Read anything good lately? For subscribers to Zywave’s Front Page News, the answer is always an enthusiastic ‘yes!’
Zywave’s Front Page News offers a snapshot of the evolving risk landscape each and every business day, equipping brokers, carriers, and risk managers with the outlook needed to keep pace with property, casualty, and cyber exposures. Our team of editors curates the day’s most essential news items from thousands of sources, alongside articles written by journalists with decades of experience covering the global P/C insurance market.
Once a week in FPN, we tally up the most popular stories as determined by audience forwards. The metric offers a valuable glimpse into the top-of-mind topics for insurance and risk professionals.
From a deep dive on Zywave’s research on broker services to trends on U.S. jury verdicts and real-time reports on market conditions, our most-read stories of the summer illustrate a roadmap of risk to reckon with.
In our top story from the last week of August, we shared the latest research from Marathon Strategies, which revealed that the number of jury verdicts exceeding $10 million jumped 40% in 2025, with four verdicts soaring past $1 billion.
The trend extended across 28 states, 97 courts, and dozens of industries, driven primarily by products liability cases, per the article.
“No company is immune to this trend: 68 industries were the subject of a nuclear verdict in 2025, compared to 55 in 2024 and 48 in 2023,” commented Marathon, a communications and research firm. “The hardest-hit sectors included beverages ($3.8 billion); pharmaceuticals ($2.9 billion); automobiles ($2.9 billion); hotels, restaurants, or leisure facilities ($2.3 billion); fertilizers & agricultural chemicals ($2.2 billion); banks ($894 million); and oil & gas ($892 million).”
The report details not only the impact that tort reform in certain states has had but also offers up reasons for jury verdicts and settlements that spiral ever higher.
The trend is unlikely to abate in 2026, Marathon warned, citing research from Orrick indicating that 72% of U.S. consumers feel it is a juror’s duty to “send a message” to corporate defendants.
Attorney advertising also continues to ramp up, and emerging areas of litigation including forever chemicals, generative artificial intelligence (AI), extreme weather, climate change, and social media addiction liability will keep courts busy.
While the rapid uptick in dollar signs always draws the FPN audience’s attention, we also find keen interest in the changing role of brokers in a world where technology and insurance distribution are shifting at a stunning pace.
One article that resonated with our audience covered Zywave’s annual Broker Services Survey. The story warned of the “churn risk beneath the surface” if brokers don’t carefully cultivate relationships with their clients.
“High satisfaction scores can obscure real vulnerability and a churn risk beneath the surface. A book of business that looks secure on paper may be quietly at risk,” the authors of the report said, adding, “Long-term retention often hinges on avoiding missteps. What might once have been overlooked, such as a missed email or a delayed renewal quote, is now magnified in a marketplace defined by rate volatility and shifting regulations.”
In a broadly soft market, exceeding customer expectations becomes table stakes for retention and identifying potential issues before they become claims. It calls for expertise, outreach, and the resources to assist insureds when they need it the most.
The FPN editorial team makes it a goal with each edition to help with that quest. We’re able to track emerging trends from the jump and keep readers enlightened as they progress. From silicosis to cyber war exclusions, FPN has been there with expert insight and essential context for readers.
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