Category Archives: Political Risk

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Executive Focus Shifting to Operational Risks in 2015, Study Finds

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Board members and C-suite executives across industries perceive the global business environment in 2015 as somewhat less risky for organizations than in the past two years. In “Executive Perspectives on Top Risks for 2015,” consulting firm Protiviti and the Enterprise Risk Management Initiative at the North Carolina State Univeristy Poole College of Management found that this is far from bad news for risk managers, as organizations are actually more likely to invest additional resources for risk management. Internal challenges like succession, attracting and retaining talent, regulation and cybersecurity are drawing the most attention, according to the report.

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“Our survey findings indicate that operational risk issues are keeping many senior executives up at night,” said Mark Beasley, Deloitte Professor of Enterprise Risk Management and NC State ERM Initiative director. Indeed, for the third consecutive year, regulatory changes and heightened regulatory scrutiny ranked as the number one risk on the minds of board members and corporate executives, with 67% indicating that it will “significantly impact” their organizations. More than half of global survey respondents indicated that insufficient preparation to manage cybersecurity threats is a risk that will “significantly impact” their organizations in 2015, pushing cyberrisk up three spots from last year to the third-greatest risk.

The Top 10 Risks for 2015

The top 10 risks identified in the annual risk survey, along with the percentages of respondents who identified each risk as having a “Significant Impact” on their business, were:

1. Regulatory changes and heightened regulatory scrutiny may affect the manner in which our products or services will be produced or delivered (67%)

2. Economic conditions in markets we currently serve may significantly restrict growth opportunities for our organization (56%)

3. Our organization may not be sufficiently prepared to manage cyber threats that have the potential to significantly disrupt our core operations and/or damage our brand (53%)

4. Our organization’s succession challenges and ability to attract and retain top talent may limit our ability to achieve operational targets (56%)

5. Our organization’s culture may not sufficiently encourage the timely identification and escalation of risk issues that have the potential to significantly affect our core operations and achievement of strategic objectives (51%)

6. Resistance to change may restrict our organization from making necessary adjustments to the business model and core operations (49%)

7. Ensuring privacy/identity management and information security/system protection may require significant resources for us (52%)

8. Our organization may not be sufficiently prepared to manage an unexpected crisis significantly impacting our reputation (46%)

9. Sustaining customer loyalty and retention may be increasingly difficult due to evolving customer preferences and/or demographic shifts in our existing customer base (48%)

10. Our existing operations may not be able to meet performance expectations related to quality, time to market, cost and innovation as well as our competitors (46%)

The survey also identified differing perceptions of the current risk environment between boards of directors and members of the executive team. CEOs and boards of directors reported more optimism about risk issues, while CFOs and chief audit executives perceived a more risky business environment.

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“Given encouraging signs in the economy, we’ve observed an overall shift in focus from macroeconomic risks to operational risks, which had the greatest increase in risk scores from 2014.

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Notably, however, CEO respondents remained extremely focused on macro trends affecting their business,” Beasley said.

Check out the infographic below for more of the study’s key findings:

Protiviti Top Risks for 2015

What Proposed Changes to U.K. Counter-Terror Laws Mean for Your K&R Policy

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With insurers facing increased scrutiny over indemnity payments from the U.K. government, there could be consequences for companies who regularly put their employees into harm’s way.

When she announced plans for new laws in the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill, Home Secretary Theresa May cited UN estimates that ransom payments have raised up to £28 million ($42 million) for militant group ISIS in the past 12 months.

Observers often ask if the existence of kidnap and ransom (K&R) insurance itself encourages kidnapping for ransom. But for corporate risk managers, the debate is immaterial. They must protect employees and ensure that jobs in danger zones remain attractive to new recruits.

May’s bill amendments, which will be inserted into the Terrorism Act 2000 if passed, do present a potential challenge to the established order and highlight the pivotal role of response consultants (AKA hostage negotiators).

How does K&R actually work?

K&R insurance typically covers against losses related to kidnap incidents, particularly ransoms, lost earnings and the costs for an outsourced expert agency whose job is to handle the case and advise the policyholder on the negotiations. However, the indemnification is only paid out to the policyholders retrospectively, after the hostage situation is over. With such an approach, insurers on the one hand prevent ransom payments spiraling out of control and, on the other hand, remain in the grey area of section 17 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

The new amendments

Under May’s new section 17A, it is now clear that the insurer commits an offense if “it knows or has reasonable cause to suspect” that payments will be handed over in response to a demand made for the benefit of a proscribed organization.

