The Road to WSIA: A Closer Look at the E&S Market, Part 2
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September 30, 2026
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Jessica Landau and Christopher Clementi
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6 min read
Expertise
Part Two: Healthcare and Financial Lines
Across the wholesale healthcare and financial lines markets, opportunity and complexity are growing side by side. New capacity is creating more options, while emerging exposures, shifting risk profiles and changing market dynamics are making specialized expertise more important than ever.
In part two of the Road to WSIA series, Cardinal E&S leaders Jessica Landau, Vice President of Healthcare Wholesale, and Christopher Clementi, Assistant Vice President of Financial Lines Wholesale, share where they are seeing opportunity, how risks are evolving and Cardinal E&S’ approach to delivering creative solutions in an increasingly complex market.
If you missed it, read part one of the series here, where Robert Martin, Vice President of Property Wholesale and Erika Palass, Vice President of Wholesale Umbrella & Excess Casualty, explore the trends shaping the wholesale property and casualty markets.
How would you characterize the wholesale healthcare market today?
Jessica Landau (JL): Right now, we are operating in a highly bifurcated market. For organizations with straightforward risk profiles and favorable claims histories, we are seeing pricing stabilization driven by new capacity and the continued trend of managing general agencies (MGAs) entering the space. While additional capacity is creating more options, terms and conditions vary significantly between markets. For newer entrants, critical services such as claims handling and risk management are often not available or are outsourced, making these solutions unsustainable. For organizations with more complex risks, the market continues to harden, and placing those risks requires high sophistication and industry expertise.
Beyond pricing, what are some of the forces reshaping healthcare risk?
JL: Navigating the complexity of today’s market requires looking beyond pricing and capacity to understand the broader forces reshaping healthcare risk. It also requires us to be educated and engaged on key topics, from nuclear verdicts and third party litigation funding to expanding care models and the rise of private equity ownership in healthcare. Each of these headwinds poses significant challenges to healthcare organizations and fundamentally changes risk evaluation and underwriting decision making.
What does it take to differentiate in today’s wholesale healthcare market?
JL: Differentiation is not about being the lowest-cost provider. It is about bringing deep relationships, specialized expertise and a willingness to work through nuanced challenges when straightforward solutions are not available.
That combination of expertise, creativity and tenacity will be increasingly important as the wholesale healthcare market continues to grow. At Cardinal E&S, our sustained growth has come from looking beyond whether a risk fits neatly within a traditional framework. We ask ourselves what we understand about the risk that others may not, how we can structure coverage differently and how we can responsibly create a path forward when others may be unwilling or unable to do so. Ultimately, our value isn’t in providing capacity; it's in our ability to solve problems.
The need for specialized expertise extends beyond healthcare. Across financial lines, evolving exposures and shifting risk profiles are similarly changing what brokers and clients need from their wholesale carriers.
What’s driving momentum across the wholesale financial lines market?
Christopher Clementi (CC): Over the past year, we’ve continued to see significant growth across our financial lines wholesale portfolio. Our submissions were up more than 25% in the first six months compared with the same period last year. This momentum underscores continued demand for the creative solutions that the Cardinal E&S financial lines team brings to our wholesale brokers, and the growing trend of retail brokers leveraging the market access and specialization of wholesalers to help with growing volume and deal complexity.
Where are you seeing the most significant shifts in financial lines risk?
CC: As we manage the influx of submissions, we are also navigating rapidly evolving risk profiles. In public company directors and officers (D&O) accounts, SPAC, DeSPAC, reverse mergers and traditional IPOs continue to drive submission activity. Following the SPAC & IPO boom of a few years ago, relative to those earlier opportunities, we are now seeing improved governance, stronger C-suites and repeat sponsors with established track records, all of which have contributed to stronger risk profiles. Conversely, while the IPO market is benefiting from a somewhat friendlier regulatory environment, we are seeing an increase in corporate derivative actions, along with challenges presented by certain public companies significantly altering their primary business model and revenue sources, with the introduction of Digital Asset Treasury Companies (DATCOs).
Across all financial lines, artificial intelligence (AI) adds another layer to this evolving risk landscape. It is creating tremendous opportunities for brokers and underwriters to work more efficiently, while simultaneously introducing new exposures for the companies we insure, from governance and disclosure concerns to privacy, cyber and litigation risks. As adoption accelerates, understanding how companies use and govern AI will become increasingly important in evaluating risk.
What is Cardinal E&S’ approach to underwriting complex financial lines risks?
CC: What sets Cardinal E&S apart in this market is how we look at risk and the internal collaboration across our four financial lines subsegments: financial institutions, public company management liability, private/non-profit management liability and cyber/media/E&O. Rather than approaching risk through a single-product lens, we bring together expertise from across our financial lines team to understand a client’s broader exposures and develop more cohesive solutions. That combination of specialization, agility and a multi-line perspective allows us to solve complex problems quickly for our distribution channels and build relationships designed to last.
Across wholesale property, casualty, healthcare and financial lines, individual market dynamics may differ, but one common thread remains – navigating today’s E&S market requires specialization, discipline and strong wholesale relationships.
That is what makes WSIA such an important opportunity. On-site in San Diego, our focus will be on spending time with our wholesale broker peers, hearing firsthand about the issues most pressing to them and their clients and having candid conversations about the risks and opportunities ahead. If you’re interested in meeting with the Cardinal E&S team at WSIA, click here.
About Cardinal E&S
Cardinal E&SSM is a service mark owned by CNA Financial Corporation. CNA is one of the largest U.S. commercial property and casualty insurance companies. Backed by more than 125 years of experience, CNA provides a broad range of standard and specialized insurance products and services for businesses and professionals in the U.S., Canada and Europe. For more information, please visit CNA at www.cna.com.
About the Authors
Jessica Landau is VP, Healthcare Wholesale at Cardinal E&S. Christopher Clementi is Assistant Vice President, Financial Lines Wholesale at Cardinal E&S. To learn more, visit cardinalcna.com.