Chubb and NCMM explore risks facing middle market companies
Chubb and the National Center for the Middle Market published their findings from a middle market indicator report.
Chubb recently published a summary of findings from its middle market indicator (MMI) report with the National Center for the Middle Market (NCMM), which is housed at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business.
The latest poll was conducted in the second quarter of 2019 and explored macro trends — both current and emerging — plus business risks within the middle market. The summary measured past and predicted revenue growth, employment growth, economic confidence levels and business investment.
In a statement, Chubb said that many executives polled continued to express a conservative, optimistic outlook, with respondents reporting strong confidence in their local (89%; up from 88% in Q1) and national U.S. (82%; up from 80% in Q1) economies, with less confidence (69%; down slightly from 70% in Q1) and greater uncertainty about global conditions.
The MMI “measures the pulse of this important business segment across industries, signaling macro trends, gauging the perception of risk, and highlighting specific challenges evident within each industry,” said Paul Lewis, North America industry practice leader for commercial insurance at Chubb. “With these insights, Chubb can better-serve middle market enterprises on the types of risk they face and how to best guard against them.”
Fifty percent of survey respondents said that they believed that risk for their company would increase over the coming year (up one percent from Q1), while 49% said that they believed that risk within their industry would trend higher over the same time period (up from 42% in Q1).
Top concerns among executives polled included:
- Cybersecurity: 47%; up from 46% in Q1
- Legal, regulatory, or compliance risk: 41%; up from 35% in Q1
- State of the economy as it relates to growth: 40%; up from 32% in Q1
- Competitive risks, whether domestic or new/disruptive competitors: 39%; up from 35% in Q1
“The middle market is vast, comprised of businesses across all industry segments and geographies, and represents 33 percent of private sector gross domestic product within the U.S.,” said Thomas A. Stewart, the NCMM’s executive director. “With more than $10 trillion in annual revenue, and representing one third of jobs within the U.S., the middle market is an important economic engine. By better-understanding the economic landscape along with emerging opportunities and risks, this segment can achieve new levels of performance, efficiency, and optimization.”
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