Excess & Surplus Industry Trends and Who Wins With AI. A Conversation With CRC Group CEO Dave Obenauer

Recorded on 05/04/26

In a wide-ranging discussion, TD Cowen senior insurance analyst Andrew Kligerman speaks with CRC Group CEO Dave Obenauer, who reinforced that E&S growth is increasingly structural—not merely a function of the underwriting cycle—with a “riskier world” and more complex, volatile exposures steadily pushing business into the channel alongside the continued maturation of wholesalers and purpose-built carrier platforms. While near-term property rate pressure remains a clear drag on premium, CRC still sees mid-single-digit organic growth as a reasonable base case this year. He also positioned AI less as a disintermediating threat and more as a durable advantage for scaled wholesalers with strong data, investment capacity, and embedded market relationship, supporting faster, more differentiated solutions and incremental margin expansion. Strategically, CRC’s combination of distribution and underwriting services (without taking underwriting P&L risk) creates a compounding flywheel, further reinforced by improving talent attraction and retention tools, even as long-run growth remains constrained by producer supply.

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