As we head into 2026, experts at Crawford look to the future and reveal what they believe the top risk trends will be in their respective fields. From cyber, to environmental, to energy, it is clear the industry will need be on its game in the new year. Check out Crawford's preditions below.
An uptick in cyber regulation will drive more activity and associated expenses from panel providers
K Royal - Global Chief Privacy Officer and Deputy General Counsel, Crawford & Company
Agencies regulating cyber breaches and AI will expand their reach in 2026, and laws initially designed to protect national operations and critical infrastructure will trickle down to have an impact on companies with more run-of-the-mill data breaches. As these regulations and enforcement activities increase, we will see an uptick in insureds who are hitting high deductibles and filing cyber claims. This, in turn, will drive a need for even more specialization from the professionals that provide cyber incident support, from panel providers to forensics and cyber investigators to the lawyers that handle data incidents.
The onus will be placed on each of these providers to stay current in their technology and legal expertise, and the expense for that expertise will be passed along to the insureds, further driving up the cost of cyber claims in the coming year.
Canada will see a significantly weakened economy that will create challenging impacts on claims in 2026
Greg Smith - president, Crawford & Company Canada
The pressures of Canada’s weakened economy will be felt acutely across the P&C claims landscape in 2026. With the Bank of Canada reducing interest rates, layoffs spreading across major industries, and continued signals of an economic slowdown, the conditions are ripe for a challenging year ahead.
Economic pressure tends to change claim behavior, often in the form of opportunistic fraud. Detection will require enhanced analytics, stronger investigative rigor, and an emphasis on quality control throughout the claims process. We’re also likely to see social inflation intensify across casualty lines, with financially stressed claimants pursuing larger settlements than they might have in more stable economic conditions.
For commercial insureds, organizations watching every dollar will scrutinize their insurance programs more closely, which often results in more borderline claims being submitted, including losses that fall near the deductible or SIR threshold. Meeting these challenges will require a balance of technical rigor and human understanding. The adjusters who succeed in this environment will be those who balance empathy with disciplined investigation, using on-site observations and strong fact-finding to guide claims toward fair, efficient outcomes.
PFAS: An escalating challenge for the insurance market
Robert Latimer, environmental risk director
Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) or “forever chemicals” are rapidly emerging as one of the most significant global environmental risk exposures confronting the insurance industry. Their persistence in soil and water, combined with mounting evidence of adverse health effects, has already led to multi-billion-dollar settlements in the US and an expanding wave of litigation across multiple sectors, and we would expect this to continue in 2026.
Regulatory momentum is also accelerating globally. In the US, PFAS are now listed as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, while more and more countries are setting drinking water standards for PFAS at parts-per-trillion (ppt) levels.
Against this rapidly shifting backdrop, the scale and cost of remediation are expected to rise sharply. These developments will create increasingly complex challenges for insurers, particularly given the lack of claims data and the potential for long-tail liabilities.
Insurers are responding with tighter underwriting criteria, widespread PFAS exclusions, and escalating premiums for environmental liability cover. For corporates, this evolving landscape also underscores the importance of early risk identification, robust due diligence on historical land use, and proactive engagement with brokers and technical experts.
With limited historical claims data and rapidly evolving regulations, PFAS represents a growing, systemic risk.
The new risk reality for renewable energy
Alan Tucker, global head of renewable energy
In 2026, the renewable energy sector will continue to face an evolving risk and insurance landscape as operational, technological and market pressures converge. Weather-related losses continue to rise, with hail the most damaging peril, particularly for solar facilities. Many assets are still adapting to evolving climate patterns, with design standards continuing to catch up.
The rapid expansion of mega-projects, such as large multi-tech generation / storage facilities and hyperscale data centres, is also amplifying the scale and complexity of losses. Incidents now often span multiple regions or assets, driving severity even higher. Replacement costs are escalating as well, with long lead times for components. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) help fill supply gaps, but reliance on unfamiliar equipment, spares and technicians increases risk.
Contractor error will remain a major claims driver. Fast-evolving technology and surging global demand have outpaced growth in the specialist labour needed to install and maintain renewable systems. A softer insurance market, with broader extensions and lower deductibles, will lead to increased claim frequency.
Compounding these issues, markets are being approached to insure new technologies with limited operating data under covers such as LEG2. Further, as digitalisation increases across renewable infrastructure, cyber exposures are also accelerating, creating a more complex risk environment for owners and developers.
2026 will test the industry’s agility in preparing for what can’t yet be predicted
Jeff Davis, vice president, GTS Operations, Crawford Global Technical Services
As natural catastrophe activity grows increasingly erratic, 2026 is poised to challenge insurers not only through the scale of events themselves, but through the uneven flow of claims that arise in their aftermath. Despite ongoing progress in modeling and predictive analytics, storm patterns continue to defy expectations, making it difficult to anticipate the precise location, timing, and intensity of losses. This growing volatility will introduce new challenges for both carriers and their partners as they prepare for post-event response.
To stay agile, organizations will need to refine their surge-readiness and staffing strategies, so that they can rapidly adjust resources to match the scope and distribution of each event as it unfolds. This dynamic will also underscore the importance of strong, trust-based relationships between carriers and independent adjusting firms, ensuring that when demands surge, deployment can be achieved through partnership rather than pressure.
Data-driven transparency into adjuster performance will become table stakes for TPAs
Rob Evans, director, Claim Process Technology, Broadspire
Across the insurance landscape, data analytics have become a core expectation as stakeholders look to these tools not just to organize information, but to shed light on performance, efficiency, and outcomes. In the coming year, clients will place increasing pressure on their TPA partners to deliver meaningful, analytics-backed insight into adjuster performance, revealing both areas of excellence and those in need of support.
With experienced adjusters retiring in greater numbers, new talent entering the workforce, and policyholder expectations climbing, the ability to visualize performance trends and caseload balance will become a vital differentiator. Beyond tracking metrics, this intelligence will help organizations pinpoint where workloads may need redistribution and provide objective context when complaints or anomalies arise. Ultimately, this level of analytics-driven transparency will give clients confidence that financial decisions are made on accurate, undeniable data.