Cyber rates keep falling while ransomware sets fresh records
In Force Weekly: Travelers logged the second worst ransomware quarter on record as carriers compete prices downward
This Week’s Strategic Signals for P&C Carrier and Insurtech Executives
Overall: Bloomberg Intelligence projects extreme weather will drive more than $20 trillion in global spending over the next decade.
Personal Lines: A Washington Post investigation surfaced a $621,000 wildfire deductible as California approved a 29 percent FAIR Plan increase.
Commercial Lines: Commercial premiums fell 1.2 percent last quarter, ending a 33 quarter streak and the first decline since 2017.
Cyber Insurance: Travelers logged the second worst ransomware quarter on record, with VPNs behind more than 85 percent of claims.
Some sections also include ‘other signals on our radar.’ Write back and let us know if you’d like to see more details on any of those.
In Force is a weekly intelligence brief for P&C Insurance executives, delivering high-impact developments shaping the P&C space: what happened, why it matters, and what to do about it. It is designed for carrier and insurtech strategy, product management, marketing, sales, broker/agent relations, and innovation teams. Each issue distills complex shifts into decision-grade insight.
In Force is weekly, other Paid subscriber benefits include monthly deep-dives, quarterly trackers, and Premier Plan subscribers have Analyst Access.
1. Overall
Bloomberg Intelligence Puts the Coming Decade of Climate Spending Above $20 Trillion
What Happened
On June 2, 2026, Bloomberg Intelligence published The Climate Economy 2026 Outlook, by analysts Andrew John Stevenson and Eric Kane, projecting that extreme weather will drive more than $20 trillion in global spending over the next decade, a figure that could reach $24 trillion between 2026 and 2035 if historical trends hold. Climate related costs reached $1.4 trillion in 2025, about 1.2 percent of global GDP, with spending rising from $2.4 trillion across 1996 to 2005 to $12.2 trillion across 2016 to 2025. A basket of 275 adaptation and mitigation companies beat the broader market by almost 32 percentage points in the year through April 19, 2026. The report names reinsurers, energy efficiency, and climate security firms as primary beneficiaries.
Why It Matters
For P&C insurers this is a tailwind and a stress at once: the spend trajectory is a structural premium driver, while physical risk to insured assets is escalating faster than pricing can adjust. The framing that reinsurers benefit supports capacity discussions but invites continued catastrophe load scrutiny on cedants. For product teams, a $20 trillion spend path is an addressable market for parametric triggers, resilience linked pricing, and infrastructure cover, set against the protection gap we sized last week.
Implications
The reframing of climate cost as a wealth transfer toward resilience and reinsurance may shift how strategy teams justify catastrophe exposure to boards, since the same physical risk that threatens the book is now also the growth thesis investors reward.
Product and innovation leaders may find the spend concentrates in adaptation and hardening rather than indemnity coverage, which favors carriers positioned to underwrite prevention linked products over those holding only traditional catastrophe exposure.
For reinsurance buyers, a public narrative casting reinsurers as structural beneficiaries may stiffen ceding terms at renewal, since cedants now negotiate capacity against an analyst consensus that the counterparty is positioned to win.
The warning that federal disaster support could strain state rainy day funds may place pressure on carriers exposed to municipal and public entity risk, where the fiscal backstop they implicitly assume is itself becoming less certain.
Chief risk officers may face a widening gap between a decade scale spend projection and annual planning cycles, since the trajectory argues for positioning that any single year’s combined ratio discipline cannot accommodate.
For distribution leaders, the data may turn climate exposure into a recurring advisory conversation with commercial and personal clients alike, which pulls more underinsured risk toward carriers just as pricing for that risk remains unsettled.
Other Overall Signals on our Radar:
AM Best Confirms a $16.3 Billion Q1 Underwriting Gain
On June 10, 2026, AM Best released its First Look: Three Month 2026 US Property/Casualty Financial Results, based on statutory statements representing about 97 percent of industry net premiums written. The U.S. property and casualty industry posted a $16.3 billion net underwriting gain in Q1 2026, reversing a $1.0 billion loss a year earlier, with the combined ratio improving seven points to 92.0 as catastrophe losses fell to 4.2 points from 14.5. Net income rose 107.7 percent to $41.8 billion. Excluding $10.9 billion of favorable reserve development, the accident year combined ratio was 96.6. The result confirms the strong first quarter we covered on June 1 from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
We regularly publish insights that go beyond reporting to help P&C insurance leaders make informed decisions as expectations, risks, and market dynamics continue to evolve.
