By Katie Dzurec
Director, State Public Policy Outreach
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) wrapped up 2025 with its Fall National Meeting in Hollywood, Fla., from Dec. 7 to 13, and finished the year focused on the same topics as when we started the year—with a few answers and even more questions.
The meeting kicked off with a work session on one of the hottest public policy and professionalism topics of the day—artificial intelligence (AI) governance. The Big Data and AI (H) Working Group (Working Group) walked line-by-line through comments received on its most recent AI Evaluation Tool exposure, making edits and discussing potential changes.
While there were no definitive decisions made, we can expect an updated version of the tool to be exposed in early 2026. The regulators also committed to industry that they will pilot the tool in upcoming financial and market conduct examinations in the new year in an effort to understand what can be collected, how the information can be used, and how onerous the reporting may prove for companies and for regulatory staff. The Academy will continue to monitor the Working Group’s actions, including any initial output from the pilot, as well as continue to offer a broad actuarial perspective on the potential opportunities and challenges as the project evolves.
The other priority cross-practice issue for the Academy was the adoption of guiding principles for the RBC framework by the Risk-Based Capital (RBC) Model Governance (EX) Task Force (Task Force). After discussion and review of the public comments, the Task Force adopted the proposed principles that will be housed in a new section E of the RBC Preamble.
However, the work doesn’t end here for the Academy’s Cross-Practice RBC Task Force. In 2026, the Academy will continue to engage with the NAIC’s Task Force members and staff, along with representatives from Bridgeway Analytics on a forthcoming gap analysis, along with the education and public messaging campaign outlined in the RBC Task Force’s goals and charges.
Of course, not everything at the meeting was a high-profile NAIC initiative. In addition to updates on title insurance research from Academy Research Director Steve Jackson, Academy volunteers and staff provided policy updates from the health, life, and casualty practice councils, as well as professionalism updates from the Committee on Qualifications, the Actuarial Standards Board, and the Actuarial Board for Counseling and Discipline.
Chief among all of the updates we provided at this meeting was the introduction of the Academy’s webpage for reporting potentially disruptive events. This new tool allows anyone to submit information about an event that may cause current actuarial models to no longer be effective. A disruptive event can be any significant developments that are not covered by routine measures. These could be major emergencies, natural disasters, a far-reaching cyber attack, or a cure for chronic disease.
By submitting such events and raising the risk awareness flag, the Academy can then triage the information received to update existing resources or quickly release new resources to assist actuaries and policymakers in a rapidly changing space. Highlighting this new webpage for the regulators, along with the other NAIC meeting attendees in the room and online, helped to spread awareness of the Academy’s prioritization and underscored our engagement to support the profession and evaluate the public policy implications of such events.
During his opening session welcome, North Dakota Insurance Commissioner and 2026 NAIC President Jon Godfread highlighted the rapid pace of change, noting that the work of insurance regulators is rising in urgency, visibility, and impact. Two points of note from the keynote speech were the importance of the work the NAIC has done to strengthen oversight of the insurance and financial services markets, as well as the importance of addressing affordability, especially when it comes to health insurance.
Because of their ongoing engagement throughout 2025 on principle-based reserving (PBR), the new Generator of Economic Scenarios, and Actuarial Guideline 55, many Life Practice Council volunteers will recognize and be able to identify their role in the efforts described as measures that “materially strengthen solvency oversight across the life sector: modern, sophisticated, and responsive to emerging trends.” Meanwhile, our Health Practice Council members will recognize a message that has been particularly salient in their work this year: “If we want affordability, we must ask the real questions.”
Indeed, across the Academy, we will continue to ask the real questions as we head into 2026: how do we help address access and affordability? What is the impact of climate risk, and what will the fast pace of AI mean for our work both within our areas of practice and across them? If these issues sound familiar, you’re right – as they reflect some of the top policy priorities for the Academy (for more information, check out our Policy Forum).
For more details on the NAIC’s Fall National Meeting and some initial discussions on these topics, be sure to check out the post-NAIC recap, featuring insights from Academy staff who attended and followed the meeting, watch the post-NAIC briefing video.