Insurance growth can emerge from unexpected sources. The rapid expansion of AI infrastructure is creating new concentrations of insurable value. Data centers, for example, concentrate significant physical assets alongside power, cooling, business interruption, cyber and technology exposures.

Data centers illustrate a broader shift in the insurance market. While the insurance industry is expected to grow at approximately 5% annually, growth is increasingly concentrated in specific risk categories, distribution models and customer segments.

Our Insurance 2030: See the market others are missing research identifies more than 20 high-growth pools in property and casualty (P&C) insurance. Selected pools are projected to grow at approximately 15% annually through 2030, compared with 1.2% for the rest of the P&C market. Together, they represent an estimated $550 billion in additional premiums by 2030.

For insurers, the strategic challenge is to identify where growth is concentrated, assess their competitive position and determine which opportunities warrant investment.

Four growth areas are changing where insurance growth sits

Our global market analysis identified four categories of opportunities driving growth across insurance.

• • Evolving distribution models. Embedded insurance, digital channels and platform-based distribution are changing how insurers reach customers and deliver coverage. In many cases, the underlying risks remain unchanged. Selected distribution-channel pools are projected to add approximately $300 billion in global premiums between 2025 and 2030.
  • Connected technologies and risk prevention. Connected vehicles, factories, homes and agricultural equipment equipped with sensors can generate data to support risk assessment. This creates opportunities for insurance propositions built around monitoring, intervention and prevention, rather than solely compensating customers after a loss. Selected connected-solution pools are projected to add approximately $111 billion in global premiums between 2025 and 2030.
  • Emerging and intensifying risk exposures. Cyber risk, climate-related exposures, data centers and other emerging risks are creating additional insurance demand. Unlike changes in distribution models, these opportunities can expand the volume of insurable business. Selected new-risk pools are projected to add approximately $119 billion in global premiums between 2025 and 2030. However, rapidly evolving risks, fragmented data and limited claims histories make underwriting more challenging. Capturing these opportunities requires specialist underwriting expertise, relevant data and disciplined portfolio management, which AI can help support.
  • Changing protection needs and underserved customer segments. Demographic shifts, evolving working patterns and changing customer behavior are creating opportunities in segments that have historically been underserved or difficult to reach economically. These include aging populations, gig-economy workers and pet owners. Selected customer-segment pools are projected to add approximately $21 billion in global premiums between 2025 and 2030. While some growth pools may initially be smaller, digital distribution can make more targeted insurance propositions viable.

The more than 20 fast-growing P&C pools identified in our research are expected to drive much of the market’s growth in the coming years. However, the capabilities required to pursue individual opportunities differ considerably. Insurers must therefore prioritize those that align with their business models and value propositions.

Life insurance also has its own growth pockets

In life and annuities, our top-down view of the established market shows growth varying materially by product and geography. Protection and retirement are projected to grow fastest, at 7.0% and 6.6% annually, while among major mature markets Canada, the US and the UK have the strongest growth expectations at 3.9%, 3.8% and 3.3%, respectively.

A separate bottom-up analysis identifies four more targeted growth pools: digital life, senior life, children’s endowment and funeral expenses. Together, these pools are projected to reach $219 billion by 2030, growing at nearly 10% annually—around twice the overall L&A market rate.

Knowing where the potential sits is only the first step

Capturing a growth pool requires insurers to assess their right to win.

An insurer with deep specialty underwriting expertise may be well positioned for emerging commercial risks. A carrier with scale, connected data and efficient operations may have a competitive advantage in technology-enabled mass markets. Others may have distinctive access to partners and ecosystems that make embedded distribution more attractive.

These differences make portfolio choices increasingly important. Insurers need to address four questions:

1. 1. Which growth pools are most relevant to our portfolio and markets?
   2. Where do we already have, or can realistically develop, the required capabilities and competitive advantage?
   3. How do these opportunities support our market value proposition and overall strategic objectives?
   4. What changes are needed in capital allocation, talent, partnerships, governance and operating capabilities to capture opportunities?

AI is breaking the orthodoxies that kept growth pools out of reach

AI can lower long-standing barriers across all four growth areas. In evolving distribution, it can orchestrate partner and point-of-sale journeys to accelerate quote, bind and service. For connected solutions, it can turn live sensor data into prevention, intervention and more dynamic underwriting.

For emerging risks, AI can convert fragmented and unstructured data into underwriting signals for cyber, climate and specialty exposures. For underserved customer segments, it can enable micro-segmentation, tailored propositions and simpler product education at a viable cost.

This expands the range of growth pools that insurers can pursue and strengthens how they combine proprietary data, distribution access and underwriting expertise into differentiated business models.

The sequence matters: insurers must first determine where they have a right to win, then use AI to build and scale the capabilities needed to capture those pools.

See the market others are missing

Insurance will remain a large and resilient industry through 2030. The more interesting question is what lies beneath the headline market growth figures.

Our research identifies fast-growing niche markets with the potential to become mainstream. Insurers that fail to capture these opportunities risk remaining concentrated in slower-growing segments.

Insurers must identify where they have a right to win and assess whether they are reallocating resources quickly enough to capture those opportunities.

These decisions could play a significant role in determining insurance performance through 2030.