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Recap note: Marsh McLennan 2025 financial institutions forum

Exploring the evolving landscape of financial services amid global volatility and uncertainty.

10/16/2025 · 2 minute read

Event Recap

Overview

Marsh’s inaugural Financial Institutions Forum convened risk leaders to explore the evolving landscape of financial services amid global volatility and uncertainty. Discussion centered on three intersecting themes – (1) Risk and Operating Environment Change, (2) Operational Strategy and Growth Trajectory, and (3) the Regulatory Environment.

Following morning General Sessions, we facilitated two focused breakouts on Non-Financial Risk and Credit Risk Transfer Solutions, providing a multi-dimensional view of capital optimization, resilience, and innovation in the current environment.

Below is a brief recap of the forum and attached are the slides from those sessions with presentations. Thanks very much to all of you who were able to attend and we look forward to continuing the discussion.

General Session Highlights

1. Geopolitical and Economic Outlook: 2025 and Beyond

  • Key Themes:
    • The early 2020s were shaped by unprecedented events: war in Europe, the global pandemic, and significant monetary policy shifts.
    • Today, uncertainty itself – rather than any specific policy outcome – is a dominant macroeconomic driver. In particular, tariff policy uncertainty now influences inflation expectations, investment decisions, and central bank signaling.
    • Geopolitical shifts, including the U.S. retreat from post-war trade structures and fragile U.S.-China relations, add layers of complexity and risk to global markets.
  • Implication: Financial institutions should expand scenario planning and strengthen adaptive risk frameworks to sustain resilience in an era of uncertainty.

2. Risk Redefined: Impact of the Current Administration on Financial Services

  • Key Themes:
    • The current administration’s approach to supervision emphasizes collaboration and risk-based oversight, with early signs of regulatory recalibration.
    • Capital, liquidity, and digital asset policies are in flux. Execution quality will determine whether “less intrusive” supervision promotes innovation or exposes new vulnerabilities.
    • Fiscal deficits remain largely unaddressed, while deregulatory efforts continue – creating policy inconsistency and investor unease.
  • Implication: Navigating political and regulatory volatility – while acknowledging low-probability, high-impact risks – will be critical to s balancing growth ambitions with managing risk.

3. Private Credit’s Next Act and Implications for Financial Services

  • Key Themes:
    • Capital markets are being reshaped as non-bank investors, including insurers, play a larger part in financing, from origination to funding to liquidity provision.
    • Bank partnerships with private credit funds have steadily expanded; the exact model of partnership may differ case by case.
    • There is a growing regulatory focus on bank exposure, connectivity to non-bank financial institutions, and potential contagion risks in the private credit market.
  • Implication: Strategic partnerships between banks and private credit will be a core innovation frontier, but must be aligned to each institution’s risk appetite, stress testing framework, and capital strategy.

Breakout: Financial Institutions – Non-financial risk and insurance

1. FI Insurance Market Update

  • Key Themes:
    • On average, only 5 cents of every premium dollar accrues to underwriting profit, with the balance absorbed by losses and expenses. Over the long-term, growth in intangible book value per share is the key measure of financial success for insurance companies.
    • Catastrophe losses are becoming more frequent and more severe; social inflation continues as a drag on claims outcomes.
    • Technology and alternative capital are reshaping market structure – driving “capital-light” underwriting, growth in specialty/ non-admitted lines, and intermediary consolidation.
  • Implication: As investors retreat from volatility, capacity and strategic product decisions will be impacted, which may make captives, self-insurance, and alternative structures more attractive for insureds with large balance sheets.

2. Risks & Capital: Challenges & Opportunities

  • Key Themes:
    • In an inefficient and cyclical market, institutions can create value by more accurately pricing risk – evaluating optimal capital sources across open market, captive, and alternative risk.  
    • Legacy risk models and historical loss curves often fail to capture today’s non-linear, correlated, and rapidly evolving risk environment.
    • Firms that adopt a multi-line, time-dynamic view of pricing risk can transform insurance from a transactional purchase into a strategic capital decision.
  • Implication:  Redefining how risk is priced, funded, retained, and transferred can unlock long-term resilience and financial efficiency.
Looking Ahead

Our discussions underscored a clear mandate: financial institutions must rethink risk as capital, embed risk into growth planning, and align insurance and financing decisions to long-term strategy.

We thank all participants for their engagement and insights and look forward to continuing the dialogue as we collectively shape the next chapter of risk and capital strategy in financial services. 

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