It’s been about two and a half months since we wrapped up the Guidewire European Insurance Forum (GIF) 2026 in Brussels. To be honest, I'm still processing a lot of the great conversations we had there. Brussels is always a special location for us – not just because it's the heart of Europe, but also because of our innovative customer community in Belgium.
A personal highlight for me? The breakout session for our Nordic customers on day one. While I didn't host it myself, I made sure not to miss it. Growing up in Northern Germany, I've always felt a special affinity for the Nordic countries. On top of that, having been a founding member of the Guidewire Nordic user group from the Guidewire side, I have a very close, long-standing relationship with this community. The session sparked a very open, honest discussion about the unique market dynamics up North and how challenging it can be to drive AI and digital transformation when you are operating in an industry with complex local and European regulations.
If there’s one main thing that stuck with me from the two days, it’s this: doing standard IT upgrades is simply not enough anymore. We are now in the age of Intelligent Insurance. Data, speed, and AI are what will decide who leads the market. But what does that actually mean for the P&C industry in Europe? Looking back at the main stage presentations, a few key themes really stood out to me.
The Physics of Innovation: A Stable Foundation for Fast Acceleration
Technology is developing extremely fast right now. Will McAllister, SVP and Managing Director EMEA at Guidewire, summarized it perfectly: innovation cycles that took 15 years in the past are now compressed to just five to seven years. But to reach this high speed, you need an absolutely stable and strong foundation.
For European insurers, this means that modern AI agents and automation cannot be built on old, highly customized legacy systems. Mike Rosenbaum and Diego Devalle showed in their keynotes how Guidewire brings integrated AI services directly into the daily work of underwriters, claims handlers, and developers. But this only works if the core architecture is modern, standardized, and utilizes all the benefits of cloud and SaaS technology. The live demos showed that our platform is fully equipped with innovative capabilities for these new challenges.
Technology Meets Team Culture: Lessons from European Pioneers
Replacing core systems is not just an IT project; it is an essential change for the business and the company culture. The presentations from our European customers showed very well how this works in practice and where the real challenges are.
Dave Dobson from NFU Mutual gave a strong warning about "scope creep": When you try to bring all the old complexity into the new system. He said it is very important to manage expectations and to build trust with the business team step by step through regular cloud releases. We must "sell the journey, not the destination." This is a very important lesson in project discipline for every European insurer.
Richard Atkin from Beazley showed that reducing technical debt is absolutely necessary. By focusing on a business-driven cloud transformation, the insurer made a great step from updates that took months, to very agile release cycles of just two weeks.
Arno Suess from Vaudoise gave another great example of how to handle old complexity. The Swiss insurer had the huge task of replacing a 40-year-old AS/400 legacy system. The key to success was a strict "out-of-the-box" approach. By using standard features, they reduced complexity and improved their time-to-market massively and are now ready for this new era of intelligent insurance.
But with all this technology, we must not forget one thing: insurance is a deeply human business. Ariane Berckmoes from the Belgian insurer Ethias, presenting in her home country, made this very clear on stage. The real goal of digital transformation is to build an "Intelligent Organization," where AI is a tool to remove manual work. This gives employees more time for empathetic and professional customer care. Her definition of intelligence as the right mix of technological, organizational, and human intelligence resonated highly with the audience.
New Tools for New Challenges: PricingCenter and ProNavigator
To really use this agility in the organization, we have added very important innovations to the Guidewire platform portfolio.
TUW from Poland showed a perfect example of why agile tools are needed. In a highly competitive market, the insurer successfully broke down old data silos by implementing our PricingCenter. PricingCenter is now the "Single Source of Truth" for IT, actuaries, and product development. In times of high inflation and climate risks, static pricing is not an option anymore. The ability to change tariffs fast and across all systems is a key competitive advantage today.
Another big factor for efficiency is internal knowledge management. With the acquisition of ProNavigator, we solve the information chaos that still slows down many employees. When people have to search in many different systems and manuals, they lose time and give inconsistent answers. ProNavigator is our AI-based knowledge management platform that is directly integrated into the core systems. It gives employees instant, context-specific answers. This makes AI a real productivity driver in daily underwriting and service tasks, and the live demos on stage showcased the impact and improvement the business will benefit from.
Conclusion: The Time for Compromises is Over
The Guidewire European Insurance Forum 2026 showed very clearly where the industry is headed. Successful European insurers do not wait for the perfect moment. They create it by having strict technological discipline and the courage to change their culture.
Insurers in the Nordics, Belgium, and all across Europe now have the chance to move their core systems to the cloud. Only those who build this strong foundation, reduce complexity by using standards, and use smart solutions like PricingCenter and ProNavigator, will make the promise of Intelligent Insurance a reality.
The ecosystem and the technology are ready. Let's do this together to enable the innovation that such a relevant and important industry like insurance truly deserves.