For road freight, the danger is wider than carriers failing; it is about buyers paying late or not at all, suppliers collapsing mid-contract, and cost pressure moving through supply chains until one weak link breaks. Allianz says the resulting rise in insolvencies keeps both non-payment risk and supplier disruption risk high.
Allianz says the Middle East shock hits first through energy markets, shipping costs and supply chains, then through inflation, tighter financial conditions and weaker confidence. That sequence fits road freight uncomfortably well. Hauliers do not control diesel prices. They often cannot pass higher costs on straight away. Many operate on thin margins and have high working-capital needs. If customers come under pressure at the same time, the transport operator can end up absorbing both higher operating costs and slower payment.
Allianz explicitly says firms with weak pricing power, thin margins, high debt levels or structurally high working-capital requirements are under strain in this environment. It also names transportation among the energy-intensive sectors exposed to the shock.
Europe is where the warning becomes concrete
Allianz now expects its global insolvency index to rise by 6% in 2026, making it the fifth consecutive year of rising business insolvencies. It says the direct toll of the Middle East shock amounts to 7,000 additional cases worldwide in 2026 and 7,900 in 2027. Of that, Western Europe accounts for 3,750 extra cases in 2026 and 3,600 in 2027.
Western Europe is expected to post another 3% increase in 2026, four percentage points worse than Allianz expected before the conflict, before only a moderate decline in 2027. Germany is forecast at 24,650 cases in 2026, France at 69,900, Belgium at 11,750, while the UK is expected to remain near a high plateau at 26,550.
That UK number deserves a closer look. Allianz warns that the UK market will stay stuck at an elevated level. For freight operators, that kind of environment can be just as dangerous, because weak counterparties remain in the market longer and payment discipline often deteriorates before insolvency becomes visible.
Transport is not the headline sector, but it keeps appearing
Allianz says the main sectors at risk globally in 2026 are construction, retail and services. The report says the immediate pressure is visible in transportation, chemicals and metals, with costs rising across value chains from agrifood to manufacturing, healthcare and technology. On the sector vulnerability heatmap, both shipping and transportation & logistics are shown as exposed to supply-chain disruption and second-round pressures.
The European sector breakdown makes the point even more clearly. Allianz says that across the 28 European countries it tracks, transportation and storage insolvencies rose in more than two-thirds of them in 2025. It adds that transportation and storage stand out for sitting above pre-pandemic levels in a particularly large number of countries.
The report’s country table shows a very mixed picture. In 2025, transport and storage insolvencies rose by 15% in Germany, 7% in France, 15% in Belgium, 21% in Luxembourg, 24% in Finland and 41% in Portugal. The UK showed a 12% fall, while the Netherlands recorded a 26% decline.
The real danger is the domino effect
Allianz says major insolvencies were still running at a high pace in early 2026 and notes that these cases can trigger a domino effect because of their extensive supplier networks. That is exactly how pain spreads in freight: fuel surcharges may cover part of the diesel price increase, but if a large customer in construction, chemicals, manufacturing, retail, or machinery starts stretching payment terms, cutting volumes, or fails outright, the impact can travel very quickly. One missed payment hits the carrier. Several missed payments can hit subcontractors, workshops, tyre suppliers, finance partners and fuel-card exposure.
Asia remains the largest contributor to global insolvency growth in Allianz’s forecast, mainly because of China’s size and continuing structural weakness. But Europe’s exposure is different. The region is more directly squeezed by the combination of weak growth, expensive inputs, tight finance and still-elevated fragility after several years of shocks.
The report says Europe had already seen a noticeable increase in non-payment risk in energy-intensive sectors before the latest war shock, and that second-round effects are likely to show up especially in European consumer sectors. For road freight, that matters because the sector depends heavily on demand from consumer-facing industries, industrial supply chains and construction-linked activity.
Allianz also notes that less than half of Western European countries have fully cleared the backlog of “missing” insolvencies created by pandemic-era support. Germany, France, Italy, Ireland and Belgium are among those still not fully through that adjustment. Part of the current risk, then, is not completely new. Some of it is older weakness that had been delayed by support measures and is now being exposed again by a fresh external shock.
The UK plateau is not reassuring
The UK forecast may look mild at first glance because Allianz expects a 1% decline in business insolvencies in 2026. But the level is the more important point: 26,550 cases, around 30% above pre-shock levels, according to the country section.
The report says the UK’s plateau masks uneven sector patterns. Insolvencies eased in construction, hospitality and retail in 2025, but rose in manufacturing, wholesale, information and communication, and B2B services.
