The Hartford Insurance Group (NYSE:HIG) outlined its strategic priorities and discussed technology investment, underwriting conditions, and growth opportunities during a UBS conference fireside chat featuring Chairman and CEO Chris Swift and Chief Financial Officer Beth Costello.
Strategic priorities through 2026
Swift said management is focused on several areas over the next couple of years, beginning with continued investment in “tech-enabled, AI-enabled” capabilities aimed at improving customer experience and augmenting employees’ work. A second priority is expanding property underwriting, even as pricing begins to soften in parts of the property market. Swift said The Hartford has about $3.3 billion of property underwriting across business units and believes it can grow that “double digits” into 2026.
AI investment: productivity tools, workflow redesign, and claims applications
Swift said The Hartford’s ability to accelerate in AI builds on a multi-year modernization effort, including upgrades to claims and administrative platforms and ongoing work to organize data—an area where he said there is still work to be done, particularly into 2026. He framed the company’s AI efforts in two buckets: personal productivity tools and end-to-end workflow reinvention across underwriting, operations, and claims.
On productivity tools, Swift said the company has trained and licensed more than 6,000 employees to use tools such as Microsoft Copilot and Google’s Notebook. For broader workflow redesign, he emphasized the goal is not mass layoffs, calling the effort more oriented toward growth, retention, and customer experience—though he said productivity and operating leverage should improve as the business scales. Swift said The Hartford is working with Google as a preferred partner to develop AI tools tailored to its workflows, with an implementation roadmap he described as roughly a three-year effort.
Costello said AI’s return on investment is difficult to tie to a single metric because it is expected to influence multiple areas of the value chain. She said management expects benefits to show up over time through improved growth rates, operating leverage, and potentially loss costs via better risk selection and claims productivity. Swift added that early evidence is “quite encouraging” in small and middle market businesses, and said middle and large commercial underwriting is being used as a test case because small business already has a high level of automation.
In small business, Costello noted that more than 75% of quotes are processed “on the glass” with no human touch, a result of years of investment. Swift said the “step change” opportunity may be larger in middle market operations. He also cited an AI use case in claims involving large medical records for workers’ compensation and disability claims, where AI can summarize lengthy records—potentially 1,000 pages—within a couple hours to help claims staff identify covered events and next steps.
Industry view: “haves” and “have-nots” in AI adoption
Swift said AI requires sustained investment and organizational bandwidth, and he suggested the industry could separate into “have” and “have-not” categories based on willingness and capability to invest. He said The Hartford intends to be in the “have” category and expects that could support above-market growth, market share gains, and deeper relationships with agents and brokers. For insurers that do not invest, he anticipated “slow” consolidation over time.
Commercial lines pricing and micro-cycles
On the pricing environment, Swift said pricing must be evaluated against loss costs and competitive conditions. He referenced an aggregate loss trend that he characterized as modestly higher than the company’s price increases and said management is emphasizing margin discipline with underwriters. He described property as the area softening fastest, while saying liability pricing remains “robust” given loss trends he described as high single digits across several liability lines.
Swift said he does not view the market as a single cycle, but rather a set of “micro cycles” across workers’ compensation, property, liability, and specialty lines. In property, he reiterated The Hartford’s growth focus is in small and middle market accounts, which he said are holding up better than large accounts, and said the company is less focused on shared-and-layered business and expects to pull back in certain E&S and large property areas. He added the strategy emphasizes “fire perils” and taking on incremental catastrophe risk in a diversified national book.
Discussing small commercial, Swift said workers’ compensation faces some headwind pressure on rate, but described medical severities as behaving and frequency trends as favorable. In businessowners’ policies (BOP), he said property rate increases are slowing because the book is now rate adequate nationally, including after efforts to improve pricing in California and western states. He said liability trends remain elevated and will continue to influence pricing.
He also discussed E&S binding business, saying it includes both property and liability and totals about $425 million in small business, with a property component of about $300 million at year-end. Swift said the company still believes it can grow the binding book in the 10% range next year and described the segment as profitable with partners aligned to The Hartford’s risk appetite.
Prevail expansion, regulation concerns, and group benefits performance
On personal lines, Swift said the company is seeking “grace” as it expands Prevail from roughly 10 states today to 30 states by early 2027. He argued the opportunity is supported by The Hartford’s existing independent agent relationships in small and middle market commercial lines, and said the company has capacity for home insurance, improved roof scoring and imagery, underwriting tools, and catastrophe management capabilities. He said agents typically lead with home and then bundle with auto, and that many national or regional agents are interested in adding the platform.
Swift also addressed political and regulatory pressure around affordability in personal lines, saying prices reflect underlying loss trends and inflationary pressures. He pointed to Florida and California as case studies in “what not to do” if price controls undermine availability, adding that Florida reforms were aimed at addressing drivers of inflationary pressure.
In group benefits, Swift said the business fits strategically because it is an underwriting business and complements distribution partners. Asked about guidance for after-tax margins of 6% to 7%, he said The Hartford has outperformed assumptions related to incidence and has seen stronger recoveries, with more people returning to work sooner than the company’s calibration model assumes.
Closing the discussion, Swift said he believes The Hartford is becoming more consistent and predictable, expects to grow faster than the market and gain share, and said the company generates strong returns and excess capital. He said the company’s current preferred uses of excess capital are dividend increases and share buybacks.
About The Hartford Insurance Group (NYSE:HIG)
The Hartford Financial Services Group, commonly known as The Hartford, is a U.S.-based insurance and investment company that provides a broad range of commercial and personal insurance products and employee benefits. Its core businesses include property and casualty insurance for businesses and individuals, group benefits such as group life, disability and dental plans, and retirement and investment solutions offered through affiliated asset-management operations. The company also delivers risk management, claims-handling and loss-prevention services designed to support policyholders across a variety of industries.
Founded in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1810, The Hartford is one of the oldest insurance organizations in the United States and has a long history of underwriting and product development across multiple insurance lines.