2. Personal Lines (Home, Auto, etc.)
A $621,000 Wildfire Deductible Surfaces as California’s FAIR Plan Wins a 29 Percent Increase
What Happened
On June 5, 2026, a Washington Post investigation found that some California homeowners hold surplus lines policies with separate wildfire deductibles far larger than their standard deductibles. Los Angeles attorney Shant Karnikian flagged an AIG policy carrying a $100,000 standard deductible alongside a $621,000 wildfire deductible, and the Post identified one policy with a wildfire deductible set at 50 percent of the dwelling limit. Because the deductibles sit in non admitted policies and California law requires fire losses to be covered, Deputy Commissioner Michael Soller said Commissioner Ricardo Lara will review them. Separately, the Department of Insurance approved a 29.1 percent average increase for the FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, effective for renewals on or after October 15, 2026, after the plan had sought 35.8 percent.
Why It Matters
The wildfire deductible question is both a coverage design choice and a regulatory flashpoint, because a percentage based deductible can leave a policyholder effectively uncovered for the loss they are most likely to face. For carriers, the exposure runs to policy language clarity in California and every wildfire exposed state before regulators force the issue. The FAIR Plan increase, which falls unevenly with the steepest rises on the highest risk homes, deepens the affordability pressure the state’s reform efforts have been chasing.
Implications
The scrutiny of wildfire deductibles may expose product and underwriting teams to retroactive challenge, since a deductible structure that was lawful in the surplus market could be reread against the admitted market’s fire coverage standard once regulators engage.
General counsels may carry new exposure from the gap between what a policy discloses and what a homeowner understands, because a percentage deductible buried in a non admitted policy invites the same bad faith and consumer protection theories that smoke claim disputes already opened.
For the FAIR Plan’s member carriers, the approved increase may ease the assessment risk that the plan’s growth has placed on their balance sheets, but only if the higher rate actually pushes marginal risk back toward the voluntary market rather than deeper into the residual pool.
Distribution leaders placing high value California homeowners risk may find the wrap around model harder to sell once buyers grasp that a large wildfire deductible can sit inside the surplus layer they were steered into.
The episode may shift how regulators in other wildfire exposed states treat non admitted policy language, narrowing the freedom that has made the surplus market the pressure valve for risks the admitted market will not write.
For strategy leaders, the FAIR Plan’s exposure concentration means a single severe season could convert a residual market problem into a direct assessment against every admitted carrier in the state, a contingent liability that sits outside the voluntary book entirely.
Other Personal Lines Signals on our Radar:
Michigan Bill Would Codify a Price Optimization Ban
Michigan State Senator Jeremy Moss introduced Senate Bill 1013 in early June 2026 to ban price optimization in auto and home insurance, the practice of setting premiums by a policyholder's likelihood to renew rather than by risk. The bill was heard before the Senate Economic and Community Development Committee, where a Department of Insurance and Financial Services official testified that it would codify an existing regulatory bulletin into statute. Moss said roughly 20 states already prohibit the practice. The bill also reinforces that rates may not be excessive, inadequate, or unfairly discriminatory.
Already a ‘Paid’ subscriber?
Upgrade to the ‘Premium’ tier and receive: Private analyst access • Private briefings • Custom Q&A • Priority for special projects
3. Commercial
Commercial Premiums Fall for the First Time Since 2017 as a 33 Quarter Streak Ends
What Happened
The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers (CIAB) reported in its Q1 2026 Commercial Property Casualty Market Index, covering January through March, that average premiums across all account sizes fell 1.2 percent, the first overall decline since the third quarter of 2017 and the end of a 33 quarter run of increases. Commercial property fell the most at 5.5 percent, while workers compensation and cyber also declined. Commercial auto rose 5.8 percent, the highest of any line and its 59th consecutive quarterly increase. Large accounts fell 2.7 percent, medium accounts 1.9 percent, and small accounts rose 1.1 percent. Brokers cited wider carrier appetite and more flexible terms.
Why It Matters
This is the broker sourced confirmation that the soft market we described on June 1 is now general rather than line specific. The property and casualty split is fully entrenched: aggressive softening in property against a commercial auto line that has not stopped hardening in fifteen years. The Q1 surplus and profit data explain the shift, since well capitalized carriers can afford to compete, and the risk is that underwriting discipline erodes faster than loss trends actually improve.
Implications
The first all account decline in nearly nine years may compress the commission base brokers built during the hard market, pushing distribution leaders toward contingent and underwriting linked income rather than placement volume to hold revenue.
For commercial property underwriters, a 5.5 percent decline arriving while catastrophe exposure keeps rising may invite the same underpricing that preceded the last hard market, with the discipline test landing hardest on carriers competing for share.
The persistence of commercial auto increases against a softening book may concentrate strain on fleet heavy and transportation accounts, where pricing relief is nowhere in sight even as the rest of a buyer’s program improves.
