Reinvention has become the order of the day for businesses across all sectors as they seek to respond to and keep pace with a rapidly changing competitive landscape. Organisations are rethinking business models and embracing new technologies to enhance customer engagement and support new ways of working. For some, this means redesigning the entire business to unlock innovation, resilience and long-term growth.
“The world is going through shorter cycles of change at an unprecedented pace,” says PwC Ireland insurance leader Darren O’Neill. “We are now experiencing continuous and very disruptive change because of major geopolitical shifts, inflationary pressures, climate change and technology advances. In addition, consumer sophistication continues to increase as they are using technology to exercise choice while capital is moving more rapidly from sector to sector.”
For businesses, this means contending with rising costs, the impact of the green agenda, changing customer needs and preferences, having a workforce that is on top of the new and rapidly evolving technologies.
“Businesses need to continuously improve and reinvent,” says O’Neill. “PwC’s 2026 CEO survey found that the biggest question on CEOs’ minds is whether they are transforming fast enough to keep pace with technological change, including AI (artificial intelligence). Over half (51 per cent) of Irish CEOs cite this as their top concern, and they are more concerned than global leaders (42 per cent).
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“Years ago, transformation was about doing what was already being done better and faster; building new skills and improving processes,” he continues. “Today, that’s no longer good enough. Transformation today is about innovating around products, services and the broader business model to stay current with, or outpace, the level of change. Continuous improvement and innovation need to be in a business’s DNA, and businesses need to move much more rapidly if they are to be fit for the future in a world of continuous change. This dual requirement for pace and agility is the major challenge facing businesses today.”
There are lessons to be learned from the insurance industry, O’Neill says, which has been forced to confront reinvention earlier than many industries. He points to a confluence of events and factors in the Irish general insurance market in recent years as the driving force behind this impulse to reinvent.
“There is a different competitive dynamic now,” he says. “We have seen a number of entrants to the market along with acquisitions and non-traditional players coming in, all competing for an ever-savvy consumer where price is key.”
When I think about reinvention and transformation I think about agility, the ability to respond quickly to market changes
— Darren O’Neill, insurance leader at PwC Ireland
At the claims level, O’Neill says that the number of EVs on the roads is climbing and that the cost of repairs to those cars is significantly higher than for their internal combustion engine counterparts. At the same time, the cost of car repairs has increased by 150 per cent since the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Rebuild costs for houses have gone up by between 25 and 30 per cent since Covid,” he adds.
The influx of private equity investment into the intermediary channel is also affecting the market. “We are starting to see the emergence of a small number of major players with a lot of market power who can demand higher share of premiums,” says O’Neill.
Changes in consumer behaviour are another factor. “Consumers now expect a frictionless service and a one-click experience,” he explains. “Digital insurance natives have set the benchmark for frictionless service and are setting the benchmark for the financial services industry generally.”
The nature of the underlying risk for insurers is also changing, notably spurring the reinvention of operating models at pace. “In motor insurance we are seeing the internet of things and connected devices creating a world of different data points on consumer behaviours and vehicle condition and how the asset is being used. If it’s costing more to fix a car, the insurance industry needs to price that risk appropriately.”
Risk management and mitigation are also important. “Take health insurance, for example, where there is a move towards preventative care, where consumers are encouraged to make lifestyle changes to improve their health. These concepts have existed for a long time in manufacturing and aviation. Why can’t insurance be like that? Instead of paying out when an event happens, support customers in better looking after the asset to prevent the incident. This can lower costs at the same time as providing a better experience to customers.”
Technology has a key role to play in reinvention, he points out. This means adopting AI to automate and speed up processes and upgrading or replacing legacy systems to be fit for purpose in the new competitive reality.
“When I think about reinvention and transformation I think about agility, the ability to respond quickly to market changes,” he says. “That ability has been constrained by legacy technology. Many insurers need to modernise their technology to become more agile. This is borne out by PwC’s 2026 CEO survey where only 28 per cent of insurance leaders reported increased revenue from AI in the past 12 months (versus 30 per cent globally).”
It’s not all about technology, of course. “You need appropriate pricing, supported by the right data points. You also need to be competitive on customer experience. Then, you need to ask if your operating model is agile enough. Is there a need to move to multi-competency teams that own processes and products end-to-end? Also, does your workforce have the skills for the future – for the next 10 years, particularly as AI becomes embedded at scale in the organisation?
“AI is absolutely moving into the mainstream and is no longer an esoteric concept,” says O’Neill. “We are seeing most organisations in the insurance sector trying to build AI capability. In future it will be used not just for productivity gains but for customer experience improvements as well as redefining growth and premiums. Moving from experimentation and point usage to scaling across organisations is the next phase of the AI adoption cycle.”
AI will also facilitate the convergence with other industries which is already a feature of the insurance market, he believes. This convergence is borne out by the PwC 2026 survey where nearly half (45 per cent) of insurance firms globally have begun competing in new sectors over the past five years, higher than the cross-industry average of 42 per cent. Insurance is no longer a stand-alone product sold in isolation; it is increasingly embedded within broader ecosystems spanning mobility, health, property and technology. Insurers are no longer competing solely with other insurers – they are competing with platforms, service providers and data rich organisations from adjacent sectors.
Ultimately, winning the reinvention race boils down to trust, he concludes. “Trust remains the differentiator. In insurance, trust underpins every customer relationship. As AI and data reshape how organisations operate, maintaining transparency, accountability and confidence become must-haves, not nice-to-haves or regulatory obligations.”
