Description: Full version of Risk Management, November 2004, Issue No. 3.

Description: Cyber threats and their costs are a continuously evolving, moving target and a source of uncertainty.

Description: Based on interviews with C-level executives, this report offers insights on the role and actions of the global insurance industry in addressing climate change

Description: The cyber insurance market looks like it’s growing—rapidly, in fact. However, there’s more to the cyber insurance market than the outward appearance of strong growth. Worldwide aggregate premium’s upward trend may even be cause for alarm. The increase in premium against a flat rate of insured exposure is a key sign that the market could turn from growth to constriction if a solution isn’t found in the near future. If the cyber insurance sector hopes to reach such lofty goals as exceeding $30 billion in global premium by 2028, it’s going to need more capital. Whether directly into the insurance sector or via support from reinsurance and retrocession, fresh capital should help insurers achieve greater market penetration, build a broader foundation for ongoing expansion, and chart a course for long-term sustainable profitable growth. The same sources capital insurers have used since the early days of the market won’t be enough, though. Thankfully, the insurance linked securities (ILS) market seems poised to help, particularly with several promising recent transactions. New sources of capital could bolster the foundation for future cyber re/insurance growth.

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: Emerging risks surprise us, they sneak up on us, and after they occur everyone wonders why we didn’t anticipate them in the first place. Hindsight is, indeed, 20/20. Try to recall how often you thought about the likelihood of the most recent financial bubble or a recent natural disaster prior to its occurrence. Even if you were aware of it and wanted to take action, the markets were unlikely to recognize the risk

Description: The problem and largest challenge with systemic risk identification and management is that high-risk activities and high-risk companies are often identified only with hindsight. This article identifies risk factors and proposes a framework for systemic risk management that can be applied in advance by regulators, company management, and other stakeholders

Description: Climate risk modeling is taking center stage. With businesses increasingly expected to show how they assess, adapt to, and mitigate the risks of climate change, companies are asking: What is the right climate risk modeling approach for our business?

Description: The article provides a high-level, non-technical, introduction to artificial neural networks (ANNs) and deep learning with an application to risk management. The method relies on typical ANN components such as nodes, activation functions, and optimization through gradient descent.

Description: Read the December 2017 issue of Risk Management published by the Joint Risk Management Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.