The question for their response consultants will therefore be how much notice they can give their assureds as to whom they are dealing with. Historically, negotiations for release could be made without resorting to identifying the culprit, but now the insurer will have to make sure that they are not engaging with a terrorist on Whitehall’s blacklist.

As of Nov. 28, 2014, there were 74 international terrorist organizations listed under the Terrorism Act 2000. However, a large number of organizations associated with kidnappings are not on the list, which, with a few exceptions, focuses on organizations from Northern Ireland and those operating in the MENASA Region (Middle East, North Africa and South Asia). Of course, kidnappings have increased in the Middle East in recent years, but most kidnappings worldwide are still taking place in Central and South America and Central and Southern Africa. Although the new law only targets proscribed organizations from the MENASA region, insurers have to remain attentive since the home secretary may add organizations to the list at any time.

One thing which hopefully will remain protected are the fees and costs that hostage negotiators charge; this is a critical part of the industry’s service to a market believed to include at least 80% of the Fortune 500 as its clientele.

K&R still valid

From a company’s perspective, K&R is certainly still a valid class of business. There should not be any effect on pricing as the underlying risk has not changed.

However, if your policy is led by insurers domiciled in the U.K., those insurers may be less likely to indemnify kidnappings where the culprits may be loosely associated with a proscribed group. Equivalent insurers in other territories may be less restrained, so some insureds may elect to have their business placed outside the U.K., particularly if they have workers who are frequently operating in the MENASA region.

It is important to understand that corporations are also not allowed to fund payments. From a risk management perspective, where companies do wish to ensure they are able to lawfully pay ransom demands to release their employees, they need to consider in which jurisdictions they should be located so as to lawfully pay ransoms. On a practical level, they need to review with their response companies what protocols they use to identify or qualify the identity of kidnappers who allege, possibly incorrectly, that they are affiliated to terror groups.

The proposed offence aimed at insurers provides:

17A Insurance against payments made in response to terrorist demands

(1) The insurer under an insurance contract commits an offence if –

(A) the insurer makes a payment under the contract or purportedly under it,

(B) the payment is made in respect of any money or other property that has been or is to be, handed over in response to a demand made wholly or partly for the purposes of terrorism, and

(C) the insurer or the person authorising the payment on the insurer’s behalf knows or has reasonably cause to suspect that the money or other property has been, or is to be, handed over in response to such a demand.

This article was originally posted at Airmic.com

A Race against the Clock to Address TRIA Issues

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Failure by the Senate to reauthorize the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) has left unanswered questions for insurance buyers facing renewals on terrorism coverage—which some in the insurance industry are scrambling to answer.

Because TRIA renewal was recently passed by a majority in the House of Representatives, the industry was optimistic about its renewal before its expiration. But at this point, the Dec. 31 deadline looms large.

AIR-Worldwide explained in an email notice that commercial insurers will no longer be required to offer terrorism coverage beginning Jan. 1. Without a federal backstop, they said, insurers may seek to limit underwriting for high concentrations of risks in major cities. This could cause terrorism insurance coverage to become unavailable or unaffordable.

AIR continued:

Insurers that do continue to offer commercial terrorism insurance would likely be required to maintain higher capital standards in order to avoid negative rating implications. Where coverage for terrorism-related events is still available, prices for this coverage will increase.

In the absence of TRIA, the workers’ compensation insurance market would be particularly vulnerable to terror attack losses. State workers compensation statutes offer insurers less flexibility to control terrorism risk through modifications such as policy limits or coverage exclusions. With or without TRIA, it is mandatory for U.S. employers to provide workers’ compensation coverage. If coverage is not available, employers may be forced to purchase insurance in the residual markets or self-insure.

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This could result in large amounts of risk being transferred to the residual market in a few states.

Allowing TRIA to expire would have widespread implications, not only for the insurance industry, but also for the broader economy. Construction and real estate business sectors may be unable to obtain financing without adequate terrorism coverage in place. If insurers limit underwriting following an expiration of TRIA, businesses with high concentrations of employees could have difficulty obtaining coverage for workers’ compensation, including higher education institutions, hotels, airports, hospitals, and financial services, among many others.

In an advisory to its clients, Willis addressed considerations and offered preliminary guidance.

The broker noted several scenarios, depending on how a company has organized its terrorism risk transfer program:

• For terrorism coverage that is currently embedded in all-risk property, liability and workers compensation programs there are three potential scenarios:

1. If there are no sunset clauses–contract provisions which may allow the insurer to exclude coverage for terrorism in the event that TRIA is not reauthorized–or reservation of rights clauses related to TRIA expiration, the program will run until its natural expiration. Market disruption may impact renewal pricing if no action has been taken on TRIA.

