Different by Design: Rethinking the Insurance Model

GIR 2026 Video Script 00:00:00.080 — 00:05:14.000 · Mark Erickson “Hello, I'm Mark Ericsson, Global Insurance Strategist at BlackRock. I'm pleased to introduce the 15th edition of BlackRock's Global Insurance Report. This year, 463 insurance investment professionals participated in our survey. They represent 31 countries and oversee more than $24 trillion in insurance assets. The global Insurance report is one of the industry's longest running surveys. That gives us a valuable perspective on how insurer priorities have changed over time. In this year, we broaden the lens. We looked beyond asset allocation to understand how insurers are thinking about their businesses more broadly. That matters because many of today's most important decisions don't fit neatly into one category. They span assets, liabilities, capital, technology and distribution. Against that backdrop, five themes stood out. The first is a contrast. At a headline level, insurers appear remarkably consistent. But underneath those averages, we see a different story. Strategies are becoming more differentiated. Views vary by company, size, geography, and business model, and those differences are resulting in increasingly distinct portfolio strategies. One reason for that divergence is the liability side of the balance sheet. Different insurance businesses face very different liability challenges, so there isn't one common challenge facing the entire industry. Life insurers are managing one set of pressures. Property and casualty insurers face another. Multi-line, health and reinsurers have still others. And those differences matter. They affect investment strategy, capital requirements and operating priorities. We can see some of that evolution in how insurers are building their portfolios. Private markets are a good example. A decade ago, private markets were primarily an alternative source of yield. Today, they play a much broader role. In 2016, only 16% of insurers planned to increase allocations to illiquid investments. By 2024, more than 90% planned to increase private market allocations. That growth is now becoming more selective. The question is no longer simply whether to invest in private markets. It is where to invest, how to access those investments and how they fit within insurers’ liabilities and capital objectives. And that leads us to a broader change we see across the industry. It isn't just portfolios that are evolving. The way insurers build and access capabilities is changing as well. Historically, insurers often turn to external asset managers for specialist expertise or cost efficiency. Today, those relationships are becoming much broader, and the change extends beyond asset management. Partnerships increasingly span capital, liabilities, technology and distribution. We think of this as a more modular insurance industry. Insurers are deciding what they want to own internally, and where they want to partner externally. The answer is different for every company. Technology is becoming part of that same equation, and nowhere is that more apparent than with artificial intelligence. AI remains the industry's top technology investment priority, but the conversation is changing. For many insurers, the focus is moving from experimentation to implementation. One of the most interesting findings is the perception gap. 73% of C-suite executives report at least one scaled AI use case. That compares with 51% of non C-suite respondents. Across the industry, adoption is most advanced in underwriting, claims and compliance. So the next challenge is implementation. How do insurers embed AI into everyday workflows, and how does it become part of everyday decision making? When we step back, these findings point to a broader evolution of the insurance industry. The industry is becoming more connected, and it is becoming more modular. Decisions about assets, liabilities, capital, technology and distribution can no longer be viewed entirely in isolation. They are becoming part of a broader enterprise strategy. That changes the strategic question. The question is no longer simply whether an insurer can access a particular capability. It is how all of these capabilities fit together, and ultimately, how insurers combine their own strengths with those of external partners. We hope this year's Global Insurance Report provides a useful perspective on that evolution. And once again, we thank everyone who has participated in this year's survey.”