ITC Vegas 2026: Caregiving, AI, and the future of insurance relationships
From September 29 to October 1, InsureTech Connect (ITC) brought thousands of insurance executives, carriers, brokers, investors, insurtech founders, and technology leaders to Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Across three days of sessions and conversations, our team was affirmed by an idea that continues to drive our work each day: insurance is shifting from the transaction to the relationship around it.
What we heard on the floor
AI has moved from experimentation to execution. Agentic AI is now being built into underwriting, claims, servicing, distribution, operations, and core systems. At Empathy, we've always grappled with where AI can help, and where people need to lead. Our platform does the best of both, pairing AI with human care and using technology to remove friction so people can show up where judgment and compassion matter most.
Distribution took center stage. Sessions on retention, agency growth, operational efficiency, and the future of distribution revealed that the best technology makes the relationship between advisors and carriers more valuable instead of replacing the human side of it. Empathy offers advisors the infrastructure to show up fully inside their relationships with families while they’re facing the hardest moments in life.
Customer experience is a massive opportunity for growth. The market is moving past digitizing the transaction and toward creating value across the entire customer relationship. For carriers, value (and trust) can be embedded into support through loss, leave, legacy planning, and caregiving.
Life, health, and benefits got a neighborhood of their own. A dedicated area on the expo floor brought carriers, agents, brokers, and insurtechs together around longevity, caregiving, benefits, and technology. The industry is starting to see life insurance as part of a family's broader journey, and that journey is what Empathy's platform is built to support.
Caregiving takes center stage
On September 29, Empathy co-founder and CEO Ron Gura joined the Health Connect Summit panel "America's care crisis: Finding opportunity and redefining the role of insurance," alongside Evan Falchuk of Family First, with Jeffrey Williams of Microsoft moderating.
The urgency is clear. According to 2025 research from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, 63 million Americans are family caregivers today, and 30% of caregivers provide care for five years or more. Sixty percent of family caregivers are also employed, and 32% of employees have left a job because of caregiving responsibilities.
Caregiving used to be something families managed for a short stretch. Now it often lasts years, and it rarely happens in isolation. A leave can become ongoing care. A caregiving journey can end in loss. A policy that only shows up at claim time is a transaction. A policy connected to support through every one of those stages becomes a relationship, and insurers can move from payer to partner.
Empathy is built for that continuity. We work with 8 of the top 10 U.S. life carriers and support more than 50 million people through loss, leave, legacy planning, and now caregiving. Our recently announced partnership with Transamerica marks our first carrier relationship focused specifically on caregiving support.
Between sessions
ITC was Empathy's largest insurance-focused event of the year, and our executive suite was full from morning to night. By day it was a coworking lounge. By night it became a cocktail lounge, complete with an aura reader and our first-ever Empathy cocktail book. Our team held more than 25 meetings with senior industry leaders, On the Rocks stayed busy all evening, and our private dinner at WAKUDA brought top industry executives and partners together around one table.
Why this moment mattered
The hardest chapters of life are not single events, and the companies families trust most will be the ones that stay with them through every stage. ITC showed us how many leaders across insurance are ready to build toward that future. We're ready too.
To everyone who joined us on stage, in the suite, or at the table: thank you. We're already looking forward to what we'll build together.