2. If there is a TRIA-related sunset clause, the terrorism coverage will expire after Dec.

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31. Policyholders should assess the need for insurance coverage and seek stand-alone coverage or a sunset clause extension.

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3. If there is a reservation of rights which allows carriers to modify the terrorism coverage as a result of TRIA expiration, a coverage extension should be negotiated if possible, and stand-alone alternatives should be sought.

• Stand-alone Terrorism coverage – In this case, Willis said it does not anticipate immediate changes due to TRIA’s expiration. This is because most stand-alone placements do not have sunset clauses or reservation of rights endorsements related to TRIA expiration. While there may be market disruption to consider at renewal, for the time being, TRIA is a non-issue for these placements.

• Captives – In all cases where it places terrorism reinsurance behind a captive program, Willis said the reinsurance arrangement this year has been organized to convert from quota share reinsurance of the captive—when a primary insurer and reinsurer establish a fixed percentage for sharing amounts of insurance, premiums and losses—to primary reinsurance of the captive (in anticipation of TRIA’s expiration). Reinsurance coverage agreements should be read carefully to determine the new limit. The new primary limits are likely to approximate their existing quota share capacity. Willis recommends that any capacity that does convert should remain as reinsurance of the captive. This would maintain captive involvement, should TRIA be reauthorized in early 2015, and avoid any direct self-procurement or frictional costs during the transition. A program may also include excess capacity which, in many cases, should drop down to provide excess over revised captive limits, Willis advised.

Ukraine Crisis Poses Business Disruption Risk

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For any organization with involvement in Russian territory, recently imposed sanctions due to the unpopular Crimean conflict introduces new potential complications affecting operations, supply chain, personnel and communications. The federation is becoming more assertive, bold and confrontational in areas ranging from financial investment to geographic dominance. As a result, there is now a legitimate and immediate reason for evaluating the strength of foreign operational resiliency and sustainability in the context of Russian sanctions.

Fundamental Crisis
Recently, the U.S. passed a bill with overwhelming majority to solidify sanctions over Russia for its forced annexation of Crimea. According to the New York Times, the Obama administration listed 17 banks, energy companies, and investment accounts in its attempts to restrict Russian involvement with the United States. These particular sanctions will freeze any assets in the United States and bar U.S. citizens from doing business with the individuals and firms listed. Additionally, the United States will cut off the export or re-export of American-made products to 13 of the sanctioned companies and will deny export licenses for high-tech products potentially used by the Russian military.

Implications for Risk Managers
Among myriad potential disruptions, a dominant cause for concern during the Crimean conflict is now disruption of connectivity, both locally and at scale. Given the nature of the new “cloud economy” and virtual infrastructure most businesses rely upon, one potential impact of Russian sanctions could be to the fragile structure of the new interconnected world.

The shutdown of communications lines means inaccessibility with international operations and IT servers.

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A loss of network could be significant and substantial. However detrimental this would be, loss of physical network (such as personnel) can be just as damaging, and planning for consequences of this nature often take far more ingenuity than utilizing a simple off-site data backup center.

The Human Network
People are often the most valued and unique asset an organization must protect. If particular sanctions impede the right of Western workers to hold employment in Russia, this could mean inevitable cuts to staff, layoffs and displacement as the company pursues relocation to an unsanctioned territory.

The case of an international workforce disruption raises other questions for companies to consider. For example, how do we replace people? Can we reassign processes? Is there a way to efficiently cross-train or retrain personnel who are still here?

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Have we spoken with local managers, contractors, and operation people to find out what is a critical process or component, and what is not?  These questions will give businesses a framework to move forward.

How are Experts Responding?
Methodically outlining potential risks prior to the events actually happening is key obviously, but oftentimes visualizing scenarios of this nature is tricky. It is impossible to predict exactly what will happen, but in a worse case scenario (specifically relating to Ukraine), any fallout between the West and Russia could result in trade sanctions affecting everything from banks, to human resources, to communication infrastructure.

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Understanding this and moving forward with a contingent plan of action for Russian operations will create a less threatening situation and a more stabilized outcome for businesses who are affected.

Writing on the Wall
As organizations look for answers among the uncertainty that is currently playing out in Russia and Ukraine, one thing is absolute; businesses survive and succeed in fragile situations when a culture of resiliency is embraced. Contingency plans are useless if there isn’t the knowledge, experience and understanding of how to use them.

Sanctions are nothing new and neither is business disruption due to political conflict, though, if any highlight were to come from the current situation in Russia and Ukraine, it would be the need to proactively respond to imminent threats towards business continuity. In reality, for multinational companies heavily invested in the region at this point, there no longer is a choice.