One need look no further than Liberty Mutual's $3 billion purchase of Ironshore to illustrate how a major P&C player made a smart investment to expand its specialty lines business.

As we note in our cover feature this month, cyber security will also continue to be a major issue in 2017. Don't be surprised to see cyber attacks increase in frequency as well as severity, and more than one insurer I spoke with for that story confided that they're concerned about aggregated policies that could all trigger at once. If that should happen — if "the big one" should hit this year and truly put cyber insurance on the map, expect rates to jump as carriers continue to mitigate (and get their head around) the myriad, ever-changing risks they're writing.

With both frequency and severity of claims continuing to accelerate in both personal and commercial auto, insurers are expected to raise premiums. Gas prices are forecasted to remain lower than they have been in years, and the number of miles driven will continue to rise. In the workers' comp world, Trump's election eased the minds of those who might have anticipated greater federal oversight of that industry under another Democratic administration.

Need for new talent, InsurTech, disruption

There's also the small matter of filling the vacancies that will be left by a projected 70,000 retirees from the P&C business this year alone. It's an issue that, sadly, much of the industry remains hopeful that someone else will do something about, and that young talent will magically become attracted to the insurance business. Look for this to grow into a larger problem over the next few years, and we'll continue to beat the drum over this serious issue.

An additional trend worth watching: the number of P&C carriers forming partnerships with InsurTech startups and others to incorporate new technologies in order to better serve customers — especially on the claims front.

One new key disruptor that also warrants notice is the ability to provide on-demand coverage. Keep an eye on insurance technology start-up Trov, which will be rolling out on-demand insurance in 2017 — enabling policyholders to activate and turn off coverage for their personal belongings as needed, via their cell phones.

Related: 5 top insurance tech trends for 2017

In any case, odds are that the P&C industry could be in for a wild ride in 2017. We'll continue to do our best to break it all down and make sense of the business for you as we always have, and my team and I sincerely thank you for continuing to make us your most trusted source for P&C news and analysis.

If you see me at a conference this year, please come up and say hello — I may be Irish, but I promise not to talk your ear off too much.

See you on the road.

Shawn Moynihan is Editor-in-Chief of National Underwriter Property & Casualty. He can be reached at [email protected].  Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own.