Insurance carriers are entering 2026 with familiar goals: grow profitably, manage volatility, and improve service. They’re also facing a new reality with the pace of change in technology, regulation, and distribution expectations continuing to accelerate. Vertafore has seen these pressures show up repeatedly in carrier conversations about agent experience, compliance modernization, and data-driven decision-making.
We want to help carriers better prepare for the year ahead, and to do that we’re diving into four primary predictions that we believe will shape carrier operations in 2026. We’re focusing on the practical; how carrier teams will change and what success will look like as the year unfolds.
Prediction #1: AI will move from assisting to orchestrating carrier operations
In 2025, many carrier AI efforts concentrated on discrete productivity wins—summarizing notes, drafting communications, and accelerating basic research. In 2026, we expect a shift toward AI that actively coordinates work across systems and teams. This would include routing tasks, faster and more accurate information gathering, reducing application workflow times, and recommending next best actions in underwriting, claims, and policy servicing; core functions that help carriers grow and thrive. This aligns with industry sentiment which points toward AI’s growing role in operational change, rather than simple automation.
What does this mean for carriers?
- Workflow-level AI becomes the real ROI. Instead of isolated copilots, carriers will prioritize more comprehensive use cases that reduce handoffs and rework.
- Transparency becomes non-negotiable. As AI becomes more influential in decision-making, carriers will need stronger governance, clarity into inputs, and defensible reasoning to justify its actions.
- Humans still in the loop. Carriers that build AI to enhance expertise and consistency, not replace judgment, will come out ahead of their competitors.
In short, 2026 will see the market move on from asking “Where can we use AI?” and instead ask “Which workflows should AI take over and how can we govern it?”
Prediction #2: Actionable data will become a primary lever for growth and distribution strength
Carriers have long known that data is valuable. In 2026, the differentiator will be how quickly carriers can turn data into coordinated action across internal teams and distribution channels.
Vertafore’s data and insights enable insurance carriers to surface new opportunities and support proactive strategies. We expect carriers to push data analysis further in 2026, yielding greater growth and faster market opportunity identification by standardizing operational data so that analytics and AI outputs are reliable and actionable.
Data-driven decision-making is becoming the default for carrier organizations and their agency partners. Standardized, high-quality data and subsequent analysis is no longer a back-office concern—it’s a critical foundation for scalable growth and stronger distribution performance.
Prediction #3: Compliance modernization with intelligent monitoring and AI-specific regulation
Regulatory work is already complex and resource-intensive for carriers, and the industry’s direction is clear: more proactive, transparent compliance operations supported by technology. At Vertafore, we’ve been highlighting AI’s emerging role in making compliance more manageable while also raising the bar for transparency and risk reduction.
In 2026, we expect two distinct shifts:
- From reactive to continuous. Carriers will move away from periodic, manual check-ins and toward continuous compliance monitoring to detect changes, flag impacts, and help route updates to the right teams.
- From AI usage to AI accountability. As AI expands in underwriting and claims, carriers will formalize governance, including documentation, performance monitoring, and clear ownership of outcomes.
The carriers that offload their AI policy strictly to their IT departments will struggle, while those that embed it into their operations and adhere to their policies across teams will endure less headaches and challenges along the way.
Prediction #4: Agent experience will become an operational KPI, not a marketing promise
Carrier leaders increasingly recognize that agent experience is shaped by what happens inside their operations. Responsiveness, consistency, clarity of communication, and ease of doing business are evaluative factors for agents when assessing carrier partners, and all of those occur inside the carrier.
In 2026, we expect carriers to operationalize agent experience in three ways:
- Workflow redesign. Faster portals help, but the bigger win is reducing internal bottlenecks that delay communication.
- Connected data flows. Reduce delays and duplication between underwriting, claims, and agent-facing operations.
- Exception handling. As the standard path becomes more automated, the carriers that respond to and resolve more complex situations will quickly stand out.
- Simpler experiences. With workforce change and talent pressure still in play across the industry, carriers will invest in knowledge base technology that reduce institutional knowledge dependencies and accelerate onboarding.
What can insurance leaders do now?
If 2026 is the year AI orchestrates work, data becomes more connected, compliance becomes smarter, and agent experience becomes measurable, the best preparation is straightforward:
- Evaluate your workflows and identify where AI can expand or refine operations, while maintaining human oversight.
- Invest in comprehensive data analytics solutions that turn raw data into actionable insights so you can act quickly and confidently.
- Modernize compliance regulation through tactical AI integration while expanding existing internal standards to heighten transparency, accuracy, and accountability across teams.
- Look beyond the rudimentary agent needs and aim to streamline communications and reduce time-to-resolution for agency partners.
This year, like the last, will be full of exciting changes and new technologies, but carriers who are well-informed and act proactively will be able to respond swiftly and confidently to changing market trends and conditions.
As a leader in the insurance technology industry, Vertafore helps carriers power their possible through comprehensive, integrated solutions in carrier data, connectivity, and agent experience. Our solutions are crafted to the needs of the modern carrier, with key features focused on efficiency, accuracy, and collaboration across teams and partners. Discover a host of technologies geared toward acceleration, not stagnation.