By Rob Fischer
Policy Project Manager, Casualty
The start of the year always feels like turning a new page. The Academy’s Casualty Practice Council (CPC) book includes 2026 strategic priorities providing a framework for the Academy’s development of leading resources for property & casualty (P&C) actuaries in the new year. These priorities are the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in P&C insurance, availability and affordability of insurance, and the changes to the federal government.
It’s no secret, insurance is expensive and prices seem to go up across the board every year. Regulators and consumers increasingly face challenges of P&C insurance availability and affordability caused by a wide range of issues such as tariffs, climate change, extreme events, changes to the market, and cyber risk. The CPC is currently finalizing papers on the commercial liability market, bias in marketing and underwriting practices, and the replacement costs of a home.
The use of AI continues to be a new frontier for all financial services sectors, including P&C insurance. Public policy concerns on the appropriate use of AI continues to be a prime area of ongoing monitoring and action by the Academy. The CPC plans to explore advances in generative (content creation based on a prompt) and agentic (acts as an autonomous agent on the user’s behalf) AI in 2026 through a number of written work products being proposed, and a webinar to occur in the first half of the year.
We are officially in the second year of President Trump’s second administration. Many federal agencies are receiving less funding than they are used to and many federal workers were let go, resigned or retired last year. More changes with potential public policy implications can be expected from the executive branch of the federal government based on the shifting federal, including budgeting, priorities surrounding many programs no longer at prior staffing levels. The CPC is finalizing a paper on the impact of tariffs on auto insurance as well as continuing to monitor Congress and the executive branch as programs like the National Flood Insurance Program require reauthorization.
The public policy landscape ahead for actuaries in 2026 looks to again be challenging and unprecedented. The American Academy of Actuaries and the CPC are excited to get to work and continue to engage with federal and state regulators and legislators as we continue to represent our members’ and the profession’s expertise.
Be sure to keep an eye out for soon-to-be released CPC publications as well as webinars mentioned here. For more information and to volunteer, please contact publicpolicy@actuary.org.