In this Risk Capital Insight episode, Aon's Mona Barnes and SCOR’s Neil Owen discuss why claims strategy has become a business and capital decision, not simply an insurance outcome. Drawing on perspectives from both Aon and SCOR, they explore how leading organizations are using claims data, carrier insight and analytics to make better placement decisions, strengthen Risk Capital strategies and improve outcomes before a claim is filed. The conversation also examines how organizations can navigate such evolving exposures as U.S. litigation, AI, data center expansion and secondary climate perils and stay ahead in a changing risk environment at the same time.
Key Takeaways:
Experts in this episode:
Key Moments:
(3:05) Why claims capability is becoming a more important consideration in carrier selection and how analytics can support stronger placement decisions.
(7:10) How insurance program design can influence claims outcomes and why coordination matters when losses occur.
(15:45) What emerging exposures, from litigation and AI to data centers and climate risk, mean for future claims strategies.
Soundbites:
Mona Barnes:
“For those insurers who are seeing true value in their claims function, they've got a seat at their executive table and they're looking to show a value differentiation through claims. Clients are recognizing the importance of that and they're actively moving business towards those insurers.”
Neil Owen:
“Claims is the product, it's the promise that you're making when you're writing the risk.”
Neil Owen
Claims is the product, it's the promise that you're making when you're writing the risk.
Intro:
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of On Aon. This week, Mona Barnes, Global Chief Claims Officer for Commercial Risk at Aon, is joined by Neil Owen, Group Head of Claims at SCOR.
They explore how claims are changing in a more volatile risk landscape — from litigation trends and fragmented markets to AI, data centers and climate risk — and why these shifts matter for businesses making decisions about risk, insurance and resilience.
Mona Barnes
Hello and welcome to this Risk Capital Insight episode of the On Aon podcast. My name is Mona Barnes and I'm the global chief claims officer for Aon Commercial Risk and today we'll be taking a look into the latest industry trends when it comes to claims, what these mean for businesses and the insurance industry. And I'm thrilled to be joined by my friend Neil Owen, who is group head of claims for the Global Reinsurers SCOR.
He's someone who will really be able to help us find out what's happening in the world of claims.
Neil Owen
Mona, thanks very much for inviting me to your Aon podcast. I'm delighted to be here and to talk with you about claims trends.
Mona Barnes
Brilliant. Thanks so much, Neil. So we've known each other for a while. And since we both started our careers in the insurance industry, there's no doubt that our world's become a lot more complex and volatile than I ever remember it to be. So we're seeing clients demanding more from their insurers and reinsurers and risk managers are under pressure to show that their total cost of risk is worth the amount that they're spending on it.
They're being a lot more purposeful about where they're placing that business and what they're expecting from us as their brokers. They want to get insights, they want data, and to respond to that, our industry has obviously been investing a lot in the technology and digital journeys. And at the same time, we're focusing on our talent and how our teams are operating.
That's all with the backdrop of the geopolitical landscape that we're operating in, which is more complicated and volatile than we've ever seen it. And that's putting pressure on interest rates and it's impacting inflation. And then finally, the litigation environment that our clients are operating in is so much more challenging and all of those things are showing up in claims. So Neil, from where you're sitting in SCOR, what's changed for you in the last two or three years.
Neil Owen
Well, there's certainly a lot to unpack in there, Mona. The landscape, I think, for claims that in many ways post COVID, perhaps the last two, three years, has seen the effects of the hybrid working arrangements that we've seen. I think for those of us that worked in the office five days a week, we got used to that seamless transition of information and logic and experience from our peers.
And to some extent, those hybrid practices dilute the ability to continue that evolution of claims practitioners. So certainly I think that's certainly a challenge for us all to pass that information along in a way and to maintain those lines of relationships and communication in the market. That's certainly something I'm seeing in relation to talent.
Mona Barnes
Yeah, absolutely. Like the talent challenge has been similarly experienced on our side and definitely across the industry. think the other piece that I've been watching with interest is how insurers are going about their digital journey. So that's been a big talking point for a number of our insurers, as well as us at Aon. It will say a lot to clients about the value that they're placing on their overall product.
And certainly since I joined Aon, I've seen a lot of clients asking about how different insurers perform when it comes to claims. And that goes to the heart of the conversation around distribution. Do insurers regularly take difficult positions? Are they taking longer to respond to others? Are they more difficult to agree settlements with? Or are they regularly instructing external councils and taking technical coverage positions, giving the impression that they're just letting lawyers run the show, as it were.
The piece that we've been trying to do is look at which insurers are seeing claims largely as a process or operations function. And I think we will continuously see clients focus more on that because if they are looking at this as an operation function, they're probably going to be more capacity providers rather than program leaders.
And for those insurers who are seeing true value in their claims function, they've got a seat at their executive table and they're looking to show a value differentiation through claims. Clients are recognizing the importance of that and they're actively moving business towards those insurers. I think that's a good thing because it's showing that sophisticated buyers who understand the value of the product that they're buying are probably more inclined also to be the ones that have got a good lens on mitigation for their own risks. So they're going to be good risks for insurers and ultimately for reinsurers.