Pricing actuaries may face pressure to feed favorable reserve development into competitive rates, a move that looks rational quarter to quarter but thins the cushion against the casualty deterioration running beneath the surface.
For multiline carriers, treating property and casualty as one cycle may misprice both at once, since the softening that wins property share and the hardening that protects casualty margin now demand opposite postures within the same renewal.
The buyer’s market may shift negotiating leverage toward large accounts and their brokers, whose 2.7 percent decline gives them room to extract broader terms that carriers grant in competition and struggle to claw back when the cycle turns.
Other Commercial Signals on our Radar:
MGA M&A Sharpens Around Platform Value
PropertyCasualty360 continued through June 2026 to feature managing general agent (MGA) mergers and acquisitions as a high stakes theme, with market coverage shifting from premium scale toward platform capability, data assets, and integration readiness. The framing points to deals such as Travelers' acquisition of the cyber MGA Corvus, after Travelers acquired the unit in early 2024, as examples of buyers paying for proprietary underwriting technology rather than distribution volume alone. The Intelligence Council examined Acrisure's vertically integrated MGA model on June 3, 2026.
4. Cyber
Travelers Reports the Second Worst Ransomware Quarter on Record as VPNs and AI Drive Entry
What Happened
In its Q1 2026 Cyber Threat Report, covered by PropertyCasualty360 on June 11, 2026, Travelers reported through its Corvus unit that more than 2,400 organizations were posted to ransomware leak sites in the quarter, the second highest total on record and just below Q4 2025. A record 84 active groups operated in the quarter, 19 of them appearing for the first time, after ransomware victims grew 50 percent across 2025. Travelers said more than 85 percent of its cyber claims from August through December 2025 began with a virtual private network (VPN) as the entry point, and flagged AI generated phishing and voice impersonation as now operational. More than half of the ransom payments it processes exceed $200,000.
Why It Matters
For cyber underwriters, the persistence of elevated activity across 84 groups means no single law enforcement takedown changes the baseline, so the quarter is better modeled as the operating environment than as a spike. The VPN entry data is concrete enough to move from underwriting recommendation to binding condition, with attestations and multifactor enforcement priced in. The harder problem is the collision with falling cyber rates, which sets accelerating frequency against softening price.
Implications
The shift to a structurally elevated attack baseline may force reserving teams to abandon the assumption that ransomware frequency mean reverts, since a fragmented field of 84 groups regenerates faster than any enforcement action can suppress it.
The concentration of claims entering through VPNs may let underwriters turn a single control into a binding requirement, which advantages carriers with the threat data to defend the condition and disadvantages those still treating it as guidance.
For product teams, AI enabled phishing and voice impersonation may erode the social engineering sublimits and warranties policies rely on, since controls built around human recognition of fraud weaken as the fraud becomes machine generated.
Claims executives may face longer and costlier responses as exfiltration first attacks raise third party liability and regulatory notification, lengthening the tail on a line whose pricing assumed faster closure.
The divergence between rising frequency and falling rates may expose carriers that grew cyber books aggressively during the soft market, concentrating the eventual correction in the portfolios least cushioned to absorb it.
For reinsurance buyers, a record field of attackers with shared entry points sharpens the accumulation question, since the same VPN or software dependency can trigger many insureds at once in a way per risk pricing does not capture.
Other Cyber Signals on our Radar:
Cyber Rates Keep Softening as a Correction Is Forecast
Marsh reported in its Q1 2026 Global Insurance Market Index, released April 22, 2026, that cyber insurance rates fell 5 percent globally, following a 7 percent decline the prior quarter, with the United States down just 2 percent and the India, Middle East, and Africa region down 14 percent. The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers recorded a 3.5 percent cyber decline for the quarter. S&P Global Ratings has forecast cyber premium increases of 15 to 20 percent across 2026, while Lockton reported an average reduction of 11 percent across its cyber book and warned of renewed price volatility in 2027.
Our analysis is designed for strategy, product, and executive leaders in carriers, reinsurers, and insurance platforms navigating commercial lines disruption.
Upgrade below to provide full access for your entire team.
For larger groups or enterprise-wide licenses:
About The Intelligence Council
The Intelligence Council publishes sharp, judgment-forward intelligence for decision-makers in complex industries. We serve founders, operators, strategists, and investors who need clarity. Our weekly briefs, deep dives, and sentiment indexes are built to help you make money, manage risk, and outthink competitors. No puff pieces. No b.s. Just the clearest signal in a noisy, complex world.
Our content for P&C Insurance spans the overall space, personal lines, commercial, and cyber. From market sensing to go-to-market clarity, we deliver the strategic signals leaders need to move first and act confidently.