About Jared Wade

Jared Wade is a freelance writer and former editor of the Risk Management Monitor and senior editor of Risk Management magazine. You can find more of his writing at JaredWade.com.
Игроки всегда ценят удобный и стабильный доступ к играм. Для этого идеально подходит зеркало Вавады, которое позволяет обходить любые ограничения, обеспечивая доступ ко всем бонусам и слотам.

Business Travelers Refuse Assignments to Dangerous Areas

When bossess tell employees they have to travel to dangerous locations — effectively asking them to put their company’s profits ahead of personal safety — workers are increasingly saying thanks, but no thanks. According to a new report by the insurer Chubb, nearly one-fourth of people surveyed would refuse to go on a business trip to a location they consider dangerous unless their employer provided them with emergency medical and other services. In all, 23% of business travelers said they would refuse to go on the business trip, 21% said they go but would refuse to go on the next trip, and 14% would go but look for a new job after returning.

Workers apparently become more willing if services are provided, however. If their employer provided access to reliable emergency medical services, 42% said they would go on the assignment, and 47% would travel if their employer provided pre-travel information about the country. If their employer provided access to legal assistance abroad, 38% would agree to go.

“Organizations that fail to address the risks may lose employees as the economy improves, and even face reputational damage and legal liability,” said Jim Villa, senior vice president of Chubb’s accident and health business.

Chubb, not so surprisingly, offers some products and services to mitigate travel to high-risk locations. As do others. I spoke with Charlie LeBlanc, an exec at ASI Group, last year following all the turmoil in Egypt. With Cairo in chaos, he helped several Westerners get out safely.

Here’s an excerpt of the piece I wrote at the time.

Having traveled to Egypt many times, he knew there were many foreign nationals living and working there who would need assistance when the riots broke out. He did not know there were close to 80,000 expats, however. And he never imagined there would be an event so widespread that so many would need his company’s advice at once. “It seemed like all 80,000 were calling at the same time,” said LeBlanc. He expects that this will be the largest event of this type that he will ever come across. “We can’t envision a larger-scope scenario,” said LeBlanc. “You know, short of Armageddon.”

LeBlanc’s company is who you want to call if you are trapped in such a situation. Through a 2008 acquisition, his ASI Group, which was founded in 1989 as Air Security International, became part of MEDEX, a travel assistance and international medical insurance provider that works with insurers including Travelers and Chubb.

Immediately following the unrest in Egypt, the ASI team had some 30 corporate clients seeking consultation on how to keep their employees safe. All told, the company directly chartered more than 800 people out of Egypt in short order.

There were many others who wanted advice but wound up on State Department flights. ASI provided them with information on where they needed to go and how to sign up to get evacuated, but they made final arrangements on their own. LeBlanc does not know how many cases of indirect assistance his firm was involved in. “We stopped even counting,” he said.

For most people, all they wanted was a way out of the country. “When you’re talking to these folks,” said LeBlanc, “they’re frustrated, they’re upset, they’re discouraged and some of them…are worried that they’re not going to be able to get off the ground.”

Situations like this help illustrate that travel assistance services can be of value. The Arab Spring scenario was unprecedented in many ways, but it’s likely that companies working in the Middle East or other treacherous locations may find themselves in need of help when their employees get stuck.

And according to this latest Chubb survey, it will be increasingly harder to even get them to go in the first place if you have no plan to help them out when trouble arises.

ERM Best Practices in the Cyber World

Using ERM to assess cyber risk

If you read the news in 2011, it should be no surprise that data is more vulnerable than ever. The threats are growing more sophisticated by the day and the fallout if you suffer a data breach can cost a fortune. Risk managers need to take a more active role in this arena. It can no longer be the sole responsibility of IT.

“The volume and value of sensitive data has never been higher and the sophistication of those who want to steal it continues to increase,” said David A. Speciale, of Business Acquisition at Identity Theft 911. “All the while, the potential cost of a data breach grows ever more catastrophic in terms of financial, legal, and reputational damage. Failure to act is not an option.”

To this end, RIMS (the organization that publishes this blog) has released a new paper on how ERM can help. “ERM Best Practices in the Cyber World” discusses looking at cyber-risk as less an exercise in patching network systems and more about changing your mind-set. It’s about using ERM principles to better prioritize the actual threats and gauging how severely each could hurt the company.

The paper also provides advice on creating a better information security plan and gives an excellent, detailed overview of the many cyber-related rules and regulations that companies must abide by in 2012: HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Graham-Leach-Bliley, the FAIR Act, the Red Flags Rule, the PATRIOT Act, the Data Protection Directive, and the many state-specific notification laws that kick in following a data breach.

“ERM Practices in the Cyber World” is free to RIMS members and $29 for non-members.

 

“The Nature of Risk Is Changing” Says Willis CEO Joe Plumeri

Risk has changed immeasurably over the past few decades. Anyone who has been trying to manage it knows that. Yesterday, speaking at the World Captive, Willis CEO and Chairman Joe Plumeri highlighted this phenomenon — and how it is making the jobs of risk managers that much harder.

“Traditional property/casualty risks endure,” said Plumeri, “but the nature of risk is changing … As the risk landscape evolves and includes both natural and man-made catastrophes, organizations need to build resilience against the unpredictable. Insurance serves as a powerful ally for organizations to tackle these new risks and in many ways, insurance is the bridge between anticipation and resilience.

Plumeri also broke down the history of the captive insurance, starting with its beginnings in the 1980s when companies increasingly found the traditional insurance market to be ineffective.

“The captive insurance industry has evolved and now offers a robust and effective approach to help firms become resilient in the face of unpredictable risks,” said Plumeri.

“Captives play a key role in the insurance industry, offering creative solutions for critical risks.”

We can expect those risks to only become more “creative.” Fortunately, the modern risk manager — if she is doing her job correctly — is one of the most creative problem solvers any organization can posses.
buy cipro online https://royalcitydrugs.com/cipro.html no prescription

The key, as Plumeri noted, is anticipation.

Can your creativity stay ahead of the changing nature of risk?

The Risks of Social Media: Developing a Social Media Crisis Response Plan

By now, we have seen it so many times: a company faces a crisis that was created entirely through social media. There are certainly many activist campaigns launched through Facebook, Twitter and blogs that bring negative attention to companies. But what really makes the most headlines is when companies bring a fiasco upon themselves.

buy zoloft online greendalept.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/zoloft.html no prescription pharmacy

We’ve discussed this previously, calling it “self-inflicted reputational damage” and it consists of a company either conjuring a crisis out of thin air or making a bad situation worse.

Take Kenneth Cole. Back in the early days of the Arab Spring, the company’s founder tweeted something insensitive that made light of the violent revolution that was taking place.

buy aricept online greendalept.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/aricept.html no prescription pharmacy

“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online,” tweeted Mr. Cole. The response was outrage from people worldwide on social media platforms and even the mainstream press detailing how the company had goofed.

Now, the fallout from this reputation wasn’t as financially damaging as, say, the PR nightmare following Toyota’s poor handling of its massive recall in 2010. But plenty of others have felt the increasingly influential power of social media.

buy synthroid online greendalept.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/synthroid.html no prescription pharmacy

Social Media Influence highlights the recent bad press Carnival Cruises and McDonalds have received.

Fortunately, they also have some advice for companies who suffer such a fate. Enter the social media crisis response plan. They have created the flow chart below to help guide your decision making after the worst occurs. Click here for a larger version then print it out, laminate it and put it on your wall.