Can insurers unite with governments against common threats?
The August 2022 issue of NU Property & Casualty magazine honors a proactive approach to mitigating risks.
Recently in the mood for some escapism, I streamed a sci-fi movie about people-eating aliens that attempt to overtake Earth. The film required viewers to suspend belief around any number of plot twists, however one detail resonated with me — a former student of international diplomacy. It was the hopeful idea that all the nations of the world could unite against a common threat.
The residue of this idealism remained in my mind a few days later as I read the results of the annual Global Claims Review 2022 generated by Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS). The report assesses the top causes of insurance claims based on data from more than 200 countries and provides direction around the risks insurers should be monitoring. It incorporated 534,456 corporate claims with a total value of more than $90 billion.
The top drivers of these losses will come as little surprise to seasoned insurance pros: Fire and explosions top the list followed by natural catastrophes, faulty workmanship, plane crashes, mechanical breakdowns, defective products, shipping problems, negligence and water damage.
“Businesses must navigate an increasingly complex risk landscape,” AGCS researchers write in the report’s executive summary. In addition to “having to combat the threat posed by natural catastrophes and manmade hazards, companies must deal with the demands of a less forgiving regulatory and legal environment, emerging risks posed by our growing reliance on technology and, of course, the challenges that issues such as the Ukraine conflict and rising inflation bring.”
I’m struck by the organic nature of risk, and the idea that successful businesses are responsive and adaptive to changes in their environment.
This proactive approach to mitigating risk and responding to loss events is well demonstrated by the three winners of the 2022 Workers’ Comp Risk Management Award for Excellence.
Within the Los Angeles Unified School District, for instance, supporting injured employees and getting them back to work quickly requires risk managers to learn as much as possible about each worker’s responsibilities and consistently make program adjustments based on employee feedback.
At TC Transcontinental Packaging, risk managers realized in recent years that their work would be most effective if they teamed up with the company’s safety managers.
And at Lumen Technologies, Inc., risk managers focus their efforts on getting injured workers the best possible care so claimants can expeditiously return to their jobs and families.
Each of these award winners is profiled in the August 2022 issue of NU Property & Casualty magazine. Their stories illustrate the power of high-functioning teams as well as the pivotal role that workers’ comp programs and professionals play in the overall success of any business.
Their stories are far from the only articles in this issue that provide useful takeaways. You also can read about how regulators and insurance technologists recently teamed up to strategize climate-change solutions, the importance of safeguarding any company’s intangible assets, and how insurance agencies can best prepare for the next financial storm.
The topics outlined in these articles may not be as sensational as people-eating aliens, but they do highlight the inarguable power of putting hands and heads together to solve urgent problems. I, for one, will continue to hope that leaders worldwide will see their way to doing the same to address the most urgent threats of our time.
And that’s what’s top of mind for me this month.
Read additional columns by Elana Ashanti Jefferson: