Kicking off Airmic Fest, this year’s virtual conference, the risk management association announced several new initiatives and pieces of research for its membership.
Tuesday 22 September 2020
08:00: Press conference
Resilience Alliance
The first announcement was a new Resilience Alliance – designed to enhance collaboration in the industry. The network is made up of four associations: Airmic, ASIS International, The BCI, and the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management.
Speaking at a press conference for the launch, Airmic CEO John Ludlow said: “Business operators dislike siloed thinking, they like joined up solutions, so there’s nothing worse than one expert coming along and giving their perspective on a problem and another related expert giving a slightly different perspective.
“Risk and resilience are a team game. Team games require you to change your behaviours and deliver joined up thinking so that’s what this Resilience Alliance is all about.”
D&O guide
The next announcement was a piece of research looking into the UK’s hardening insurance landscape, and in particular the tough conditions in the D&O market.
The research found that some businesses have seen eye-watering hikes of around 400 per cent and that there is grave dissatisfaction with not just price rises, but also the communication around changes.
Ludlow explained: “The problems are widespread and are likely to get worse as the economic depression sets in. Rather than getting angry with each other and start throwing accusations around what we believe at Airmic is everybody must come together and work together to rebuild the trust that’s been damaged but also to find solutions.
“We need to work together to work out what data needs to be collected and shared so that insurers can better understand the exposure that they are underwriting and that hopefully will lead to differential pricing.”
Revamped explain guides
Next up on Airmic’s agenda was its ‘Explain Guides’ which it is in the process of revamping into what it referred to as the ‘boxed set’ of risk management explainers.
The membership network is planning to publish fifteen updated guides over the next twelve months but is starting off with just two which have been launched today.
The first is the Risk and Managing Risk guide, which Julia Graham, deputy CEO of Airmic described as a comprehensive ‘one-stop-shop’ for risk management, and which has been updated to include the latest 3 Lines of Defence model from the Global Institute of Internal Auditors.
The second is the Captives and Understanding Captives guide, which Airmic has revamped due to increased interest in retaining risks from businesses.
Graham explained: “An article this week from one of our global brokers said that the number of new captive insurance companies in the first six months of this year has increased by 200 per cent and one of the reasons for that is that our members are looking for alternative ways to transfer risk which they find the traditional insurance market is struggling to cope with.”
The two guides are free to access and available online from this morning.
Pandemic and Crisis management research
Airmic also launched a very topical piece of research looking at the thorny issues of pandemic and crisis management.
One of the key conclusions from the study is that businesses leadership has been challenged by a lack of useful intelligence and data to support decisions.
It also highlighted that the pandemic has exposed supply chain fragility, with some chains caught off guard with limited contingency plans for strategic sourcing options in an interconnected global crisis.
The research showed that while the typical model for a crisis is: emergency, crisis response, and then recovery, the current pandemic is not following that pattern and several businesses are still reporting that they are in a state of crisis.
Graham said that given the “crisis loop” we’re currently experiencing - the only concrete solution is for a coronavirus vaccine to be found. However, Airmic did suggest some steps that could help shape how businesses respond to the ongoing pandemic.
1. Organisations should think about the solutions that they’re putting in place for recovery
2. They should not rush to make change which is not thought through properly
3. You should not exit the crisis until you think the time is right
New M&A guide
Along with the newly revamped explainer guides, Airmic has also launched a new guide to M&A activity.
While the guide covers all areas of insurance and risk management relating to M&A, Airmic is keen to focus business’ minds on the specific challenges posed by cyber and technology.
Graham said: “Organisations these days need to conduct far more due diligence into the technology all of the organisations that they’re considering merging with or acquiring including investigations on the darker side of the web looking out there to see who’s got your data and whether your passwords are on display.”
The report stresses the value of looking at risk through an enterprise lens and the benefit of managing that in a collaborative and connected way inside organisation rather than looking at cyber and technology and M&A in isolated siloes.
Guide to reputation management
The final news announcement at the Airmic Fest conference was the launch of a brand-new guide to reputation management.
Ludlow said: “Reputation probably accounts for about half of a company’s worth these days and events and crises have shown us just how vulnerable that value is.
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