Executives Face Heightened Stress Levels and Insurance Concerns in 2025
A recent survey indicates a significant rise in stress levels among business executives as they navigate the uncertainties and challenges of 2025.
More than two-thirds of executives polled in a recent survey reported feeling more stressed at the beginning of 2025 than they did at the start of 2024. The survey, conducted by Wakefield Research on behalf of Sentry Insurance, indicates that 67% of participants experienced elevated stress levels. Simultaneously, 74% of executives expressed a lack of complete confidence in the adequacy of their company’s current insurance coverage.
“Our research highlighted a recurring theme: managing risk is a big part of managing stress,” said David Dickinson, customer research director at Sentry. “Executives are experiencing worsening external challenges and putting strategies in place to protect the future of their businesses. This year, many are increasing safety measures, reassessing their insurance, and making adjustments to navigate external pressures.”
Wakefield Research polled 1,000 owners and C-suite leaders of U.S. companies for Sentry’s 2025 C-Suite Stress Index.
Optimism Amidst Challenges
Despite the increase in stress, nearly half (47%) of business leaders remain optimistic about their companies’ prospects for growth this year. However, even among these optimists, 63% reported higher stress levels compared to the same time last year. Economic uncertainty (47%), supply chain challenges (44%), rising costs of employee health care (41%), labor shortages (38%), and inflation (36%) were identified as the top five concerns among survey participants.
In addition to these economic and labor-related factors, 72% of executives expressed worries about the growing number of litigation cases and the considerable multi-million-dollar verdicts within their respective industries.
Impact of External Factors
The impact of severe weather events on businesses was also significant; 90% of respondents indicated their businesses had been affected by severe weather conditions in the last five years. Approximately two-thirds (63%) experienced outages that temporarily disrupted company, customer, or vendor systems.
Insurance Reevaluation
Concerning insurance, Sentry found that almost all executives (97%) are planning to reevaluate their insurance policies this year. Forty-three percent are considering adding insurance coverage to lower risks, while 38% are looking to bolster areas where they are currently uninsured but acknowledge the need for coverage.
“In 2025, many leaders appear to be basing their approach to business insurance on their outlooks for their respective businesses,” Sentry stated in the full report. The majority of leaders (55%) who expect their companies to thrive this year are planning to boost their insurance coverage to obtain additional financial protection.”
Sentry Insurance, the company that commissioned the survey, is a mutual insurance company that specializes in business insurance and is headquartered in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Wakefield Research is a market research and polling firm located in Arlington, Virginia.
