Study shows a widening gap between digital leaders and laggards because of how effectively they convert digital capability into execution and outcomes, not simply the amount they spend

NEW YORK, April 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — ACORD, the standards-setting body for the global insurance industry, today released the 2026 edition of its annual ACORD Insurance Digital Maturity Study. The report analyzed 210 of the world’s largest insurance carriers across all major lines of business, including property and casualty, life, and reinsurance. Of the organizations examined, only seven percent qualify as top Digital Competitors.

The study also found that while nearly one third of insurers have fully digitized across the value chain, fewer than one in ten have achieved the top tier of digital maturity. The bulk of carriers examined remain somewhere in the middle of their digitalization journey. The gap between leaders and laggards continues to widen, not based on the amount that insurers invest in technology, but because of how effectively they convert digital capability into execution and outcomes.

“For many insurers, core back‑office operations remain largely manual and siloed, with digital efforts treated as a collection of discrete projects rather than a coordinated, enterprise‑wide transformation program,” said Dave Sterner, Senior Vice President, Research & Development at ACORD. “Insurers that treat digitization as an integrated business system spanning technology, data, operating models, culture, and governance are best positioned to outperform in an increasingly complex and competitive market.”

Each of the insurers studied was segmented into one of five categories based on the level of digital maturity they achieved:

• Digital Competitors (7%): Market leaders leveraging end-to-end digital capabilities to shape customer and partner behavior, optimize performance, and strengthen strategic positioning.
• Digitalized Firms (23%): Established adopters using digital to improve efficiency and effectiveness across core operations, with benefits visible at scale
• Digital Aspirations (43%): Actively investing in digital with clear intent and resourcing, but still building the capabilities and operating models needed to realize full value
• Localized Digitalization (20%): Point-solution integrators applying digital in isolated areas to solve siloed problems, often cost-driven, without end-to-end integration
• Digital Laggards (7%): Organizations with limited digital awareness and minimal execution, leaving capabilities fragmented, manual, or deprioritized altogether

The top tier of Digital Competitors were the only group to exceed the average profitability among the insurers studied, and also demonstrated the highest growth in profits over the last ten years. More digitally mature carriers delivered better results, with Digital Competitors delivering 254% 10-Year Total Shareholder Return, as compared with 180% for Digitalized Firms and 154% for carriers with Digital Aspirations.

The analysis also revealed that higher levels of digital maturity were associated with more prevalent leveraging of ACORD Data Standards throughout the enterprise. Less digitally mature organizations tend to utilize ACORD Standards in particular niches to ensure compliance and limited interoperability, while Digital Competitors tend to deploy them to support capabilities across the entire value chain.

“Data standardization is a key prerequisite to effectively leveraging AI,” said Sterner. “Insurers can only scale AI where the organization already has modern, integrated front-to-back capabilities. While AI is accelerating the industry’s ambitions, digital maturity is what determines whether those ambitions translate into durable advantage.”

The full 2026 ACORD Insurance Digital Maturity Study white paper, which includes strategic and execution imperatives for successfully developing digital capabilities, is free to download for ACORD members. For more information or to download the white paper, visit www.acord.org/research.

About ACORD
ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development) is the global standards-setting body for the insurance and related financial services industries. ACORD facilitates fast, accurate data exchange and efficient workflows through the development of electronic standards, standardized forms, and tools to support their use. ACORD engages thousands of insurance and reinsurance companies, agents and brokers, software providers, financial services organizations and industry associations in more than 100 countries. ACORD maintains offices in New York and London. Learn more at www.acord.org.

PRESS CONTACT:

Beth Jarecki, Omnia Paratus
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SOURCE ACORD