2026 Predictions
Authored by John Bowers, Actuarial Product Director, RNA Analytics
The actuarial profession stands at an inflection point
The past year has been a truly fascinating one for insurance actuarial professionals. Actuaries around the world have spent much of 2025 navigating complex and evolving regulatory frameworks, integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning into traditional work, developing climate risk expertise, and managing the gap between technical actuarial skills and the need for strategic business advisory capabilities.
While much of this will continue throughout 2026, it will do so with distinct nuances, as challenges, standards and practices evolve across the world’s regions. Technology will be both part of the challenge and the solution as we move into a new year.
Greater focus on sustainability
Sustainability has been in increasing focus for risk professionals and insurers globally for the past few years, and we see this continuing throughout 2026.
The latest thematic review from the UK’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) shows that an overwhelming 80% have seen actuarial involvement in climate and sustainability work increase in recent years. IFoA says actuaries are progressively providing advice on stress and scenario testing, strategic asset allocation, sustainability frameworks, and physical and transition risk modelling across insurance, pensions and investments. This is a trend that we see continuing throughout 2026, as regulatory imperatives, including ESG frameworks and mandatory disclosures, and Europe's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, continue to drive sustainability initiatives.
Indeed, as climate considerations integrate into financial decisions, law firm DAC Beachcroft recently forecast complex cross-border litigation to rise throughout 2026, advising multinational companies to balance compliance carefully and to ensure robust governance, transparent reporting and proactive risk mitigation.
Artificial intelligence
AI has emerged as a transformative force in actuarial practices throughout 2025, and we anticipate its momentum building further in 2026 across the global insurance industry.
Whether deploying AI to automate routine tasks like data processing and reserving, or in predictive modelling for precise risk assessment or pricing, AI can uncover non-linear patterns which traditional statistics miss, boost accuracy in fraud detection and policyholder behaviour forecasts, and help ensure explainability.
2025 offered a glimpse of what’s possible in an AI-powered insurance industry, and the new year is sure to see more innovation in this exciting realm. RNA Analytics’ own AI offering already provides futuristic actuarial tooling with our innovative copilot tool. More than a simple chatbot, the tool interacts directly with our award-winning R3S Software Suite to generate transparent, explainable models on demand, reducing the learning curve and migration costs, while enabling users to focus on the more strategic aspects of modelling.
Technological change
The drive to deploy AI at scale across the insurance industry has already forced many insurers to rethink siloed or otherwise broken infrastructure, with many going back to basics in order to make full use of rich but often disorganised data – and to maximise its full potential. For many, this will involve a rethink of the cloud strategies needed to operate effectively today.
While this important work may temporarily stall some projects in 2026, the result will be stronger infrastructure and better outcomes for carriers and insureds alike. Some of this work has already begun, and we anticipate seeing more of these initiatives in 2026.
Alongside efforts to improve technical infrastructure, regulatory rules are also being redrawn for the safe and ethical use of AI in insurance – and we’ll see a continuance of these efforts as we move through the new year. As highlighted in our own whitepaper Navigating the AI Regulatory Landscape: A Regional Playbook for Insurers, those that invest early in AI with governance embedded – technically, procedurally and culturally – will be best placed to maintain regulatory trust while realising the full commercial potential. It is our view that insurers that treat AI governance as a strategic enabler will be better positioned for the regulations that await beyond the horizon.
Regulation
Insurers are no strangers to regulatory compliance, of course, having spent much of the past few years focused on implementing IFRS 17 and ICS, among other frameworks and standards. As the new year dawns, insurance accounting regimes stand at pivotal junctures. IFRS 17, fully embedded since 2023, now demands flawless execution in annual reports, with jurisdictions like the UK tweaking public sector scopes for greater precision. ICS 2.0 commences phased rollout from 1st January 2026, imposing group-wide solvency scrutiny that will test insurers’ data harmonisation. Meanwhile, Solvency II’s reforms – bedded in post‑2024 – are shifting to digital mandates and proportionality tweaks, forcing insurers to upgrade reporting capabilities and tighten risk management.
Against this backdrop, the demand will be for software platforms that can run management, pricing and regulatory models simultaneously, and in a manner that is both transparent and auditable.
While technology races ahead and regulatory frameworks evolve, the actuarial profession's combination of mathematical discipline, ethical standards and long-term thinking positions it uniquely to guide insurers through a new, and for some carriers, decisive year.