Articles

Do you feel more stressed today than last year? More than half of U.S. business leaders, some 60%, report feeling "more stressed" than they were last year. Even so, 54% of those business leaders expect their business to survive and, better yet, thrive in 2026. That's according to mutual insurer Sentry's 2026 C-Suite Stress Index survey. Sentry's survey of 1,250 business leaders revealed a signific...

Power outages in the U.S. are rising at an astronomical rate. And the surge is not just affecting homes and communities but also businesses--disrupting operations; damaging equipment and inventory; and costing billions in lost revenue, productivity, and wages each year. In fact, according to a report from non-profit research group Climate Central spanning 20 years, the U.S. endured 74% more weathe...

I recently had the opportunity to attend the CLM annual conference, hosted by the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance, and one of the sessions that I was interested in was about the hiring gap that the insurance world is deep in the middle of right now. Anyone who is still talking about Millennials is way behind because that generation is firmly in place. We need to be talking about how we g...

Insurance brokers often can get caught in between when the interests of policyholders and insurance companies diverge. In the obvious case of a claim denial, brokers should take care to protect themselves as well as their policyholder clients. But potential broker liability can arise much earlier in the insurance procurement or claims processes, and brokers must be aware of these potentially thorn...

In my September 2025 column, I wrote about certificates of insurance as a prequel to an October Academy of Insurance webinar I did on certificates, with a little bit about additional insured (AI) issues involving certificates. On April 2, 2026, I'll be doing a follow-up and more detailed webinar on AI issues for the Academy titled "The Additional Insured Illusion (and Other Feats of Contractual Ri...

From the rising costs of food and beverage products and the ongoing challenges in the hospitality labor market, restaurants and bars throughout the U.S. must overcome substantial challenges to keep serving their customers. Also, establishments that rely upon liquor sales must contend with the fact people are drinking less. Consumer demand remains solid, but customers' spending power is restrained....

With climate-related disasters rising in the past decade, business interruption claims have surged, said Ross Sinclair, founder and CEO at UK-based EIP, an embedded insurance program provider. Sinclair believes parametric insurance coverage can play a key role in helping small businesses recover faster than relying solely on traditional insurance. Parametric products aren't new, but they are still...

Cyberattacks are no longer designed solely to cause immediate business disruption. Instead, they are increasingly engineered to inflict sustained financial, regulatory, and reputational damage that lingers well beyond the initial incident, according to a new portfolio study from Resilience, a cyber risk solutions company. In its 2025 Cyber Risk Report, Resilience said the cyber threat landscape ha...

Small businesses are not always the owners of the building where they operate. That can limit what can be done to prepare for a natural disaster, but every business should be prepared regardless. "Small business owners may be tenants of the building, so there is lessor's risk, and with lessor's risk, there's often limitations about what can be done with that building," said Ross Haigler, head of c...

I recently wrote a short article for my newsletter and LinkedIn about the ludicrous standard in most states that it is the insured’s duty to read and understand their policies. This is a ridiculous standard for many reasons, including the fact that these policies are written far above an 8th-grade reading level (the standard reading level for ordinary people to reasonably comprehend what they are...

As farmers diversify their operations in the face of volatile markets and unpredictable weather conditions, an agribusiness insurance leader recently told Insurance Journal that he's seen "meaningful growth" in national agritourism insurance demand. From farm stays to pick-your-own-produce destinations, the most recent numbers from the USDA's Census of Agriculture showed that U.S. farms and ranche...

Agency owners must stay informed about significant new trends in the insurance industry. The following is part one of a two-part article highlighting seven industry trends insurance agencies should track for 2026. 2025 M&A Activity & Pricing The field of buyers has shifted while the pace of acquisitions has slowed for a few reasons. In some situations, buyers are strategically slowing down...

Worldwide business leaders face growing risk challenges including increased technology and cyber risks, societal challenges, and deepening geopolitical divides. These risks will continue to shape the business landscape over the next 12 months, say Marsh and Zurich executives in response to a recently released report by the World Economic Forum. Uncertainty is the defining theme of the WEF's Global...

Recently, policyholder attorney Chip Merlin blogged about a vacancy exclusion found in many property insurance policies. His article cited a California Supreme Court decision that overturned a claim denial based on a vacancy exclusion. In TRB Investments, Inc. v. Fireman's Fund Ins. Co., 40 Cal. 4th 19 (Cal. 2006), the California Supreme Court found that an exception in the exclusion for a buildin...

Within the realms of general liability (GL) and workers' compensation (WC) insurance lines, medical abuse is often considered in narrow terms — excessive treatment, unnecessary surgeries, inflated bills. While such behaviors are indeed problematic, a wider spectrum of medical abuse exists, deeply impacting claims cost, reserve adequacy, network risk, and insurer liability. This article examines mu...