Financial Services

Denver – September 28, 2026 -- Vertafore has launched its Velocity Document Intelligence Agent, an AI tool that cut document research time by up to 90% in early testing, reducing tasks that took 20 minutes to just two minutes.

AI agent automates research across insurance documents

Available within Vertafore's ImageRight platform, the Document Intelligence Agent lets agency, MGA, and carrier teams ask questions in natural language to search across Word documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, and emails. The tool synthesizes answers with document- and page-level source citations, using contextual meaning rather than keyword matching to surface relevant information.

Boston – September 28, 2026 -- John Hancock has expanded its protection insurance portfolio, enhancing its Protection Indexed Universal Life solution (Protection IUL 26) and its term life insurance suite to give financial professionals more tools for addressing clients' long-term planning needs.

Longevity Preparedness Index shows US adults score just 60 out of 100

John Hancock's 2025 Longevity Preparedness Index, developed with the MIT AgeLab, found that U.S. adults averaged only 60 out of 100 in overall preparedness for longer lives. The study, based on a representative sample of 1,307 Americans surveyed between May 14 and June 5, 2025, found planning needs extend across health, care, housing, community, and major life transitions—beyond a single financial goal.

SAN FRANCISCO – September 28, 2026 -- More than 4 in 5 adults in the United States (85%) and United Kingdom (86%) say cost-of-living pressures have stopped them from donating or donating more over the past six months, according to a new Harris Poll survey of over 3,000 adults commissioned by nonprofit lender Kiva.

Despite the squeeze, 77% of U.S. and 80% of UK adults still gave money in some form during the same period, the survey found. The data lands against a backdrop tracked by Giving USA, which recorded record total charitable giving of $617.20 billion even as individual donors' share of that total slid from roughly 80% in past decades to 64% today.

Phoenix – September 28, 2026 -- Paze will replace PayPal as the Official Jersey Patch Partner of the Phoenix Suns starting with the 2026-27 NBA season, under a multi-year deal announced by the team and Early Warning Services, LLC, the Arizona-based company behind Paze and Zelle.

Paze logo takes upper-left jersey position previously held by PayPal

The Paze logo will appear on the upper left side of all Suns uniforms once the new season tips off. Suns and Phoenix Mercury CEO Josh Bartelstein said the patch process was competitive, with Early Warning selected for its Arizona roots and payments history spanning Zelle to Paze.

Boston – September 28, 2026 -- Duck Creek has made Agentic First Notice of Loss (FNOL) available to early access customers, an AI-driven tool designed to automate claims intake across digital, voice-to-text, and mobile channels.

Agentic AI agents verify coverage and flag anomalies before an adjuster opens the file

Built on the Duck Creek Agentic AI Platform, the solution uses orchestrated AI agents to capture, validate, enrich, and route claims in real time. From the first description of a loss, the system verifies coverage, assesses injury and legal severity, and cross-references reported circumstances, images, and policy data to surface inconsistencies without manual data entry.

Chicago – September 28, 2026 -- Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT) has promoted Maxime Jeanniard du Dot to Executive Vice President, Margin Analytics, putting him in charge of the TT Margin business formed after TT's acquisition of OpenGamma in December.

TT consolidates margin analytics under new executive after OpenGamma deal

Jeanniard du Dot spent 10 years as Chief Operating Officer of OpenGamma before the acquisition, giving him direct oversight of the platform now positioned as TT's core margin-analytics offering for hedge funds, asset managers, commodity trading firms and banks.

Atlanta – September 28, 2026 -- The three-year widening of America's K-shaped economy paused in the second quarter of 2026, according to new data from Equifax, as top-tier consumers gained ground while the most financially strained households pulled back sharply.

Thrivers gain 3.2% while Strivers contract 4.2%, the sharpest drop since Q4 2023

The Equifax Market Pulse Index recorded a 3.2% quarterly increase among Thrivers (Index above 80), a 0.9% rise in the Middle segment (Index 50-79), which represents nearly 70% of the U.S. population, and a 4.2% contraction among Strivers (Index of 49 and below). "For the last three years, we have watched the gap between the top and the bottom of the 'K' widen, while the middle class shrank. In the second quarter of 2026, that pattern paused," said Emmaline Aliff, Advisory Leader at Equifax.

New York – September 28, 2026 -- CFO confidence in North America climbed back into "high" territory in the third quarter, with Deloitte's CFO Confidence Score rising to 6.1 from 5.9 in Q2, even as finance chiefs grew warier of technology and cybersecurity threats.

Company optimism holds firm despite muted economic outlook

Ninety percent of surveyed CFOs said they remain optimistic about their own companies' financial prospects, according to Deloitte's Q326 CFO Signals report. Only 37.5% rated the current North American economy favorably, underscoring a gap between firm-level confidence and broader macro sentiment.

Technology deployment and cybersecurity top CFO concern lists

Fifty percent of CFOs cited technology deployment, including generative AI, as their most pressing internal challenge. An equal share, 50%, ranked cybersecurity as their top external concern, marking technology risk as the dominant theme of the quarter.

Iselin, N.J. – September 28, 2026 -- World Insurance Associates LLC, a Top 50 U.S. insurance brokerage, has acquired the business of American Insurance Agency of Hingham, Massachusetts, in a deal closed June 1, 2026. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

World expands its footprint in the greater Boston market

American Insurance, founded in 1991, has built specialized expertise across construction, manufacturing, hospitality, restaurants, real estate, auto services, energy, entertainment and amusement, special events, and skating and sports facilities. The agency's addition strengthens World's presence in the greater Boston area, according to Rich Eknoian, Executive Chairman and Founder of World.

Los Angeles – – September 28, 2026 -- An independent fairness assessment by FairPlay found no statistically significant disparities between protected class and non-protected class consumers evaluated using Prism Data's CashScore, a cash flow underwriting score built on real-time deposit transaction data.

CashScore shows no proxy risk for protected status

FairPlay's data study tested whether CashScore correlates with protected status in ways that could function as a proxy for discrimination. The assessment found no such correlation.

Underwriting outcomes match across consumer groups on a risk-adjusted basis

Protected class and non-protected class consumers evaluated using CashScore showed no statistically significant differences in underwriting outcomes once adjusted for risk. Protected class consumers were also equally likely as non-protected class consumers to have sufficient transaction data to generate a CashScore.