Joe Plumeri, chairman and CEO of Willis Group, is no longer planning for a traditional market turn — a "rising tide that lifts all boats." 

Instead, he sees a future where refined tools are used to measure individual risks, allowing carriers to drill down into individual sectors and subsectors of various industries, with pricing based on a more detailed understanding of the marketplace.

"In the absence of our traditional tidal shifts in pricing, we are seeing a marketplace where smaller, localized waves are the dominant force," Plumeri says in an introduction to Willis' "Marketplace Realities 2013" report. "Macro gives way to micro. Industries as useful groupings are giving way to sub-industries. Diving even deeper below the surface of the tide, regional divisions are forming inside those sub-industries."