HWF Partners has reported a further maturing of the warranty and indemnity (W&I) insurance claims environment, with new data showing that notifications are increasingly driven by risks that cannot realistically be identified in pre-deal due diligence, and that almost half of closed claims are resulting in a payment.
According to the broker's latest W&I Market Claims Report, 2025 is on track to surpass the record W&I growth and adoption seen in 2024, with the product now firmly mainstream in Western Europe and seeing increasing uptake in Italy, Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltics.
A central finding for insurers is that a significant majority of claims notifications continue to arise from risks that "cannot be diligenced". More than half of notifications relate to seller fraud, non-disclosure and third-party claims – categories that involve unknown or unforeseeable issues beyond the reach of even intensive buyer review.
From a risk perspective, the data underline W&I’s role as a tool for transferring residual risk rather than a shortcut to avoid diligence costs, reinforcing the importance of underwriting approach, deal selection and fraud‑related exclusions.
The report also showed that paid claims continue to rise. Since 2022, there has been a steady increase in successful outcomes, with 48.51% of closed notified claims resulting in a payment to the insured.
At the same time, the policy-level notification rate has edged higher, with 12.46% of policies receiving at least one notice across the review period, compared with 11.64% in the 2024 study. This points to an active and increasingly well-understood claims environment rather than a product used only as a deal-facilitation tool.
Other global datasets broadly support this picture. Aon’s 2025 Global Transaction Solutions Global Claims Study reported record worldwide R&W/W&I and tax insurance pay‑outs of more than US$1.75 billion, alongside a 26% year‑on‑year increase in claim notifications in EMEA in 2024. Euclid Transactional has separately highlighted more than US$1 billion paid under its own programmes and a marked rise in large, complex W&I/RWI losses.
Meanwhile, 49.83% of all claims were brought by financial sponsors or their portfolio companies, yet these clients received 60.31% of total claims payments. The broker said this reflects the commercial leverage that repeat users and larger buyers can exert in a competitive W&I market, where scale, experience and repeat business can translate into stronger outcomes on coverage, wording and claims handling.
For carriers, the skew towards sophisticated private equity buyers reinforces the need for consistent, data‑driven claims practices that can stand up to scrutiny from repeat clients and their advisers.
David Wall, managing director and co‑head of private equity at HWF Partners, said the latest dataset “once again confirms hugely positive claims outcomes across the EMEA region” and pointed to a virtuous circle between claims performance and future demand.
With 2025 set to break the record levels of W&I uptake in 2024 and a maturing claims environment, Wall said the firm expects claim payments to continue to grow, with improved experience “driving consumer confidence” and encouraging repeat usage.
As W&I usage continues to climb in Western Europe and expand in markets such as Italy, CEE and the Baltics, HWF’s latest claims data will feed directly into underwriting appetite, attachment points and pricing discussions and give brokers and buyers fresh evidence of the product’s effectiveness when making the case for cover to investment committees and boards.