At Aon, we've obviously invested quite a lot in our digital journey. And Neil, I know you know that we launched Aon Claims Co-Pilot last year. So we spent a lot of money as an organization, over a billion dollars as part of our 3x3 strategy, which was invested back into the company and a significant amount of that was part of our digital infrastructure. So clients have now got an opportunity with our claims dashboard to get direct access to the claims and analytics straight away, which means that they can start making decisions around their insurance program pre-placement, which helps them when their claims are happening.
So we're capturing insurer performance, helping us to rate carriers across eight metrics and that's helping clients to make those decisions upfront for their individual needs. I think it completely changes the landscape for our clients because we're not relying on emails being sent to us. Clients can log on and find out where their claim is at any given time. And they've also got analytics at the touch of their fingertips. So this is going to be a huge change for clients and for us and ultimately for our industry because insurers don't like surprises and neither do our clients. So I guess also switching gears maybe for a second, we've seen a lot of fragmentation in how insurance is placed. So 10 or so years ago, we might have seen insurers putting a lot bigger limits down. That made it easier for us to place business.
But now we've got double the amount of insurers putting smaller limits at stake and it changes the dynamic of distribution and how claims are handled. Are you seeing that at SCOR as well?
Neil Owen
Yes, I think going back to one of your other earlier points about the sort of digitization, sort of transformation journey that the industry's been on and Aon's been a leading component in that, in terms of transparency around the claims handling process. As a carrier, I'm delighted that Claims has that prominence. Claims is the product, it's the promise that you're making when you're writing the risk. And it's no truer test than when a claim comes in as to whether the product meets up with expectations on both sides.
At SCOR, we place a significant emphasis on claims to make sure that we have the right talent and expertise to meet those obligations. Many of our team are professionally qualified and have training and experience in industry, and also sit on many of the internationally recognized bodies, which are there to develop and exchange information and knowledge so that we improve, not from an insurance perspective, but from a societal perspective. Best practices across the piece, which is to the benefit of the ultimate client.
The placement of risks has moved from my many years in the industry. Initially you would see the totality of that cover being participated on by a vast number of carriers taking very small lines and percentages of the total risk. And that has changed over time to this layering concept where you get people taking a larger slice, if you like, of a smaller layer. And there are pros and cons to both. With the layering concept, you have the possibility of different markets leading on different layers. And in that sense, you have a potential fragmentation of decision making.
In under the old system, should we say, of a long slip of people of whom were happy to be bound by the lead, you could in theory, get your claim settled more quickly. But there were obviously challenges with such a large number of markets all paying small shares of the loss. So I'm afraid to say there's no one unique solution to this, but it's just it's an observation of the sort of transitional change we've seen and the art of navigating that from your perspective as a broker.
Mona Barnes
Yeah, I think you've hit on one of the key challenges for us as a broker. So we might historically have been dealing with just a few carriers on a risk and only a few then in a supplement discussion. But now we're regularly navigating markets of 20 plus carriers on a single risk per claim. And it creates a new dynamic because if you've got a small layer, a carrier may be taking a slightly different approach to if they had a big share or a bigger layer.
So trying to get that consistency from carriers and trying to get them to pay money quickly, it's taking a lot longer for clients to get back to business and to get paid under those policies. So the other part for us, which is problematic, is the source of capital. So for larger established insurers, they've got vested interests in long-term relationships. What are you seeing around that?
Neil Owen
So I think we've certainly seen a change in the capital coming into the market, which is a good thing. The traditional re-insurer/insurer of capital model has been augmented by money that came into the market, for example, in the form of cat bonds in the mid-90s, following Hurricane Andrew, when available traditional capital was depleted. And then we saw the introduction of ILS securities, these index-link securities which have parametric triggers. By that I mean that there's a defined trigger threshold, which if it's met, the cover pays. And if it's not met, it doesn't pay. Now, if you happen to have a loss which falls just slightly short of the trigger point, then you absorb the loss for yourself. So there's a different use of those products depending on your risk appetite.
In more recent years, we've certainly seen the growth and the number of alternative solutions products given by traditional reinsurers, offering bespoke tailored solutions. They don't neatly fit within the existing structures of insurance and reinsurance. And those products are often necessarily complex. And of course, having a broker on your side, like Aon, with your trusted carriers is a way of ensuring that the risk capital meets risk appetite and you get the right product for your clients.
Mona Barnes
Yeah, absolutely agree with everything that you said. think it's important for clients to be partnering with as much as possible established insurers as leaders of the market because they tried and tested and yeah, not sure that's, I think that bit can be edited as well.
Okay. Let's maybe switch gears for a second. think one of the things that's been keeping many of our clients concerned and busy is some of the claims trends. The biggest one probably for our clients has been USGL or US general liability for clients who are doing business in the States. And it's stemming from two key things. And I know that SCOR have been keeping an eye this as well as of many other insurers. But one is the US legal system, which allows jury verdicts. And the second is the lack of a loser pay jurisdiction.
