PARIMA: uniting risk managers in Asia

There is considerable scope for elevating the profession of risk management in Asia, both in terms of the way companies view the value and importance of the role and also in terms of the training opportunities available to risk managers.

That is the view of Franck Baron, chairman of the Pan-Asian Risk & Insurance Management Association (PARIMA) which was formed 18 months ago with the purpose of engaging with risk managers in the region.

“The maturity of risk management in Asia is lower compared to risk management in Europe and America, to the extent that in a lot of corporations and organisations in Asia nobody has the title of risk manager,” he said.

“Those who have the title of risk manager are often purely in the enterprise risk management side of it, and they don’t deal with insurance. Those who are dealing with insurance are often relatively low in the organisation’s hierarchy.”

Baron said that PARIMA aims to change that by helping the community of risk managers reach the next level, where they are properly recognised and positioned. As part of this PARIMA will help risk managers develop their skills, experience and their ability to raise important risk management issues at the right level in their organisations.

“We have a strong community of insurers and reinsurers in Asia—it’s time to have a strong community of risk managers, of insurance buyers,” he said.

“The first step is to give people a professional association, which means that what you do as an insurance buyer is not just a discipline, it’s a profession.”

With that in mind PARIMA has developed awareness-raising events, as well as meetings for the sharing of knowledge on topics such as cyber risk, natural hazards, catastrophes and supply chain disruption.

The association will also hold its first conference in Singapore on December 8 and 9.

“It will gather 500 people—it’s going to be the first risk management conference in Asia so we are quite excited about it,” said Baron. “There will be plenary sessions with top speakers, equipping people with the knowledge they need to do their jobs.” A formalised educational structure will follow in the next year.

He added that in the less mature markets there is often a need to move away from a price-sensitive focus towards a more detailed approach.

“We want to show that insurance buying is a sophisticated process—not just a boring, administrative task.”