The London and International Insurance Brokers’ Association has published a report detailing the role of specialty brokers in the bid to close the widening protection gap. The publication, which is entitled “The Innovation Imperative: Why Brokers Matter More Than Ever”, was drafted in association with Gracechurch and Trimstone Partners. It says the protection gap is widening because emerging risks are evolving faster than the market can develop insurance solutions to manage them.

Christopher Croft, CEO of LIIBA, and author of the report, said: “This research confirms that specialty brokers are the innovation engine of the insurance industry. They identify risks before they are widely understood, build the data that makes them insurable, and work with clients and underwriters to design solutions that drive resilience and growth.

“Closing the protection gap, however, requires more than incremental change – it demands a transformation in how risk is understood, mitigated and transferred, with brokers at the centre of that shift.

“But if we fail to innovate at pace, the consequences are profound: the protection gap will continue to grow, leaving businesses exposed, investment constrained and economies more vulnerable. Closing that gap is not just an insurance issue – it is a matter of economic prosperity.”

In a bid to drive change, the report said regulators should expand sandbox environments for supervised experimentation and modernise licensing frameworks to facilitate cross-border collaboration. It also said insurers and capital providers should establish dedicated innovation pools to support solutions for emerging risks.