Insurance industry’s most powerful leaders revealed

Influence is earned, not awarded for optics, which is why this year’s rankings are driven by a sharper, more transparent methodology designed to reward substance over spin.

The 2026 Power List was produced using a revised scoring model to reflect an industry that has moved decisively from growth-at-any-cost to financial discipline, operational grip and regulatory realism.

The heaviest weighting is the size and financial clout of the company these leaders are in charge of, based on Insurance Post’s Top 100 UK Insurers, Top 80 MGAs and Top 50 Reinsurers rankings, alongside sister title Insurance Age’s Top Brokers list and publicly available 2025 financial results.

Leaders with large balance sheets, strong profits and clear UK profit and loss accountability score highest. Global titles alone no longer cut it.

How far an individual’s decisions ripple across the UK general insurance market was also a more significant factor this year.

This weighting favours regulators, Lloyd’s leadership and CEOs of systemically important insurers, reinsurers, brokers and claims firms.

Trade body heads are considered but only ranked highly where there is clear evidence of shaping regulation or market conduct in 2025.

M&A, market entries and exits, integrations, innovation, regulatory interventions or culture shifts that changed outcomes for customers, competitors or counterparties is also a factor.

Plus, a LinkedIn following and posts that reflect agenda-setting power and visibility are factored in but are now deliberately capped to 10% of the weighting to avoid popularity outweighing real-world influence.

So, who made the grade given this shake-up? Will it result in more female faces? And who is no longer appearing in the Power List given the new algorithm?

Who’s missing

Some of the industry’s biggest names are now absent from our ranking of the sector’s biggest movers and shakers.

High-profile group CEOs such as David Howden and Aviva’s Amanda Blanc, who topped this list for three consecutive years, are excluded because their responsibilities extend well beyond UK general insurance P&L.

Comparing them directly with UK-focused leaders no longer felt meaningful.

Politicians have also been ousted. Westminster’s revolving door, plus the ranting and raving across the Atlantic Ocean – and the growing gap between rhetoric and delivery – means political noise rarely translated into direct general insurance market impact in 2025.

For example, US President Donald Trump’s tariff talk may have resulted in many insurers anxiously wringing their hands last year and driven clicks for our analysis of what these levies would mean for claims cost, but so far his talk has failed to materially alter UK GI outcomes. Will he reappear on the list next year due to the Iran conflict? Only time will tell.

The list is also lighter on regulators than in previous years.

Matt Brewis departed the Financial Conduct Authority as director of insurance last year, but his shoes won’t be filled by Legal & General’s group chief risk officer Chris Knight until July.

At the time the Power List was published the Financial Ombudsman Service was continuing to hunt for a CEO.

When debate about how the ombudsman should operate rages on, few are clearly willing to take the reins.

Top movers

Patrick Tiernan, CEO of Lloyd’s, tops the Power List this year for how he is steering the London market through strategic, technological and cultural tests while also having to maintain market confidence and commercial discipline. No mean feat! 

Shoib Khan ranks alongside him because his supervisory agenda at the Prudential Regulation Authority – especially the sector-shaping DyGIST stress test – will influence how insurers manage risk and capital for years. 

Jason Storah, CEO of Aviva GI for the UK & Ireland, completes this year’s top trio after executing complex post-acquisition integration at Aviva, following the multi-billion pound purchases of Direct Line and Probitas, while continuing to expand his own influence across regulation, industry policy and social impact. 

Together, this trio represent general insurance leadership in 2026 across the three pillars that define the sector’s future: marketplace direction, regulatory framework and commercial execution. Their combined impact is why they stand above their peers in this year’s ranking.

Themes shaping 2026

If there is one word that defines this year’s Power List, it is consolidation.

Takeover talk around AIG and Chubb, Zurich buying Beazley, alongside the bedding-in of mega-deals such as Aviva and Direct Line, plus Ageas and esure, are reshaping where power sits in the market.

Meanwhile, the regulator pressing pause on Markerstudy’s relentless expansion has materially altered the runners and riders this year.

What has remained strikingly steady though is the claims and loss adjusting sector.

Innovation here is no longer incremental. Leaders such as Dan Saulter, CEO of Davies Group, and Paul Lofkin, president of Crawford UK & Ireland, are redefining scale, data use and client value.

Insurtechs’ moment

Perhaps the clearest shift this year is the elevation of insurtech leaders who have proved that growth and profitability are not mutually exclusive.

Oliver and Alexander Kent-Braham, co-founders of Marshmallow, famously ran their business off free Wi-Fi in a Virgin Active gym in their twenties.

Today, the firm has insured more than one million drivers and shows the importance of the pursuit of profit rather than growth at all costs.

The brothers are joined on the list by Sten Saar, CEO and co-founder of Zego, and Luisa Barile, CEO of ManyPets, both of whom have demonstrated underwriting discipline, niche focus and a willingness to make tough decisions.

In a market littered with burned capital and broken promises, this trio’s restraint could be seen as radical.

Power redefined

This year’s Power List is not about celebrity, job titles or conference airtime. It is about who genuinely shaped outcomes in a market under pressure – financially, politically and operationally.

Before anyone points it out: yes, there are still a lot of men called Jason, Paul and Mark on the list even with this algorithmic overhaul.

In fact, there are more people sharing male first names than there are women in the top 20, which tells its own story about progress when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion, and the work that still needs to be done.

Some names will be familiar from past years. Others may surprise. But every individual featured in the Power List has passed a tougher test than ever before and is shaking up the market in new ways.

Because in 2026, power in insurance isn’t about how loudly you speak, it’s about whether the market moves when you do.

Click here for the methodology. Click here for the Insurance Post Power List podcast. Click here for ‘Ones to Watch’. Click here for the Insurance Post Power List 2026.