The casualty market is rarely simple, but today it is pulling in competing directions at once - new capital reshaping competition, social inflation driving loss costs sharply higher, and AI beginning to change how underwriting and claims actually work. For brokers trying to navigate it, the question is how to read the signals and choose the right partners.
In this interview, David Corry gives his read on where the market actually sits right now, how Argo is approaching AI, and what is behind the sharp rise in primary slip-and-fall claim costs. He also addresses how the industry tackles one of its most pressing structural challenges: replacing a generation of experienced casualty underwriters before institutional knowledge walks out the door.
[00:00] David Corry: This is not a short-term business.
[00:01] David Corry: You really don't know in long-tail casualty your results for 5 or 10 years.
[00:12] David Corry: You know, I think from the casualty perspective, it's really a mixed message that's going on in the industry right now.
[00:21] David Corry: In some products, I would describe it as competitive.
[00:24] David Corry: But yet overall, I think on a macro level, certainly for our company, rate is still positive, even in the most competitive areas for us on a book basis.
[00:32] David Corry: When we set our targets, we're actually achieving those rate increases in certain products.
[00:37] David Corry: Specifically, I would say excess casualty and certainly excess casualty when you have exposure to automobile and down low on automobile exposure.
[00:50] David Corry: So with respect to capital coming into our business, I view that as a positive.
[00:54] David Corry: Our industry is attracting new capital.
[00:57] David Corry: Based on the fact that the profitability and what they think they can achieve, whether that's private equity coming in or it's carriers that are offering new lines of coverage or supporting MGAs.
[01:08] David Corry: However, I do believe there is excess capacity coming in in certain areas and there's oversupply.
[01:15] David Corry: It really comes down to basic economics and supply and demand.
[01:18] David Corry: Right now, there's in some areas, there's just too much supply.
[01:21] David Corry: Our concerns would be, look, taking in the casualty world a long-term view of the industry.
[01:27] David Corry: This is not a short-term business.
[01:29] David Corry: You really You really don't know in long-tail casualty your results for 5 or 10 years.
[01:33] David Corry: In our opinion, in some areas, pricing your products adequately, this is going to be ultimately a price to pay.
[01:39] David Corry: I think certainly primary casualty is a challenge and claim costs are going up.
[01:44] David Corry: And so if you do come in and on a new basis, I don't think you could rely specifically on the fact of, well, we don't have history.
[01:51] David Corry: You know, we're a new entrant and we don't have the baggage, if you will.
[01:55] David Corry: of prior year development or areas. But again, that can catch up to you pretty quickly.
[02:05] David Corry: You know, we really view it as an efficiency play, number one.
[02:09] David Corry: And whether it's underwriting, it's claims, or other areas of the company, quite frankly, operations, accounting, finance, there's really no area that we can't take advantage of artificial intelligence, superintelligence, or You know, really software to help drive our business results.
[02:24] David Corry: For the underwriting— underwriters specifically, what it's allowing us to do is gather information rapidly and turn that information to the underwriters in a very quick, usable format to make underwriting decisions.
[02:36] David Corry: On the claims side of the business, it's allowing us to triage, pocket, and address claims quicker for the claimants and respond faster to their needs.
[02:49] David Corry: You know, really, it's a combination of— it's not one particular issue that's driving up claim costs.
[02:54] David Corry: Number one is we have a very, in this country, a very aggressive plaintiff bar association.
[03:00] David Corry: And regarding artificial intelligence, they're using artificial intelligence.
[03:04] David Corry: They're gathering information and databases on carriers.
[03:08] David Corry: They profile carriers, they profile jurisdictions, they're even profiling individual adjusters at carriers and the tendencies of those adjusters.
[03:17] David Corry: Number one, that's plaintiff costs. Number two is it's just inflationary costs, medical costs, etc.
[03:22] David Corry: So we see rising costs across all of our claims.
[03:25] David Corry: And again, it goes back to pricing and ensuring that we're pricing our product to address those areas.
[03:35] David Corry: You know, we really believe in attracting new young professionals into our industry.
[03:40] David Corry: We support that 2 ways.
[03:41] David Corry: We support it with our Ascend with Argo program that we assist our broker partners with development of their young professionals, access to us as leadership and underwriters, and welcoming them into the industry and teaching them the carrier side of the business, if you will, for a while.
[03:55] David Corry: Other areas, we bring in trainees.
[03:57] David Corry: So last year we brought in a group of, a class of underwriter trainees straight out of university, and they're all productive in our industry still, carrying a whole load of workload for an underwriter today.
[04:09] David Corry: This year we did the same thing.
[04:11] David Corry: In July, we brought in another class of underwriter trainees, and we're training them up to be promoted next year as underwriters.
[04:18] David Corry: And lastly, what I would say is there's ample opportunity in our industry, and certainly with Argo, to attract mid-career professionals to come into the industry in all aspects of insurance operations, whether it's underwriting, claims, operations, finance, general counsel, etc.
[04:32] David Corry: We think there's— that's an opportunity to bring people into the industry.
