Insurers expect global medical costs to rise 10.3% in 2026 — the third straight year around double digits, with every region above general inflation. What is driving it, and why it will not fix itself.
Medical claims inflation used to be a problem individual markets took turns having. The current cycle is different: it is running near or above double digits on every continent at once, and the insurers paying the claims do not expect it to break soon. WTW's 2026 Global Medical Trends Survey — a poll of medical insurers worldwide — projects global medical costs to rise 10.3% in 2026, following 10.0% in 2025 and 9.5% in 2024. Over half of surveyed insurers (55%) expect these elevated levels to persist for more than three years.
That one series explains more about health insurance pricing right now than any other number. This piece looks at what sits underneath it.
Three consecutive years around 10% compounds to a medical cost base roughly a third higher than in 2023. Premiums are not rising because insurers changed; the claims underneath them did.
The map: no region is sitting this out
The 2026 projections in WTW's survey are elevated everywhere, but not evenly:
- Asia Pacific leads at 14.0%.
- Latin America follows at 11.9%.
- Middle East and Africa is projected at 11.3%.
- North America sits at 9.2%, with the United States specifically at 9.6%.
- Europe, the lowest major region, is still at 8.2%.
Two things stand out. First, even the lowest regional figure is multiples of what most central banks target for general inflation — medical trend has decoupled from CPI essentially everywhere. Second, the regions with the fastest-growing insured populations, including the Gulf, are also carrying above-average trend. Markets like Saudi Arabia are adding beneficiaries and absorbing cost inflation simultaneously, which is why health premiums there can grow strongly while insurer margins do not.
What insurers say is driving it
The survey asks insurers to name the forces behind the trend, and the answers are structural rather than cyclical:
- New medical technologies — cited by 74% of insurers, the top driver. New diagnostics and treatments expand what can be treated, and each expansion enters the claims base.
- Deterioration of public health systems — cited by 52%. Where public provision strains, demand shifts to private care that insurance pays for.
- Pharmaceutical advances — cited by 49%, with high-cost novel therapies a recurring theme.
By condition, insurers point to cancer as the fastest-growing and most expensive diagnosis area (cited by 57%), cardiovascular disease second (50%), and behavioural health third (37%). The rise of behavioural health into the top tier is the notable change of the decade: a category many group policies barely covered ten years ago is now one of the fastest-growing claim lines.
Why this is not a phase
The uncomfortable property of these drivers is that none of them mean-reverts. Technology does not un-advance; a therapy that works does not leave the formulary; a population that gained access to care does not surrender it; chronic disease prevalence moves on demographic timescales. Post-pandemic catch-up care was a genuine one-off, but it has largely washed through — what remains is the structural trend, which is why a majority of the insurers surveyed expect elevated levels to persist rather than normalise.
The realistic policy levers — network steering, utilisation management, primary-care gatekeeping, digital-first pathways, benefit design — bend the trend rather than break it. They are worth pursuing precisely because a percentage point held back compounds just as relentlessly as a percentage point conceded.
What it means if you buy, sell or embed health cover
For employers, flat renewal premiums are not a realistic baseline anywhere; budgeting should start from the regional trend line, and negotiation should focus on plan design and network rather than on wishing the trend away. For insurers, medical portfolios will keep growing in premium while margins stay under pressure — underwriting discipline and repricing speed decide who profits. For platforms distributing health cover, two practical consequences follow: expect annual repricing on medical panels and build revenue forecasts on membership volumes rather than stable premiums; and expect the products themselves to change shape, because virtual-first plans, tiered networks and utilisation controls are how insurers respond to exactly this pressure.
Sources and limitations
The figures here come from WTW's 2026 Global Medical Trends Survey, published in late 2025, which aggregates medical insurers' own projections. Three caveats apply. These are projections of insurer expectations, not measured outcomes — actual trend can land above or below them. Trend figures measure gross medical cost growth (price and utilisation combined) and are not the same as premium increases, which also reflect competition and margin. And regional averages conceal wide in-region variation; a specific market can sit far from its regional line. We treat the series as the best available directional read, not as a forecast for any single scheme.