Insurers announce new micro consortium
A group of leading insurance companies has announced that they have formed a micro consortium in a bid to provide risk management services to underserved emerging markets. The consortium members are American International Group, Inc., Aspen Insurance Holdings Limited, Catlin Group Limited LLC, Guy Carpenter & Company, LLC together with Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., Hamilton Insurance Group, Ltd., Transatlantic Reinsurance Company, X.L. Group, plc, and Zurich Insurance Group. The move was announced yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Are CEOs even concerned about climate change?
Shareholders in oil firms including BP and Shell are putting pressure on executives to explain how their business plan fits with targets on reducing global warming but do business leaders actually care? A survey of CEOs undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers at The World Economic Forum in Switzerland has this year dropped a question about climate change. Why? Because last year only 10 per cent showed any concern about the issue. Over-regulation is the top concern of the business leaders says PwC with 78 per cent saying it puts growth at risk, lack of skills in the workforce, cyber threats, government debt management and geopolitical unrest are also high on the list.
Risk management difficult for family-run businesses
A new survey assesses the risk management challenges faced by family businesses. The Family Enterprise Risk Index has been created by risk and insurance advisor Crystal & Co along with Family Office Metrics. The poll discovered that only 31 per cent of family businesses identify risk through structured processes, this is despite respondents showing a high level of awareness of the potential risks. Family firms are particularly concerned about succession planning, reputational damage and cyber attacks. They are also mindful of issues surrounding their philanthropic activities. Crystal & Co is a family business and its executive president and CFO Jonathan HF Crystal told The Wall Street Journal that he isn’t surprised by the lack of preparedness but says that his own experience shows that having structured procedures in place is important: “So much of what we see is dispute, litigation and other messy things that can tear families apart. We want to identify what we can do to make those outcomes less likely.”
