A new generation of risk managers is more willing to self-insure

A new generation of risk managers trained specifically in the role and with a deep understanding of risk and risk transfer is reevaluating how they use insurance, increasingly preferring to manage and self-insure their own risks instead of relying on the open market. While this is a threat to insurers, it constitutes a natural evolution that will give rise to opportunities.

That is the view of Nir Kossovsky, chief executive of Steel City Re, a specialist in understanding, managing, and insuring reputational risk, which it primarily does by reinsuring captives. He says that a shift is taking place within the profession, whereby an established, reactive approach to risk management is being replaced with this new thinking coming from new entrants to the profession, many of whom have dedicated risk management degrees and other qualifications.