The industry's next chapter: The Heartbeat of General Insurance Report 2025

In partnership with The Bridge International and CXO2, ANZIIF has unveiled the inaugural Heartbeat of General Insurance Report 2025, highlighting both the momentum and the vulnerabilities shaping the industry’s next chapter.

Key findings

• Technology-driven efficiency and digital customer engagement are the top opportunities for insurers in the next three years.
• Economic and regulatory pressures, technology disruption and climate impacts dominate the threat landscape.
• Workforce sentiment is positive, yet mobility is high and almost half of respondents have considered leaving the industry.
• Succession confidence is low across large and mid-size insurers, signalling a systemic talent risk.
• Mutuals, challengers and brokers outperform large insurers on customer and claims experience.
• AI is expected to reshape roles and create moderate workforce change, not wholesale job loss.

Analysis

When ANZIIF set out to measure the “heartbeat” of general insurance in partnership with The Bridge International and CXO2, the team wanted to capture something more nuanced than market commentary.

The partners wanted to understand what senior leaders making decisions that shape strategy, experience and culture were thinking right now.

A total of 129 respondents participated in the 2025 Heartbeat of General Insurance survey, with nearly half drawn from board and executive ranks and a further 30 per cent from senior leadership.

This weighting gives the report credibility on a strategic tone across the general insurance sector.

Moderator Stuart Brown, Partner and Practice Lead for General Insurance at The Bridge International, adds that the focus was intentional.

“We wanted a true leadership pulse,” Brown explains. “When half the respondents are board members or executives, you can see exactly where organisations believe the opportunities and pressures really sit.”

Technology takes centre stage

The overwhelming message from leaders is that technology-led efficiency and digital engagement are now the most powerful levers of competitiveness.

Close to seven in ten respondents nominated technology-driven efficiency as the opportunity they were most excited about, followed by digital and AI-enabled customer engagement.

For Brown, this speaks to an industry at a rare moment of convergence. “The capability is finally catching up with the ambition,” he says. “Insurers have invested heavily in platforms and data; now the expectation is that these investments will deliver faster decisions, lower expenses and better customer experiences.”

Stuart Blake, Co-Founder and Managing Director of The Bridge International, echoes this sense of pivotal timing.

“We’ve come out of a long hard market with profitability tailwinds, but that window doesn’t last forever,” he notes.

“The test now is whether insurers can convert years of technology spend into material improvements in claims, service and affordability.”

Blake’s perspective comes with the weight of lived experience. Over his 35-year career, he has helped frontline communities through some of the region’s most significant catastrophes, from the 1989 Newcastle earthquake to the 2022 floods.

“When you’ve stood knee-deep in floodwater helping people lodge claims, you understand where technology genuinely matters,” he says.

“It’s not about automation for its own sake; it’s about giving customers clarity, speed and confidence when everything else in their world has fallen apart.”

Threats and pressures

While technology presents enormous upside, leaders are equally conscious of the risks shaping the next three years.

The economic and regulatory environment was ranked the industry’s biggest threat, followed closely by technology developments and climate-related catastrophe exposure.

Rising claims inflation and workforce capability pressures rounded out the threat profile.

Brown believes this combination heightens the need for strong execution. “There’s a real tension between affordability pressures and the investment needed to modernise,” he says.

“The insurers who navigate that well will be the ones who keep margins stable while still improving customer outcomes.

Energised but restless

The Heartbeat survey results reveal a workforce that is energised yet restless. Overall, 86 per cent of respondents described their workplace positively.

Mutuals, member-based organisations and specialist niche insurers reported the strongest sentiment.

But underneath that optimism, nearly 40 per cent had looked to change roles in the past year and almost half had explored options outside the industry entirely.

This signals a deeper issue: succession confidence is low. Only 23 per cent of respondents felt strong confidence in their organisation’s talent pipeline, and in large insurers that figure drops to 17 per cent.

Mid-size insurers were even lower at 6 per cent. Blake sees this as an inflection point.

“We’re staring at a retirement cliff while our emerging leaders are being courted by every sector,” he observes. “If we don’t invest in capability and purpose, we risk losing the very people who will carry this industry forward.”

Survey respondents were also clear about what attracts and retains talent: supportive leadership, a strong team environment and alignment of personal and organisational values.

Mutuals, challengers and brokers lead the way

On customer experience, the Heartbeat survey results show a range of customer experience perceptions.

Mutuals, challengers and brokers rated strongly, with more than half of respondents perceiving that those organisation to deliver a customer experience rating above average or outstanding.

Large insurers sat at the bottom of the distribution, with more than half perceiving that these companies deliver "below-industry-average service".

Similarly, perceptions of claims experience were uneven. Thirteen per cent of respondents reported delays, communication gaps or inconsistency, rising to 21 per cent for large insurers.

Sara Elmstrom, CEO of CXO2 and Partner at The Bridge International, believes this can be traced to system complexity. “Smaller players tend to have tighter systems and clearer lines of accountability,” Elmstrom says.

“The larger and more fragmented the organisation, the harder it becomes to maintain reliability across the whole service journey.”

She also highlighted a commonality she sees across industries: “We’re seeing a pattern of “quick fixes” or minimum viable product solutions become permanent," she says.

"Every workaround adds friction for customers and pressure for staff. The challenge is stepping back and rebuilding the service blueprint so everything connects again.”

AI: Evolution not revolution

AI looms large in leaders’ thinking, but the Heartbeat report suggests realistic rather than alarmist expectations. Leaders anticipate significant change in how work is done, particularly in large insurers where around half expect substantial role and organisational change.

Yet projected headcount reductions largely sit in the 0–20 per cent range, signalling refinement rather than replacement.

Elmstrom believes the next phase of the industry's AI adoption will hinge on capability uplift. “We can’t expect people to adopt AI meaningfully without structured training,” she predicts.

“If we want AI to improve customer experience and operational performance, we have to build confidence and literacy across the whole organisation.”

Blake adds a caution grounded in customer reality. “AI will help with speed and accuracy, but it can’t replace empathy,” he says. “This industry earns trust one conversation at a time. The insurers who remember that will have a real advantage.”

Call to act intentionally

The 2025 Heartbeat of General Insurance Report offers a clear picture: the industry knows where it must go, but execution will decide who leads.

Technology is a catalyst, but culture, capability and customer experience remain the differentiators. The next three years will reward insurers who modernise decisively, invest in their people and design customer journeys that match the expectations of a digital marketplace.

As Blake puts it: “We protect families and businesses at their most vulnerable moments. Our job now is to build the systems, skills and cultures that allow us to keep doing that – faster, better and with more confidence.”

The industry’s heartbeat is strong. The challenge is to keep it that way.

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