IAIS Global Insurance Market report 2025

The 2025 Global Insurance Market Report (GIMAR) shows an industry that remains financially strong and resilient, even as it navigates some of the most significant structural shifts seen in years.

According to the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), insurers continue to demonstrate solid solvency, strong liquidity and healthy profitability.

Systemic risk across the global insurance sector has also edged down slightly, reinforcing the fact that insurers pose far lower system-wide risk than the banking sector.

Despite this stability, the report makes it clear that new forces are reshaping insurance business models and supervisory priorities.

Private credit growing fast

One of the biggest developments is the rapid rise of private credit in life insurers’ investment portfolios. Although overall exposure is still moderate, the speed of growth has captured the attention of supervisors.

Private credit offers attractive returns and matches well with insurers’ long-term liabilities, but it comes with challenges: valuations are harder to verify, assets are less liquid, and borrowers can be riskier.

GIMAR ties this trend to earlier IAIS work highlighting the broader shift toward alternative assets and complex reinsurance structures, signalling that supervisors will need to deepen their monitoring as these strategies evolve.

Geopolitical tensions deepen

The report also emphasises the impact of geoeconomic fragmentation, a term that captures the growing divergence in trade, monetary policy and geopolitical alignment.

For global insurers, this means increased volatility in currencies and interest rates, more uncertainty in asset valuations and far more complex asset-liability management.

Regulators are responding with stronger scenario analysis and cross-border cooperation to understand how these pressures flow through to insurers’ balance sheets.

AI brings opportunity and risk

Another major theme is the sector’s accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence, particularly in underwriting, pricing and claims management.

Insurers are already seeing meaningful gains in speed, accuracy and operational efficiency. But supervisors remain cautious, noting risks around AI model transparency, cyber vulnerabilities, data bias and potential concentration risk where multiple firms rely on the same third-party AI providers.

The IAIS’s recent guidance on AI governance highlights the need for insurers to ensure responsible, well-controlled AI implementation.

Climate and disaster are significant pressures

Climate-related risk continues to shape supervisory agendas. While insurers’ investment exposures to climate-sensitive assets have been relatively stable, patterns in natural catastrophe risk and reinsurance are shifting.

Both insurers and regulators are increasingly using climate scenario analysis, even though data gaps and methodological challenges persist.

The IAIS has also expanded its work on global protection gaps, recognising that the widening gap between insured and uninsured disaster losses remains a serious concern.

Reinsurers stay strong

Reinsurers, meanwhile, have entered 2025 from a position of strength. After several years of heavy catastrophe losses, underwriting performance stabilised, capital levels stayed strong and premiums continued to grow.

Investment portfolios remain conservatively positioned, helping support overall market resilience.

What's next?

As the IAIS looks ahead to 2026 and beyond, it plans to expand its monitoring of alternative assets, deepen systemic-risk analysis and strengthen climate-risk and natural catastrophe assessments.

These efforts reflect a global supervisory community preparing for an industry that remains stable but faces rapid structural change.

In short: what GIMAR 2025 says about the insurance sector

• The sector remains well-capitalised, profitable and systemically stable.
• Private credit exposures are rising quickly and need closer supervision.
• Geopolitical and economic fragmentation is complicating asset-liability management.
• AI is delivering benefits but requires stronger governance and oversight.
• Climate and catastrophe risks continue to demand improved data and scenario analysis.
• Reinsurance markets remain strong, supporting global resilience.

Is your organisation is planning for 2025 and beyond? The full GIMAR report is essential reading with a complete analysis, risk assessments and supervisory insights.

Download the full report