The global insurance market in 2026 is being reshaped by an unprecedented convergence of risks that are altering how organizations think about protection, capital and strategy.
According to Manny Padilla (pictured), the newly appointed 70th president of RIMS, climate-driven losses, geopolitical instability, fragile supply chains, persistent cyber threats, and social inflation are no longer isolated exposures but interconnected forces driving volatility across industries.
Padilla described the current environment as a polycrisis. “The problem is not just simply higher losses; it’s that the risk profiles have fundamentally shifted,” he told Insurance Business.
“Entire geographies now carry new catastrophic assumptions. Industries that once were insulated are now exposed to litigation, cyber and reputational risks, sometimes in the same event. (Polycrisis) is the new buzzword in the industry to basically say it’s just coming left, right, north and south, and it’s happening all at the same time.”
This shift has profound implications for insurance buyers. Loss severity and frequency are rising, but the more fundamental challenge is that corporate risk profiles themselves have changed.
At the same time, affordability has become a constraint, not because risk managers seek cheaper insurance, but because pricing models often fail to distinguish between well-managed risks and systemic market pressures.
“I think we’re all being thrown into the big bucket… but (carriers) are not really directly underwriting risks as much as they’re underwriting the entire platform of companies that are in their model,” Padilla observed. “We are asking for a healthy, sustainable marketplace where pricing reflects risk and good risk management is rewarded.”
Against this backdrop, enterprise risk management (ERM) has moved firmly into the strategic core of organizations.
Padilla said risk leaders are no longer focused solely on transferring risk through insurance; instead, they are balancing retention, mitigation and transfer as part of a broader governance and capital allocation discussion.
According to the RIMS leader, risk transfer is increasingly the final step, not the first. “What we’re trying to focus on is: Do we transfer that risk, do we mitigate the risk, or do we do a combination of the two? We have to treat it as a strategic discipline.
“We look at strategy and governance, because we definitely need to have the corporations aligned to what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do. Then, capital allocation… The transfer of risk is the last thing we do.”
The evolving role of the risk manager reflects this shift. Padilla emphasized that risk management today is about aligning disparate parts of the organization – from operations and finance to legal and human resources – around a shared understanding of risk appetite and tolerance.
“One of the big challenges (for risk managers) these days is to engage others, to train them on how to think strategically in the risk management framework and then come to that conclusion of what is acceptable to the company,” he explained.
In a polycrisis environment where a single event can cascade across multiple dimensions of the enterprise, governance and accountability become essential.
“Pre-planning before the event is 85% of the transaction,” Padilla reflected. “The remaining part is the cleanup and the risk transfer mechanism. But if you don’t have a defined risk strategy and you’re not following the framework, you’re hoping the tornado moves in the other direction instead of hitting your facility versus somebody else’s.
Quality of counterparties has also emerged as a top priority for buyers in 2026. Padilla pointed to the financial strength and capacity of insurance carriers as critical considerations.
Equally important is the structure of insurance distribution. Ongoing consolidation in the brokerage sector, coupled with frequent team movement, has had a significant impact on the risk management community, said Padilla.
“We see a lot of M&A happening, and we hear stories about entire teams moving from one entity to another,” he said. “You really have to go back and say, ‘What about the servicing model?’ A lot of us run small staffs, and we need the brokerage community to step in and to be our advocates.”
For Padilla, speed and price alone are insufficient measures of the value of an insurance intermediary. Strategic brokers will stand out through a deep understanding of a client’s business. At the same time, they will practice active engagement with underwriters and have meaningful involvement in claims management, particularly for complex, multi-policy or multi-jurisdictional losses.
“As a criticism to my fellow professional risk managers: if you’re practicing that, you kind of get what you pay for, which is the cheapest price at the quickest transaction,” Padilla said.
“Having a broker that understands your business, which is extremely important to me, is probably the key differentiator. My brokers… understand my specific risks, but they also understand how we operate as a business.”
Padilla’s perspective has been shaped by more than three decades as a corporate risk leader, and in January 2026, he formally assumed the role of RIMS president and its first of Hispanic descent. Additionally, Padilla serves as vice president of risk management and insurance at MacAndrews & Forbes Incorporated.
His presidency comes at a moment when RIMS is urging risk professionals globally to step into more visible leadership roles, helping organizations navigate uncertainty through disciplined, strategic risk management.
“The time is now for risk professionals to take the lead and build corporate cultures that empower business leaders to make smart and strategic investments that spur innovation, growth, and profitability,” said Padilla.
