Claims are no longer simply recording what went wrong. Increasingly, they are revealing how risks interact, evolve and emerge in ways organisations often fail to anticipate.
According to Manan Sagar, who leads Gallagher Bassett's Europe, Middle East and Asia business, that makes claims one of the most valuable sources of risk intelligence available. The problem is that many organisations are still relying on what their risk registers predict, rather than what claims are actually telling them.
"What risk registers are recording and what claims manifest in the real world," the gap between those two things, he said, is where the most useful diagnostic information lives.
Speaking to Insurance Business at AIRMIC 2026 in Birmingham, Sagar argued that as claims become more interconnected and more complex, organisations that learn from them will be better placed to understand the risks ahead.
For most of the industry's history, the primary drivers of claims were internal: training failures, process breakdowns and human error.
That is changing. Sagar described a significant shift in claims patterns, with external factors such as inflation, supply chain disruption and technology now having as much influence on claims as anything happening within an organisation.
The implications are not always obvious until a claim arrives. He gave the example of windscreen damage - straightforward in isolation, but potentially far more consequential when supply chain disruption triggers credit hire costs and a cascade of associated losses.
"Any one claim isn't isolated anymore," Sagar said. "It is all becoming part of a connected convergence of multiple issues."
Cyber provides another example. A single incident can simultaneously create operational disruption, technology infrastructure damage and reputational exposure, spanning multiple policy lines from one triggering event.
"Having an understanding of that interconnectedness is really important," he said. "The convergence of multiple factors is what is starting to become a reality in today's world."
Michael Mackenzie, who leads a large team specialising in legacy claims at Pro Global, sees a related challenge from a different perspective.
Long-tail liability claims remain among the most complex areas of insurance. Multiple employers, evolving legal standards and differing jurisdictional approaches mean reserving, pricing and claims strategy can all shift as the legal landscape changes.
"The most common misunderstanding is the complexity involved in the space," Mackenzie said.
Rather than spreading expertise across generalist teams, Pro Global uses dedicated specialists by claim type. Combined with cross-portfolio analytics, that allows claims teams to distinguish genuine emerging trends from isolated events.
"We can immediately reach a pretty quick decision in terms of whether something is a trend or a blip," he said. "If you know it is a blip, you don't get distracted. If you see there is an emerging trend, you can start diagnosing and planning interventions."
For Mackenzie, AI illustrates another gap between what the profession expects and what is already happening.
Claims specialists often focus on developing case law and technical expertise, he said, while treating AI as something that remains years away.
"I see from the work that we and others are doing that the time is really now," he said.
Pro Global has already automated processes in Germany and developed proof-of-concept tooling for UK employer and public liability claims. The biggest barrier to wider adoption, Mackenzie argued, is no longer technical capability but organisational willingness to rethink how claims professionals work.
"They really need to be able to reimagine their own roles and operating structures to really leverage it," he said. "It's not just about having subject matter expertise. It's about applying it to a new operational reality."
Sagar sees a similar opportunity from a data perspective. Organisations that use claims insights to understand how risk actually materialises, rather than relying solely on risk registers, will increasingly gain a competitive advantage.
"Claims data related insights is becoming a significant driver in organisational competitiveness," he said.
Despite approaching claims from different directions, both speakers returned to the same principle. For Mackenzie, that means making earlier decisions based on rigorous assessment rather than allowing claims to drift.
"Lengthy claims lifecycles help no one," he said. "They don't help claimants, they don't help carriers, they don't help TPAs. Finding ways to accelerate your decision making and make that based on a rigorous assessment is really key."
For Sagar, it means understanding the underlying drivers of claims rather than responding only to the presenting issue.
For both speakers, the challenge is no longer collecting more claims data. It is asking better questions of it. Claims have always measured loss. Increasingly, they are becoming one of the insurance industry's most valuable tools for understanding risk.
