assistant goes on to explain the likely drivers and feeds these insights directly into recommended pricing and underwriting actions.
“A single emerging risk signal may be too weak to justify action, said Pardeep Bassi, global proposition leader in data science, insurance consulting and technology at WTW. “Radar AI Assistant, guided by insurance expertise, can consolidate multiple early indicators into a clearer, more credible view that supports confident action ahead of competitors reliant on isolated signals.”
Duck Creek Launches Agentic FNOL to Transform Claims Intake with Intelligent, Real-Time Automation
/PRNewswire/ -- Duck Creek, the intelligent core of insurance, today announced Duck Creek Agentic First Notice of Loss (FNOL), an AI-powered solution that transforms claims intake into an intelligent, real-time experience, is now available for early access customers.
Built on the Duck Creek Agentic AI Platform, Agentic FNOL uses orchestrated and extensible AI agents to capture, validate, enrich, and route claims across digital, voice-to-text, and mobile channels. The solution helps insurers improve data quality at first contact, reduce claims cycle times, lower loss adjustment expense, and deliver a more responsive experience for policyholders at a critical moment.
"First notice of loss sets the trajectory for the entire claims experience," said Jose Lazares, Chief Product Officer at Duck Creek. "With Agentic FNOL, insurers can replace fragmented, manual intake processes with an intelligent experience that captures the right information, verifies coverage, identifies potential issues early, and moves each claim to the right next step. This gives claims teams greater capacity to focus on the decisions and customer interactions where their expertise has the greatest impact."
Phyn Expands Water Protection Portfolio | Insurance Innovation Reporter
Phyn (Torrance, Calif.) has expanded its water monitoring and protection portfolio, adding products for homes, larger residences and commercial properties.
The announcement, made at InsureTech Connect in Las Vegas, includes Phyn Protect, Phyn Assist and the Phyn Protect XL Series. The company also announced an expanded relationship with Asurion across the LeakProtect product suite and introduced the Phyn Partner Advantage program for insurance agencies, brokers and carriers.
“Insurance carriers are looking for practical, scalable ways to move from reacting to water damage to preventing it, and Phyn is uniquely positioned to help them make that shift,” comments Ryan Kim, CEO, Phyn.
Insurtech Outmarket raises $34.5M just months after prior round | TechCrunch
The startup uses AI to automate tedious paperwork for insurance agencies and brokers.
Vishal Sankhla led product at digital life insurance distributor Ethos before it went public earlier this year. In late 2023, the seasoned engineering executive, who had previously worked at Facebook and Uber, left Ethos and launched Outmarket, a startup that uses AI to help insurance agencies and brokers automate all their tedious paperwork.
“Ninety-five percent of insurance in the U.S. and worldwide is still sold through [human] agents, and when you look at sort of like how the process is today, it’s very manual,” Sankhla told TechCrunch. “This is a huge opportunity given how massive this industry is.”
insured.io Launches Next-Generation Client Portal and Mobile App to Elevate Policyholder Experience
Insured.io a leading provider of omnichannel customer experience solutions for insurers, today announced the launch of Claims AI, launched its next-generation client portal, and a full-featured, carrier-branded mobile app for iOS and Android, live at ITC Vegas. Guided by the company's core mantra of "future-proofing customer experience," the new portal delivers a completely revised UI and best-practice UX, streamlining policyholder interactions across the mobile app, mobile web, and desktop environments within a single, unified application.
The insured.io client portal architecture is built on years of research on policyholder behavior across personal and commercial lines of business, incorporating data from over 2 million active users and more than $2.5 billion in premiums collected. By analyzing usage patterns, identifying pain points, and gathering carrier feedback, insured.io has identified the most critical actions for policyholders, making digital engagement faster, more intuitive, and more seamless.
"We've seen the insured.io next-gen portal and its new capabilities, including the all-new mobile app. We believe it's a game-changer for the way that carriers interact with and retain policyholders," said Myles Storms, Chief Operating Officer at Aspire General.
Telematics, Driving & Insurance
OCTO Telematics Launches New Telematics Solutions for Commercial Lines Insurance and Partners with TruckerCloud to Expand Data and Insights
OCTO, a global leader in telematics data analytics, and TruckerCloud, the leading commercial auto insurance telematics data platform, today announced a strategic partnership to accelerate telematics adoption across the US Commercial Auto market.
Concurrently, OCTO is launching a line of high-granularity, in-vehicle installed telematics solutions purpose-built for Commercial Insurers. OCTO's hardware delivers accurate DriveAbility® risk scoring, already approved for Commercial line in about 35 US States, alongside instant crash detection and reconstruction for FNOL and claims cost reductions. The solution also includes a complimentary driver coaching and rewards mobile application, enabling fleet managers to monitor driving behavior, promote safety, and incentivize drivers through monetary rewards.