So there's no deterrent from bringing a claim and that sets up a perfect storm for litigation funders and plaintiff attorneys who have no deterrent to stop them from bringing sometimes what is vexatious litigation and often an incentive to lodge more claims and find bigger pools of plaintiffs. All of that is driving up settlements and driving up verdict amounts and it's making it harder to place that insurance and get capital.
It's leading and has been leading to a situation where we've got more nuclear verdicts than we ever had before. And those are continuing to grow. And even more worryingly, we've now got more thermonuclear verdicts, i.e. those over $100 million each. So what we used to see as a trucking or auto liability issue has impacted so many other industries is no longer just significant verdicts being experienced and also trucking accident claims.
We've seen those verdicts in personal injury claims, which are going across all sectors. And it really is regardless of the size of the client as well. And the amount of money that these plaintiff attorneys are spending on advertising. I read that they'd spent 2.5 billion in 2024 just on advertising their services and these verdicts. So they're clearly spending that type of money because that business model is working for them, it's encouraging litigation. And there's a research, a very famous research company called Marathon Strategies, who have seen a 40% increase in 2025 in nuclear verdicts from the prior year in 2024. That's huge. It's not sustainable. And it's got a big knock on effect from what we're seeing in settlements.
So what we would have seen as an inflated settlement 10 years ago, I'm not sure we can still say it's an inflated settlement because we're regularly getting verdicts at those levels. To tackle that issue, I know that a number of insurers have been very active.
We know many of our clients as well have been involved in those lobbying efforts, most of all at state level. I think that's really powerful because clients are the ones who are creating jobs and wealth in that state. So for them to lobby, it's much more powerful than us as brokers or insurers lobbying. So I would encourage our clients to continue doing that. But I've hit on one trend, Neil, USGL. But what are the trends and issues are you seeing?
Neil Owen
Yes, I fully understand. And the issues impact on the U.S. casualty team. I guess you picked up some figures there around the 2.5 billion spend on advertising. But if my research tells me anything it's that the market for litigation funding last year alone was in the region of twenty-five billion. And that's expected to leap up to something in the region of fifty-four billion within the next ten years. I don't see that slowing down anytime soon. And as you say, what you said was of these sort of one-offs, sort of eye-watering sums of money are now very much part and parcel of the U.S. litigation landscape that c corporates enterprises need to navigate around and of course their carriers that are insuring on that basis too. Yes, certainly there's a lot to digest in that area, and there's probably hasn't been the advancement in talk reform that I think many would like to see. But that is certainly something to discuss.
In terms of the landscape, I think it wouldn't be any surprise to say that particularly today in the news about AI, there's this big conversation going on about the security attached to a agentic AI and what that means existentially for us humans. But certainly as a carrier, we are both a user of AI for internal purposes, but also for the fact that we are a risk carrier. So in insuring others against the risk of AI in that landscape.
Our appetite is to use it sensitively and carefully in support of what we do in our daily lives as individuals. So it's not taking over the decision making process. It's augmenting it. It's supporting us. So I think it's important to say that we are being careful about the adoption of it.
In addition to that, I think what I'm seeing in the exponential growth of data centers, these are becoming increasingly critical infrastructure risks for economies, governments and obviously for insurance industry. Many are being built with incredible capabilities, including their own power source and power station. And I think that brings with it many opportunities but also many challenges. We've also seen social media litigation and the litigation they're brought for harm. It's really interesting to see where that develops and how that goes in in terms of the litigation landscape.
And then Climate change. And then I talk about climate change in the context of what we call secondary or so-called secondary perils. We have a good level of data on you know the things around hurricanes and activity around that, but less, for example, on flooding, hail events, and severe convective storms, which we know are on the rise, both in terms of frequency and severity.
And as populations expand into territories which were formerly areas of known risk. We also introduced clearly hazards for property damage in those locations. So those are certain things that I think are occupying our time. And from a carrier and broker perspective, we're here to help clients, you know, navigate through those challenges.
Mona Barnes
Yeah, some of those numbers that you talked about on litigation funding was staggering. think we could probably spend another hour and a half talking about the trends on US tort reform and the wider impact of AI and data centers and climate change. So we might have to invite you back, Neil. But look, I know we've got limited time today, but it's been a really great discussion. And just some of the key messages that I'm taking away for both insurers and clients are think about claims, pre-placement. For clients, does it align with your risk capital strategy and is your total cost of risk linked to your decisions around placement? Think about who you're placing your business with. Do the carriers align with the type of risks that you have? Are they the right fit for your needs? And as an insurer, are you placing emphasis on your claims differentiation and what does that mean when compared with your peer group? And then probably finally for clients where you can, do support lobbying efforts because it might have a major impact on both your company and your industry.
So with that, thank you everyone for joining us today and Neil, thanks so much again for your insights being tremendously helpful.
Neil Owen
Welcome. Good to talk to you, Mona.
Outro:
Thanks for listening to this week’s On Aon. Don’t forget to like, subscribe and share wherever you get your podcasts — and visit Aon.com to find out more about Aon.
We’ll be back next week with our Human Capital Insight, examining the latest findings of Aon research into Pay Transparency.