The insurance industry is at a structural inflection point, with uninsured losses and liability claims growing faster than the sector's capacity to absorb them, according to NTT DATA's Insurtech Global Outlook 2026.
According to the report, cybersecurity has emerged as the top business insurance risk, with uninsured losses projected to rise from US$171 billion in 2023 to over US$700 billion by 2030. Climate-related uninsured losses from extreme weather, floods and wildfires now total US$180 billion, and liability claims have risen by 57% over the past decade.
"The insurance industry is facing structural shifts in the face of unprecedented market volatility and uncertainty," said Bruno Abril, global head of insurance at NTT DATA. "There are, however, clear opportunities for insurers to embrace AI-driven solutions to bolster trust and resilience."
The 57% rise in liability claims cited in the report reflects a dynamic that has been building for over a decade.
According to Swiss Re Institute's Social Inflation Index, social inflation became the main growth driver of liability claims over the past decade, reaching an annual peak of 7% in 2023 and driven primarily by a rising number of large court verdicts.
Meanwhile, third-party litigation funding has emerged as a critical accelerant, with assets under management in the commercial litigation finance sector growing to US$16.1 billion in 2024, and 82% of lawyers now report use of litigation finance, up from just 9% in 2012.
Only 22% of insurers have scaled AI to the production phase, even as 66% of the insurance workforce has already adopted AI tools. The bottleneck, according to the report, is not technological but rooted in trust, governance and operating models that were not designed for AI.
Meanwhile, a Willis research report found that AI adoption is outpacing governance frameworks, creating an accountability gap that is reshaping how risk is created and distributed, and that firms entering 2026 without documented AI governance frameworks are now facing coverage denials at renewal as the commercial insurance market shifts from silent AI coverage to explicit affirmative warranties or absolute exclusions.
NTT DATA estimated that building AI-native and agentic operations could deliver cost savings of up to 35% through automation and process optimisation. Meanwhile, Forrester projected that broader adoption of agentic AI could improve insurers' expense ratios by up to two points, with insurers leading in agentic AI innovation expected to generate roughly three times the returns of slower adopters.
Munich Re's Cyber Risk and Insurance Survey 2026 found that nearly nine out of 10 C-level respondents do not feel their company is adequately protected against cyberattacks.
Global cyber insurance premiums rose 7% in 2025 to US$15.3 billion and are forecast to double by 2030, yet significant coverage gaps remain, particularly among small and mid-sized enterprises.
NTT DATA's projection of uninsured cyber losses reaching US$700 billion by 2030 points to an addressable market that dwarfs current premium volumes and represents the industry's most significant growth opportunity alongside its most pressing vulnerability.
