Biba 2026: Insurance firms risk becoming 'irrelevant' without stronger cyber propositions

Ken Norgrove, chief executive at Intact Insurance UK, has warned insurers and brokers risk becoming “irrelevant” if they fail to strengthen their cyber insurance propositions.

Speaking at the Biba Conference 2026, Norgrove said cyber represented one of the industry’s biggest opportunities, but also one of its greatest weaknesses.

He said: “With less than 2% penetration of cyber coverage in the market within the UK, which is really weak, and it’s really weak globally, it’s a massive opportunity for us to show up and develop our cyber capabilities.

“And it’s also [an area] where we’ll become irrelevant if it’s one of the major risks for our customers and we’re not providing solutions for it.”

Norgrove said the insurance sector was operating in an increasingly volatile environment shaped by geopolitical conflict, economic uncertainty, climate change and cyber threats.

However, he argued these conditions should play to the industry’s strengths.

“We are designed to deal with volatility,” he said.

“The core proposition of insurance is risk transfer, risk management, underwriting and claims expertise. We were set up to manage volatility for clients.”

AI yet to transform business

Alongside cyber, Norgrove highlighted artificial intelligence (AI) as a major area of investment for insurers, although he cautioned that AI had not yet fundamentally transformed insurance businesses.

“AI is not yet transforming the business,” he said. “It will change how we operate and it will change the jobs we do day in, day out, but today it’s not having that massive impact.”

Instead, he stressed that insurers needed to focus first on improving processes and cleaning up data before AI could deliver meaningful results.

“You cannot be an AI-ready company if you have bad data,” he said.