Risk & Business

As risk management evolves into more enterprise and strategic risk initiatives, CEO's are starting to embrace the risk managers seat in the board room.  As the science of risk materializes into ways to increase profits for companies, risk managers find themselves participating in strategic discussions. CEO's are understanding this value and so are boards. Risk management used to be thought of as the department that bids and watches over commercial insurance. However as the discipline has shown, it is more than that. Risk management process has implications to allow companies to grow and acheive business objectives. In addition the RM process is allowing companies to form captives or self insure to control the working layers of risk and losses. All in all,  Rm's are reducing cost of risk which in turn adds value to the bottom line. Until next time be careful out there and know your risks. K

As the market changes to higher rates the underwriting of a hardening market is also occurring. More carrriers are changing thier underwriting standards and this does not bode well for insureds. The economy is still struggling and business owners will have a hard time paying the increased premiums. It will also be difficult for them to deal with reductions of coverage which is now trending. Insurance companies really need to understand the big picture here. This time the cycle needs to be minimized as much as possible. Business owners just do not have any room for a hard market. Until next time be careful out there and know your risks. K

The severe weather trends continue as March proved very costly to insurance companies. Tornados are the main driver. Many insurance companies CEO's are meeting behind closed doors with weather experts trying to figure if the Nation is in a severe pattern or will the cats finally subside. As of now no one really knows or can explain other than el nino vs el nina.  The insurance carriers need to get a handle on this if it turns out to be a pattern of cats, because their reserving numbers depend on it. In a time with combined ratios in the upper 110 area, companies are very anxious about the weather. Just when you think you have it donn pat, mother nature shows who is boss. Until next time be careful out there and know your risks. K

Mastercard announce this week that they had a major data security breach. Apparently the region around New York city was mostly affected. How does this happen with a company as big as mastercard? Well it shows that every company is at risk from the very dedicated and technically savy crooks. Risk managers have started to really crack down on this problem and risk mitigation techniques are becoming more and more develped. Also many of the commercial insurers are offering insurance coverage for the risk. The policies are being changed and developed as claims are being presented and paid. Computer companies are tackling the problem with more technical and product solutions to avoid data breaches. As anyone can see, the whole business world is doing everything they can to stop the problem, but it still goes on. I guess it is like a bank that spends millions on security but still has a hold up. It is virtually impossible to stop a human being who wants to be a thief and computers a...