Briefing: Getting decisions right starts with trusted data

Insurance has always been a data-driven industry.

From underwriting and pricing to claims, capital management and distribution, decisions are only as good as the information that underpins them.

But as the volume of available data continues to grow, making confident decisions is becoming increasingly challenging.

That was one of the key findings revealed by new research from Ordnance Survey.

Its Building Decision Confidence report, published in July 2026, found that major projects across the financial services sector are being delayed by an average of five months, with one in four senior leaders saying that incomplete or inaccurate data means they regularly have to revisit strategic decisions.

The research also suggests that decision-making itself is becoming more demanding.

Four in five financial services leaders said it has changed significantly over the past five years, with many reporting greater complexity, more strategic decisions to make and increasing pressure to reach those decisions more quickly.

For the insurance market, those findings are unlikely to come as a surprise.

The insurance industry is rich in data, but that does not necessarily make it easy to use. Valuable information is spread across multiple sources, often requiring significant time and expertise to collect, validate and interpret.

In fact, separate research I conducted for Insurance DataLab found that insurers are dedicating up to 10 weeks, and spend more than £65,000 a year, on benchmarking activities.

Data confidence

The challenge is not simply finding data. It is having confidence that the information being used is complete, accurate and comparable.

That applies across the market.

Brokers are increasingly expected to demonstrate that placement decisions are evidence-based and support good customer outcomes, while insurers are under growing pressure to clearly evidence their performance to boards, demonstrating how results compare with the wider market and where improvements are being made.

MGAs must provide capacity providers with confidence that their businesses are delivering sustainable performance.

At the same time, boards and senior leadership teams are operating in an increasingly demanding environment. Regulatory expectations continue to evolve, competition remains intense – particularly in the soft market we currently find ourselves in – and strategic decisions often need to be made at pace.

Having confidence in the underlying data has never been more important.

Whether organisations are assessing insurer performance, monitoring claims outcomes, evaluating financial resilience or identifying market opportunities, that confidence ultimately comes from using reliable, consistent and comparable information.

This means that independent benchmarking has an increasingly important role to play.

Bringing together trusted datasets into a consistent framework enables organisations to build a more complete picture of market performance and make decisions based on evidence rather than assumption.

As the volume and complexity of data continue to grow, the organisations best placed to succeed are unlikely to be those with access to the most information – they will be those with the greatest confidence in the information they use to make decisions.