2025 Key Insurance Developments and Outlook for 2026

2025 was an action-packed year for insurers, marked by significant developments and key decisions that impacted the US insurance industry.

In a new Mealey’s report, Hinshaw’s global Insurance Services Co-Chairs, Scott Seaman and Pedro Hernandez, and Chicago associate, Jordan Evans, examine overarching trends and developments in 2025, including: 

• • social inflation (litigation funding, rising costs, and nuclear verdicts),
  • changes in public policy from the Biden Administration to the second Trump Administration (including with respect to ESG and DEI), and
  • artificial intelligence and cybersecurity developments.

Next, they also drill down and look at key decisions and developments in various areas, including:

• • cybersecurity and privacy,
  • PFAS (forever chemicals), health, silica, asbestos, environmental, and weather-related claims,
  • COVID-19 business interruption,
  • drugs, guns, and insurrections,
  • construction defects, and
  • D&O/securities.

The authors identify several interesting decisions and developments in the area of bad faith and extra-contractual liability, and examine the early impact of tort reform in Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana. Finally, they provide some informed predictions for 2026.

The commentary was initially published in Mealey’s Litigation Report: Reinsurance, Vol. 36, #17, January 9, 2026.

A version of this commentary was republished on JD Supra, and was among the most widely-read articles in January on that platform. See, "Popular Reads" (February 5, 2026).