Growth has returned to the boardroom agenda for insurers, but this time under far less forgiving conditions.
Executive Summary
EY Americas Insurance Sector Leader Jeff Gill argues that in today's structurally volatile insurance market, growth requires deliberate, disciplined choices rather than reliance on market cycles, with carriers treating risk insight, AI, cost discipline and partnerships as interconnected parts of a single growth system. Gill emphasizes using data and AI to deepen customer and risk understanding, reinvesting cost savings into modernization, reskilling and customer-focused innovation, and strategically leveraging capital and ecosystem partnerships to build durable, customer‑centric growth.Softening property and casualty premiums, rising social inflation, tighter capital, regulatory pressure, market volatility and talent gaps mean carriers can no longer rely on market cycles or small fixes to drive results. In today’s environment, growth depends on making clear, intentional choices about competition, risk, customer experience and capital deployment.
The 2026 Global Insurance Outlook makes the case that volatility is no longer a passing phase. It is a structural feature of modern insurance markets. That reality is pushing leadership teams to reframe familiar priorities such as modernization, AI, cost discipline and ecosystem partnerships as connected levers in a growth system rather than separate initiatives competing for attention.
