The latest edition of Aon’s quarterly report highlights strong insurer profitability and supportive reinsurance renewals as key drivers behind current market competitiveness, enabling many organizations to secure increased limits, broader coverage and improve program structures. At the same time, outcomes are becoming more differentiated than ever, with pricing, capacity and terms increasingly shaped by risk quality, geography, industry exposure and resilience planning.
“Rising geopolitical volatility is exposing how quickly assumptions around coverage, capacity and balance-sheet protection can break down,” said Joe Peiser, CEO of Risk Capital for Aon. “Conflicts, supply-chain disruption and sanctions exposure are testing policy language, capacity and claims assumptions simultaneously. Organizations that stress-test their programs now will have far more options than those forced to react later.”
Middle East conflict reshaping underwriting and claims in real time
Escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East are weighing on underwriting appetite, capacity deployment, and pricing, and driving claims activity across multiple lines, including marine, aviation, property, cyber, political violence and trade credit. Disruption to key trade routes such as the Strait of Hormuz, has intensified supply-chain risk, driven energy pricing volatility and triggered both active claims and precautionary notifications.
Marine risks have been particularly sensitive to these developments, with insurers reassessing how war exposures are underwritten and priced.
“Heightened geopolitical tensions involving the U.S. and Iran have increased risk across key shipping routes and prompted adjustments by marine war insurers,” said Phil Smaje, Global Industry Specialty Leader, Transportation & Logistics. “In some cases, this has raised questions for clients around continuity of cover and pricing. Despite this, broader marine market conditions remain soft, with ample capacity and continued support from the London Market.
More broadly, insurers are reassessing pricing, tightening policy language and recalibrating capacity at speed, often ahead of observable operational and financial impacts. Aon notes that this has reinforced the importance of proactive risk mapping, coverage stress-testing, contract review and early engagement with insurers before conditions shift further.
Legal, regulatory and claims pressures remain elevated
Beyond geopolitical volatility, the report underscores sustained pressure from litigation and claims inflation, particularly in the United States. While there are early indications of tort reform in some jurisdictions, nuclear verdicts, rising defense costs and social inflation continue to strain casualty and liability programs globally. Claims performance is also increasingly becoming a clear differentiator for buyers. Organizations are increasingly focused on insurer capability, responsiveness and expertise alongside price and coverage.
Taken together, Aon’s study finds that early 2026 represents a finite window, with opportunities for organizations willing to move beyond transactional renewals and use the current market window to strengthen resilience, optimize risk transfer structures and prepare for mounting geopolitical uncertainty.
Aon 2026 Global Insurance Market Insights report
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