European Risk Frontiers survey already throwing up surprising results

Our annual european risk Frontiers survey of Europe’s leading risk managers, sponsored again by HDI Global, is this year being expanded to include a wider range of risk professionals by adding snap polls at industry events and online Q&As with our readers.

This approach has already produced some interesting results that we believe will pose serious questions for the insurance sector, in particular, this year.

The survey has previously been based on roundtables with leading European risk management associations, or one-on-one interviews with top risk and insurance managers. We feel this delivers more interesting findings than simply carrying out an online poll that may involve a far higher number of participants but cannot dig as deeply into the topics as one would like. The face-to-face discussions also enable us, as host of the debate, to work out what really matters to the risk and insurance management community.

But this year we will bolster these discussions with quantitative research. Last month, we carried out such a poll at Anra’s annual general meeting in Milan with 62 of the Italian association’s members. It threw up some interesting findings.

The question about whether risk managers would prefer cyber coverage to be added to existing property and liability lines or as standalone cover, for example, produced exactly the opposite answer that we would have expected during a face-to-face group discussion.

We asked whether the participants felt they had adequate cyber cover and more than two thirds (77.4%) said no – not really a surprise there. But when asked whether they would prefer standalone cyber cover or have it added to existing lines, some 66.1% said they would prefer standalone.

The German risk management association – GVNW – asked exactly the same question during its recent survey of members on cyber insurance that was presented at its excellent event in Cologne, also late last month. It received the same response.

This question has cropped up in roundtable discussions and at our events in the past, and the vast majority of participants say they would prefer cyber cover to be added to existing lines. This is partly because they feel that standalone cyber cover has been created simply to create a new business line for insurers and brokers, at a time of stubbornly low rates and tough markets.

Logic would suggest that maybe something has changed. Perhaps, Europe’s risk managers have worked out that this risk is so important now that the clarity and certainty provided by standalone cover overrides the extra cost considerations.

Or maybe the insurance market has just done a great job in marketing the need for standalone cover – aided by the lawyers and other experts who also see a big opportunity for new business growth and who stress the potential for gaps when cyber is added as a bolt-on to existing lines.

I am sure this will be a hot topic of discussion during this year’s European Risk Frontiers survey. The project starts this month and will carry on until September, involving risk management associations in Portugal, Spain, France, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, the Nordics, the UK and Germany.

The online survey questions will be shortly posted to our website so you can complete that part of the survey quickly and easily there.

Back to top button