When information is infinite, clarity is the scarce resource

Property insurance has never had more information. It may also have never felt more unsure of itself.

That paradox hung over Cotality™ INTRConnect® 2026, Cotality’s annual U.S. gathering of insurers, claims leaders, restorers. The official theme — “Intelligence Beyond Bounds™” — set a clear aspirational tone as we heard from an industry confronting compounding risks, rising costs, regulatory churn, and a growing public expectation that everything should be both instant and humane.

In his opening keynote, Garrett Gray, President of Cotality Insurance Solutions, framed it as a pivot point. He said the property insurance industry can keep feeding the machine — adding photos, third-party datasets, documents,—and risk drowning in complexity. Or we can transform that data into usable intelligence that improves underwriting, reduces friction, and funds mitigation before a risk becomes a loss.  

The goal, he said, should be to close what customers experience and what carriers believe they are delivering.

From accumulation to decisions

“Digital transformation” in insurance used to mean digitizing paper; today, it means making data behave like a colleague—summarizing, prioritizing, and flagging the "next best action" automatically.

Several conversations at INTRConnect circled back to a deceptively simple point: actionable intelligence requires more than data accumulation.  

Raw inputs do not automatically create clarity; they create choices—and choices are expensive when the organization isn’t set up to act on them.

A recurring conversation was “AI everywhere”, but the focus was on joining the dots. If intelligence can’t move across underwriting, claims, and restoration, it stays theoretical. And theoretical intelligence doesn’t lower loss costs.

Why AI needs restraint

We also heard that AI doesn't need to be flashy to be effective. The real winners will be those who apply AI to the dull bottlenecks: documentation, triage, and resource allocation.

Technology isn’t a strategy; it’s leverage. One of the clearest messages from the conference floor was the industry can no longer afford to be in the business of “fixing things”. As weather volatility increases, the industry must pivot from simply "fixing things" to aggressive mitigation.

Stronger building codes and roof retrofits may lack the drama of catastrophe response, but they are the primary tools for protecting affordability.  

Another recurring theme was “risk literacy”. When data helps identify which mitigation measures reduce loss, carriers can justify incentives and turn policyholders into partners in risk reduction.

‘Invisible’ forces squeezing affordability

Catastrophes dominate headlines. But INTRConnect repeatedly returned to a more uncomfortable truth: some of the biggest disruptors are not storms, but structural issues in the market.

Inflation is a prime example: with building materials up 38.5% from pre-2020 levels, severity is now driven as much by macroeconomics as by meteorology.

This changes what “prepared” looks like. Resilience is about navigating economic volatility without breaking operations. Catastrophe response is more of a cog in the resilience machinery.  

Integration questions were also a standout topic. When claims, restoration, and policy data exist in silos, organizations cannot spot these cost drivers early enough to act. Integrated ecosystems are how leaders manage invisible pressures that slowly compound until they’re unavoidable.

Convenience isn’t the same as connection

For an industry often caricatured bureaucratic, INTRConnect offered a human observation: customers want convenience — but they crave connection. Insurance is a financial product that only becomes "real" when a person is scared or displaced.

The case for automation at the conference wasn’t “we can replace people.” It was about freeing them. By letting machines handle the repetitive 80% — gathering documents, reading imagery, suggesting next steps — professionals can focus on the 20% that builds trust: explaining coverage clearly, making judgment calls, and providing guidance during a crisis.

Trust is built by automation creating space for humans, not by trying to perform humanity itself.

What happens next

INTRConnect 2026 signaled a definitive shift from the era of "more data" to the era of "better decisions." Garrett Gray’s agenda for the industry is clear:

• Treat intelligence as an operational capability, not a dashboard.

• Apply AI to bottlenecks that create measurable drag — and govern it like the high-stakes tool it is.

• Invest in mitigation as a balance-sheet strategy, not a marketing slogan.

• Build visibility into the “invisible” affordability drivers before they become the story.

• Use automation to create space for human connection, not to perform it.

The industry can either continue feeding the machine and call it progress, or it can learn to convert inputs into decisions that customers can actually feel. By choosing the latter, we move beyond raw data and toward true Intelligence Beyond Bounds.