While 2025 ended as a broadly supportive year for insurance buyers, market conditions are becoming increasingly diverse across product lines and geographies according to a new report from global professional services firm Aon.

The firm’s Q4 2025 Global Insurance Market Insights report highlights the growing importance of tailored insight and analytics-led decision making as organisations plan for 2026.

“While market conditions across many key insurance lines remain soft, the latest GIMI shows the global market entering 2026 with notable variations across lines and regions,” Aon said.

“This creates a time‑limited window for organisations to strengthen programmes before emerging pressures may begin to influence outcomes.”

According to GIMI, 2025 remained favourable for buyers, with reduced pricing, expanded limits and broader terms across key lines, including property, cyber and directors and officers.

“Property conditions stayed soft, supported by strong insurer investment returns, solid underwriting results and reduced major loss activity,” Aon said.

Price decreases moderated in long-softening lines — particularly directors & officers and cyber — as insurers respond to rising claims activity, poor loss development and increasing risk complexity.

Casualty pressures intensified as nuclear verdicts and litigation funding drove higher loss costs for American-exposed risks, alongside capacity constraints in umbrella and excess liability.

Aon said claims capabilities were emerging as a critical differentiator, with organisations placing greater emphasis on transparency, digital tools, service quality and overall claims excellence.

Systemic risk pressures, including social inflation, geopolitical volatility and unpredictable secondary perils, are reshaping underwriting and influencing risk selection, limit deployment and portfolio management.

Joe Peiser, chief executive of commercial risk for Aon, said market conditions continued to vary across products and geographies, reinforcing that a single, market‑wide narrative no longer captured the full picture.

“This quarter’s GIMI reinforces the need for nuanced, data-driven conversations to help organisations secure the strongest outcomes as we head into 2026,” Mr Peiser said.

Mona Barnes, chief claims officer, commercial risk for Aon, said one of the most important themes emerging from the Q4 GIMI was the growing influence of claims performance on insurer selection.

“Organisations are placing greater value on ease of getting claims paid, decision‑making speed and the data capabilities that enhance efficiency,” she said.

“As expectations rise, Aon is helping clients assess performance, understand differences across the market and make decisions that strengthen programme resilience.”