Description: Book review of Extreme Risk Management: Revolutionary Approaches to Evaluating and Measuring Risk by author Christina Ray.

Description: This paper evaluates the current practice of operational risk management in the insurance sector. Operational risk is nothing new in insurance, but, because of regulatory requirements, companies have initiated computation of risk capital for their operational losses. The current effort to manage operational risk is not a naturally evolving phenomenon, and operational risk, in the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s Basel II definition, is unlikely to be a significant cause of insurers’ failure. In addition, the current Basel II definition of operational risk is not suitable for the insurance sector. Consequently, the invention of models and tools based on the definition is incomplete and illusionary. My findings are based on the analysis of dozens of interviews with insurance industry professionals. I demonstrate the way operational risk is quantified in practice, show that the result obtained from this computation is of littl e use in managerial decision making and propose a set of policy recommendations illustrating the characteristics of operational risk in insurance. This study can be used as a platform for launching dialogues to initiate fresh thinking about operational risk in insurance beyond the current artificial and narrow boundaries.

Description: This is the second of a two-part article introducing and elaborating an “Adaptor” strategy for ERM. Such a strategy is intended to fulfil two purposes: first, switching among four styles of risk-coping strategies in order to track qualitative changes in a business’s risk environment; and, second, to support the business in navigating with resilience through all the seasons of a business-economic cycle, i.e., of boom, bust, moderate, uncertain. This latter requires careful study of the nature of resilience, the familiar idea of bounce back, and the less familiar idea of bounce forward. Part I of our article is underpinned therefore by a supplementary document (available from https://riskviews.wordpress.com/adaptor-exceptionalism/), which addresses the issue of structural change in a business or economy. It draws heavily on ideas taken from the discipline of control engineering, as well as some from ecology, social anthropology, and economics. The entire two-part article is thus an exercise in cross-disciplinary Systems Thinking.

Description: European insurance regulation pretends to capture and rely on the 1-year 1-in-200 VaR. But there cannot exist any scientific calibration of such measure. Why?

Description: This article discusses how complex models can provide a false sense of security, hiding the evidence that the entire range of indications may hinge on one or two key assumptions.

Description: Complex models can provide a false sense of security, hiding the evidence that the entire range of indications may hinge on one or two key assumptions. Use data-driven assumptions, making sure the time series includes stressed environments when possible. If a model of underwriting risk indicates that the probability of accident year combined ratios experienced from 1998 to 2000 is remote, it is not a realistic model

Description: Commentary on practical observations resulting from constructing and running Economic Capital models. Possible standardization of assumptions and result interpretation are morphing even though use of E.C. models has now been around for years.

Description: The United States Geological Surv ey USGS released the latest version of its National Seismic Hazard Maps NSHM in April 2008. The maps, which were last updated in 2002, define the latest scientific view of earthquake hazard at varying probability levels across the United States.