IAIS 2025 GIMAR: Private credit, AI, and geopolitics set the agenda for insurers
The International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) has released its 2025 Global Insurance Market Report (GIMAR). The message is clear: private credit exposure is rising, AI is moving deeper into underwriting and claims, and geopolitical rifts are reshaping risk. Supervisors want governance and risk frameworks strengthened to keep the sector steady.
Across 2024, solvency and liquidity stayed solid, backed by capital buffers and steady investment income. Non-life combined ratios improved; life insurers benefited from supportive markets. Systemic risk indicators edged lower and remain well below banking. The outlook into 2026 is described as stable.
Private credit: yield comes with valuation and liquidity tension
Life insurers are allocating more to private credit for illiquidity premiums. The trade-off is tighter control around valuation, liquidity under stress, and borrower quality. Cross-border asset-intensive reinsurance adds another layer of risk transfer and collateral scrutiny.
- Establish a complete inventory of private assets with look-through to obligors, covenants, and collateral.
- Strengthen valuation governance: model overlays, market-implied cross-checks, and independent challenge.
- Run liquidity drills by vintage, sector, and structure; pre-plan secondary sale playbooks and funding backstops.
- Set concentration limits (sector, rating bucket, sponsor) and early-warning triggers on covenant breaches.
- For asset-intensive reinsurance, assess counterparty quality, collateral terms, recapture mechanics, and jurisdictional risks.
Geoeconomic fragmentation: ALM, sanctions, and cross-border risk
Trade tensions, sanctions, and divergent rates are complicating asset-liability matching and capital planning. Basis risk, FX swings, and ring-fencing can strain hedges and cash mobility-especially for groups with multi-jurisdiction exposure, including travel and specialty lines.
- Map sanctions exposure across portfolios, reinsurers, and vendors; embed automated screening and escalation.
- Tighten ALM under rate dispersion: review hedge effectiveness, FX policy, and collateral calls under stress.
- Run scenarios for capital controls, payment frictions, and market closures; pre-define liquidity bridging options.
- Diversify reinsurance panels by domicile; confirm enforceability and collateral sufficiency under stress.
AI in underwriting and claims: speed with guardrails
AI use is accelerating in pricing, claims triage, and fraud analytics. That brings questions on governance, cyber exposure, vendor dependence, and model bias. A new study cited in the report notes most insurance customers now use generative AI when shopping for travel cover-changing how they compare benefits, premiums, and exclusions.
- Maintain an AI model inventory, risk tiering, and board-approved policy with clear accountability.
- Test for fairness and drift; keep human-in-the-loop on adverse decisions and complex claims.
- Harden data pipelines and third-party interfaces; define incident response for model or data failures.
- Document features, training data provenance, and explainability standards for supervisors and customers.
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Climate and reinsurance: steady footing, active monitoring
Climate-related exposures are steady in the report, while reinsurers stayed well capitalised through 2024 with conservative portfolios and stabilising underwriting results. Still, secondary peril frequency, event clustering, and retro capacity remain watch items. Keep pricing, aggregation, and wordings aligned with updated hazard views.
What supervisors will focus on next
The IAIS will expand monitoring of alternative assets, deepen systemic-risk analysis, guide life-sector structural shifts, and enhance climate risk assessments. The Financial Stability Board reaffirmed the IAIS Holistic Framework for systemic risk in insurance, supporting continued global coordination.
- Expect more guidance on private credit, valuation practices, and liquidity risk testing.
- More data requests are likely on cross-border reinsurance, collateral, and intragroup transfers.
For context on the IAIS and its work, visit the IAIS website. For the systemic risk framework, see the FSB note on the Holistic Framework.
Board and CRO checklist for 2025-2026
- Private assets: tighten valuation and liquidity playbooks; rehearse collateralised funding options.
- ALM: refresh stress scenarios for sanctions, FX shocks, and rate divergence; validate hedge performance.
- Reinsurance: review counterparty mix, collateral terms, and legal enforceability across jurisdictions.
- AI: formalise policy, monitoring, and audit trails; verify fairness testing and vendor oversight.
- Disclosure: enhance clarity on private credit exposure, sensitivity to rate moves, and AI governance.
- Operations: confirm crisis communications and customer support plans for travel and cross-border claims.
The headline: the sector is steady, but the risk mix is shifting. Teams that get specific-on private credit controls, ALM under friction, and AI guardrails-will keep results consistent while supervisors raise the bar.
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