Competition is back and rate is still falling in parts of the market, but late-2025 and early-2026 data show the softening story is line-by-line, not headline-to-headline. One way to read the past 24-30 months of insurer and brokerage reporting is not as a single global cycle but as a set of overlapping micro-cycles: some lines are already in clear buyer territory, some are easing at the margin and others are merely slowing their upward drift.
In Australia and New Zealand, the common thread is the return of capacity: brokers are seeing more new entrants, more follow markets and a sharp rise in competitive outreach, particularly on classes where underwriting results have stabilised.
“It definitely has changed over the last 12 to 18 months," said Anita Lane (pictured), managing director of CFC Australia. She added a key technical detail that matters to brokers and underwriters in a softening cycle: “rate has actually decreased as well, not just premium."
In New Zealand, that soft-market texture is being reported in plain percentages. Aon’s Q1 market insights for 2025 showed “soft pricing of up to 10% in cyber and commercial property,” alongside abundant capacity for most lines. It added that commercial property rate reductions were about 10% down with some customers seeing reductions of up to 30% on two years ago - while higher-risk, catastrophe- or seismic-exposed property remained harder to move.
Regionally, the Pacific picture is consistent with that easing. Marsh’s Global Insurance Market Index for Q2 2025 noted global commercial rates down 4%, with the Pacific region leading the move at an 11% fall, and “single digit decreases for cyber and financial lines.”
In this cycle, financial lines have been among the earliest clear softeners - consistent with the idea that capacity can re-enter quickly once loss trends and pricing resets look credible.
“For me, because I’m a fin lines underwriter, I saw that start probably earlier than what traditionally we’ve seen it," said Lane. "Normally it’s the motor market that turns first, but due to their challenges around COVID and supply issues, they probably started a bit later.”
That sequencing matters for Australia and New Zealand placements because it helps explain why some brokers have felt the soft market first in boardroom-driven covers - management liability, D&O-adjacent placements, PI - before seeing the same breadth of relief in motor and liability-heavy programs.
It also frames the operational strain underwriting teams are now under as they try to grow through a falling price level.
“Everyone wants growth, but when your rate is actually decreasing, it’s really hard to do that," said Lane.
That’s when brokers start to see faster quote turnaround and more aggressive lead positioning. However, as brokers know, this comes with a greater risk of cheap deals being won through silent structural shifts in sublimits, exclusions and the fine print around capacity.
Cyber remains the cleanest case study for “softened most”, because the market is showing both price compression and a competitive expansion of terms. In New Zealand, industry reports have described cyber capacity as saturated with rates down and competition strong with broker opportunities to trade premium reductions into better coverage outcomes.
Commercial property is clearly easing in parts of Australia and New Zealand, but the relief is uneven and risk-specific rather than universal. In New Zealand, some reports put commercial property rates at about 10% down compared to last year while emphasising that higher-risk exposures do not share equally in that easing. The practical implication for brokers on both sides of the Tasman is familiar: "good” risks get competition; exposed risks get granular underwriting, sharper modelling scrutiny and less benefit from the headline market narrative.
Casualty, by contrast, reads as a slower softener: the Pacific-region rate declines are being helped by capacity and competition, but liability pricing typically moderates before it meaningfully falls -because long-tail uncertainty and claims inflation are still doing their work in the background. That’s one reason the soft market can feel simultaneously real (cyber/fin lines/property accounts) and absent (auto liability, umbrella/excess towers and tough fleet profiles).
Motor remains the most stubborn laggard in Lane’s telling, mainly because disruption delayed the normal turning point. She said motor “started a bit later” because of COVID and supply issues. The larger broker takeaway is her reminder that “every product will be at different stages of a softening market at this stage.”
Lane’s practical prescription fits the Australia–New Zealand moment: “keep close to your insurers” (appetite, limits, pricing), and “keep close to your clients and talk them through these cycles.” In a market where capacity continues to return unevenly, the advantage for a broker could come from knowing which lines are genuinely soft, which are selectively soft, and which are simply pausing for breath.
