Allianz has issued its annual “risk barometer” – which identifies the top 10 risks for the upcoming year based on a survey of nearly 2800 brokers, underwriters, senior managers and claims experts in the corporate insurance sector. It’s always a helpful read for identifying macro trends and issue spotting for your risk factors, although of course you need to tailor those to explain how the macro factors specifically affect your business.
“Business interruption” has been the top risk for 5 of the last 6 years – last year was the exception, with people worrying that cybersecurity would be the thing that kept us up at night in 2020. For 2021, “business interruption” is back at the top – which seems prescient in light of this week’s power grid failure in Texas and the SEC’s informal reminders to companies that they should have contingency plans to be able to carry on operations during emergencies. The risk of a pandemic outbreak is #2. Cyber incidents are hanging in there at #3 and are considered a potential “Black Swan.”
Here’s an excerpt:
When asked which change caused by the pandemic will most impact businesses, Allianz Risk Barometer respondents cited the acceleration towards greater digitalization, followed by more remote working, growth in the number of insolvencies, restrictions on travel/less business travel and increasing cyber risk. All these consequences will influence business interruption risks in the coming months and years.
The knock-on effects of the pandemic can also be seen further down the rankings in this year’s Risk Barometer. A number of the climbers in 2021 – such as market developments, macroeconomic developments and political risks and violence – are in large part a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak. For example, the pandemic was accompanied by civil unrest in the US related to the Black Lives Matter movement, while anti-government protest movements simmer in parts of Latin America, Middle East and Asia, driven by inequality and a lack of democracy. Rising insolvency rates could also affect supply chains.
All that said, only 3% of survey participants were worried about a pandemic at this time last year. So, one of the main takeaways I gleaned this year was that it’s pretty difficult to predict the “next big thing.”
-Liz Dunshee, TheCorporateCounsel.net February 19, 2021
