The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has impacted businesses all over the world, emphasising the importance of risk management. GIBA senior broker Tanya Kliese (pictured) believes that brokers should prioritise reducing their clients’ exposure to risk, especially as global threats keep emerging.
Kliese (pictured) has been involved with risk management for more than a decade. She was introduced to risk management reporting when she served as an account executive at Aon, where she identified, analysed, and evaluated her clients’ insurable and non-insurable risks.
“We provided risk mitigation recommendations to our larger corporate clients. This experience provided me with a high-level look at our clients’ potential exposures across various risk factors. It became evident that knowledge of their potential risk exposures provided greater power to the client,” Kliese shared. “As an insurance broker, one of our main priorities is to reduce our clients’ exposure to risk. Risk management is one way this can be achieved.”
With natural disasters hitting Australia heavily over the last year, Kliese noted that business owners have become more aware of the importance of having a working disaster recovery plan to ensure the sustainability of their business. Thankfully, brokers can help clients make informed business decisions by outlining possible threats to their business.
“If [clients] are aware of the threats to their business, [they could come up with] procedures and recovery plans to ensure these threats do not compromise the success of their business in the future. These measures are particularly helpful to the survival of your client’s business when an unexpected disaster or event occurs,” she explained.
However, some clients might not be keen on facing potential risks nor believe that a disaster would impact their business.
“This can be overcome by doing your research and providing your clients with knowledge and understanding of the risks and hazards specific to their business. Once risks have been identified and evaluated, you can emphasize risk management’s benefits on your client’s business - including their relationships with their customers, staff, and the financial savings it can provide them,” Kliese advised.
She finds uncertainty over risks and keeping up with emerging threats to be the most significant challenge a company could face, so the industry must evolve its risk management solutions to meet the ever-changing global landscape.
“Some level of protection can be obtained through the right insurance program. My job is to provide the right insurance cover option to my client and highlight any uninsured exposures,” she continued.
Kliese advised brokers to learn from recent disasters and adopt better techniques and solutions to mitigate their clients’ risks in the future. She also urged the industry to make risk management accessible to all clients via online facilitation.
“The coronavirus pandemic has posed one of the biggest challenges for business owners both within Australia and around the world. Risk management and disaster recovery planning need to evolve to respond to these emerging global threats,” she said. “We now must include pandemic preparedness, given the great economic impact this has had to all Australian businesses and our community. We need to be proactive, look forward, research, and collaborate to find new solutions on how our clients can mitigate future threats.”
“By providing clients with your risk management expertise, you can provide some peace of mind. You will arm your clients with knowledge and action plans that can assist them in the face of disaster. Through risk management, you can directly impact the future of Australian businesses and ensure their livelihood is sustained,” Kliese concluded.
