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Global insurers’ 2025 gains look cyclical, Bain warns
Bain projects global premiums will hit an estimated $7.1 trillion in 2025, up from $6.7 trillion in 2024, but says profitability improvements were driven largely by low catastrophe losses rather than durable structural change.
Bain & Company says global insurers posted strong 2025 results, but the industry’s momentum appears largely cyclical and may not reflect structural fixes to underwriting and protection gaps. In Bain’s Global Insurance Report, global premiums are estimated at $7.1 trillion for 2025, up from $6.7 trillion in 2024, and more than double the $3.6 trillion recorded in 2010.
In property and casualty, profitability improved particularly as catastrophe losses were unusually low. In the US, private P&C insurers posted an estimated net underwriting gain of about $63 billion for full-year 2025, with the combined ratio falling to 92.9%, the lowest level in over a decade, according to Verisk and the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
Verisk’s Saurabh Khemka attributed the result to a sharp drop in hurricane-related claims, which fell nearly 90% tied to limited US landfall activity rather than reduced exposure. Elsewhere, Allianz data showed Asia-Pacific P&C premium growth of 4.0% in 2025, below the region’s ten-year average, as underwriting margins narrowed due to rising loss ratios in motor and health markets.
Bain also highlighted that insurance penetration remains low or under pressure, affordability is strained, and investors are focused on whether durable earnings growth can continue after the current cycle. The report notes a protection gap that is widest in Asia-Pacific, where only around one-tenth of natural catastrophe losses are insured, and Swiss Re estimates the region’s mortality protection gap at about $132 billion.