"In 2026, the insurance industry is navigating market volatility while accelerating the adoption of AI-driven models to strengthen resilience and trust. This is not simply a response to disruption. It reflects a deeper transformation, where insurers move beyond paying claims to architecting resilience through risk intelligence, responsible autonomy, prevention, and sovereign ecosystems"
Bruno Abril, Head of Insurance at NTT DATA Inc. - GlobalFour core strategic imperatives
The 2026 insurance landscape is framed around our interconnected strategic pillars:
1. Become architects of resilience
Insurance must evolve from annual pricing and reactive indemnification tocontinuous sensing and proactive control. Through the 3D Framework (Detect–Decide–Defend), insurers deployreal-time underwriting, satellite intelligence, IoT monitoring, and AI-driven prevention to manage complex,interconnected risk systems.
3. Adopt balanced trust & responsible AI
AI is moving from copilots to coordinated agents that complete workacross underwriting, claims and service end-to-end. The prize is speed and productivity; the constraint is trust.Human-orchestrated autonomy pairs agentic workflows with governance explainability, audit trails, securitycontrols and clear accountability.
2. Deliver empathy at scale
The customer relationship shifts from transactional to participatory. Insurers adopthyper-personalized, usage-based models powered by telematics, wearables, biometrics and contextual AI.Prevention economics replaces pure indemnification, embedding empathy, transparency, and proactiveengagement into every interaction.
4. Orchestrate value beyond boundaries of insurance
Growth now happens in ecosystems: platforms,brokers, MGAs, reinsurers and data partners. Winners build a partner-ready standard APIs, connect withtechnology frontier, consent flows and launch new propositions in weeks, not months. Open Insurance turnscollaboration into a repeatable capability, and protects the customer relationship, durably.
Insight 1: Become Architects of Resilience
Leaders will architect resilience, not only insure risk.
From Legacy Constraints to Adaptive Operations
70% of insurers’ IT spend still goes to legacy systems.
From Catastrophe Recovery to Continuous Resilience
NATCAT losses surpassed $100B globally again in 2025.
From Paying Claims to Preventing Losses
45% of insurers prioritize prevention-led operating models.
Insight 2: Deliver Empathy at Scale
Insurance is shifting toward continuous customer engagement.
From Reactive Coverage to Real-Time Protection
Telematics programs can reduce loss costs by up to 60%.
From Insurance Products to Invisible Protection
Embedded insurance grows at double-digit rates.
From Policy Holders to Digital Consumers
73% of customers expect seamless digital journeys.
Insight 3: Orchestrate value Beyond Boundaries
Future leaders will orchestrate value across ecosystems.
From Individual Firms to Networked Value
63% of insurers see ecosystems driving innovation.
From Isolated Innovation to Scalable Growth
Global Insurtech funding surpassed $4B in 2025.
From Digital Startups to Intelligent Businesses
25% of funded Insurtechs already integrate AI.
Insight 4: Adopt Balanced Trust & Responsible AI
Trust will determine which insurers successfully scale AI.
From Experimentation to Enterprise Adoption
80% of insurers are piloting AI across operations
From Innovation Pressure to Responsible Execution
68% of insurers cite governance as a scaling barrier.
From Human Workflows to Intelligent Autonomy
57% of insurers explore autonomous AI workflows.
INSURANCE
Four industry snapshot: the state of insurance in 2026
Risk complexity is widening the protection gap, with $162B in NatCatlosses (H1 2025) and a $4.88M average data breach cost.
54%+ of adults use Generative AI, reshaping expectations towardinstant, personalized experiences.
Prevention-led models are improving loss ratios and operationalefficiency through real-time sensing and dynamic underwriting.
Collaboration across insurers, insurtechs, and ecosystem partners isaccelerating platform transformation and embedded growth.
Our Experts
| Manami Takehara Senior Vice President and Head of Third Financial Sector at NTT Group |
| Bruno Abril Head of Insurance at NTT DATA Inc. - Global |
| Amit Unde Global Head of Insurance Strategy and Advisory at NTT DATA Insurance |
| Stuart Maltas Global Insurance Industry Cloud Leader at NTT DATA Inc. |
| Tim Staebler Global Data and AI Leader for Insurance |
| Carlos Ordóñez Vicepresident, Global Insurance Innovation |
| John Harkin Managing Director Integration & Growth, Global Insurance, NTT DATA Inc. |
| John Taylor CEO at Alchemy Technology Services |
| Proneet Sharma Head of Insurance at NTT DATA North America |
| Inês Eusébio Head of Insurance at Iberia, LATAM, Benelux & France / Healthcare & Public Sector at LATAM |
| Claudia Jandl Head of Banking and Insurance (FSI) at NTT DATA DACH |
| Will Davies Head of Insurance at NTT DATA UK&I |
| Pierfrancesco Fusaro Head of Insurance at NTT DATA Italy |
| Verina Mohanlal Head of Banking and Insurance (FSI) MEA |
| Vito Treccarichi Global Account Manager for Zurich Insurance at NTT DATA |
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