Good Morning. Welcome to this week’s recap. The trends, training, and Top Producer insights you actually want to read. Grab a fresh cup of coffee and let’s get started.

Stryker, one of the world's largest medical device makers, think defibrillators, surgical robots, and hospital beds that keep people alive, is still on the canvas after a devastating cyberattack Wednesday. Ding ding. With no timeline for recovery in sight.

The culprit: Handala, a pro-Iranian hacker group linked to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence, framing the attack as retaliation for a US strike on an Iranian school that killed more than 170 people, mostly children. They called Stryker a "Zionist-rooted corporation". A reference to its 2019 acquisition of Israeli firm OrthoSpace.

What makes this attack different: the hackers didn't use traditional malware. They appear to have hijacked Microsoft Intune, a legitimate cloud-based IT management tool, and used it to issue a remote wipe command across every connected device simultaneously.

The damage? Up to 95% of computers wiped in some offices, 50 terabytes of data extracted, and 56,000 employees sent home with one instruction: don't connect anything to a Stryker network. The attack hit 79 countries simultaneously and didn't just disrupt business, it disrupted patient care.

The real-world TKO: Maryland hospitals lost access to Stryker's cardiac monitoring system. A healthcare professional at a major university medical system reported being unable to order surgical supplies normally sourced through Stryker — noting that "pretty much every hospital in the U.S. that performs surgeries uses their supplies." CISA is investigating.

Calling all P&C producers: This wasn't ransomware or some Bitcoin scam. This was a geopolitical wiper attack that deleted a $132B company's infrastructure overnight using their own tools against them. If your clients still aren’t taking cyber sioriously, this is your best case study.

Sources: Krebs on Security | Bloomberg | CNN | SecurityWeek | TechCrunch

Survey finds 1 in 5 women have considered leaving the workforce because of menopause symptoms, often at peak career years.

Turns out, menopause is a $26 billion annual drag on U.S. businesses due to missed work, lost productivity, and turnover.

And the healthcare system isn't helping: fewer than 20% of primary care physicians receive menopause training, meaning most symptoms get dismissed or misdiagnosed.

Brokers, we’re calling our shot now: this will be a trending topic very soon.

Sources: Employee Benefit News | Progyny

A new QBE survey found 80% of risk managers at major U.S. companies experienced employee crime in the past year, and it's not who you'd expect.

Billing fraud led the way at 36%, followed by payment and check fraud at 23%. More than three-quarters of incidents involved someone at the manager level or higher.

The AI wrinkle makes it worse. 94% of risk managers worry employees will use AI to pull off more sophisticated schemes, and most companies admit their controls are already behind.

So what? 87% of large organizations already carry crime insurance, and 63% plan to increase their limits in the next 12 months.

Sources: Risk & Insurance | QBE Survey

A Sedgwick report has a warning for carriers and agents alike: the claims experience is a retention weapon, and most insurers are losing the battle.

54% of insurance customers have switched carriers due to poor service. And 59% say their expectations for support are higher than a year ago.

Rising construction costs, tariff-driven material price increases, and weather events topping $1 billion in losses last year are stretching claim timelines, and making communication gaps even more painful.

Per Sedgwick, "claims communication ended up being the biggest customer service gap."

Service and communication. Fundamentals, FTW.

Source: Sedgwick Loss Adjusting Insights Report

For the second year running, “change management” tops the list. And for the second year running, most companies still have no plan for it.

Gallagher's 2026 Employee Communications Report surveyed 1,300+ professionals across 40 countries and found that 61% of organizations have no structured approach to change communication.

The instinct is to send more messages, but that's backfires. In high-volume communication environments, employees are 30% more likely to lose trust in leadership and 24% more at risk of burnout.

Benefits brokers: Your clients don't just need better benefits. They need help explaining and implementing them.

Source: Gallagher 2026 Employee Communications Report

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In this episode, Micah and Trey talk with top producer Dave Slocum. Dave shares his journey from grinding it out for the first twelve years, to his rapid growth in the last 4 years. Dave shares his strategies for prospecting, client meetings, risk selling, and scaling his book.

In this episode, Luke and Trey sit down with Alex Rodriguez, a blue chip benefits broker out of Arizona. Alex shares his journey from HR to building a thriving employee benefits book. He shares his strategies for prospecting, tips for building lasting client relationships, and how to do it all while still have fun along the way.

Today's email was written by Trey Shields

Edited by Sue Flay and Robyn Banks

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