The insurance industry is facing massive disruption – which is creating new opportunities for adjusting firms. The TPAs and IAs that are ready to respond to new catastrophic loss trends, economic pressures, labor shifts, and technological innovation will come out ahead.
How New Catastrophic Loss Trends Create Opportunities
Natural disaster losses have been mounting. Recent events (including the flooding in North Carolina caused by Hurricane Helene in 2024 and the Los Angeles area wildfires in 2025) have devastated entire communities.
Such events are tragic, but claims professionals are in a good position to help. If they deliver an efficient claims process, they’ll help the victims get their lives back on track as quickly as possible while also controlling administrative costs and protecting their reputations.
According to NOAA, there were 27 confirmed weather and climate disasters with losses of at least $1 billion each in 2024. This is one fewer than the record 28 disasters in 2023, but it’s also much higher than the CPI-adjusted annual average of 9.0 events between 1980 and 2024. As catastrophic storms and fires continue to hammer the U.S., claims professionals have an opportunity to do better – and those that do will be in an outstanding position to grow their businesses.
How Economic Pressures Create Opportunities
Property and casualty insurers have been struggling with underwriting performance due to the rise in severe claims and economic inflation.
According to Swiss Re Institute, though, things are looking up for insurers. In the first quarter of 2024, property and casualty insurers reported the best underwriting results in more than 15 years: a combined ratio of 94%. Higher investment yields are also helping insurers strengthen their financial positions.
Nevertheless, challenges remain. Rising losses (particularly from natural disasters) are an ongoing threat. Plus, policyholders are fed up with rising premiums, which is causing many to leave. In fact, the J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Insurance Shopping Study found that half of all auto insurance customers were looking for new policies.
As insurers work to solidify their financial bases and prevent policyholder churn, claims professionals have an opportunity: if they help insurers control claims costs and retain more customers with efficient claims processes, they will win more business.
How Labor Shifts Create Opportunities
With Boomers and some Gen Xers retiring, the insurance industry is losing its most experienced workers. Many companies are having a tough time finding new workers to fill the void. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the insurance industry is expected to lose approximately 400,000 workers by 2026.
Insurers that cannot maintain an experienced workforce may struggle to handle the workload, which could result in delays and poor customer service. Claims businesses that leverage technology to navigate the labor market disruption without seeing an impact on their services and timelines will come out ahead.
How Technological Innovation Creates Opportunities
Technology is moving quickly, which is causing significant disruption. The race is on, but the winners won’t necessarily be the companies that adopt the greatest amount of technology in the shortest amount of time. Instead, the winners will be those that succeed in adopting the right technologies to solve pressing problems and make improvements that matter.
Technology can help with many of the challenges caused by other types of disruption. For example, technology can reduce workloads to ease the insurance talent crisis. It can also reduce administrative costs to help firms improve their bottom lines. Plus, technology can improve claims handling to provide faster resolutions and better claimant experiences, which is especially important in the aftermath of natural disasters.
The IAs and TPAs that implement technology to help insurers solve these challenges will emerge from this disruption as market leaders.
How VCA Can Help
VCA’s claims management software gives claims businesses the tools they need to thrive amid disruption. Free up time by automating reporting and other administrative tasks, handle claims in the field with the mobile app, support better claimant experiences with convenient communication options, and leverage data and analytics for insights – all with software that’s fast to implement and easy to learn to use. Request a demo.
