Innovation is big concern for risk managers

Lack of innovation is the biggest complaint that risk managers have about the insurance industry according to the latest annual poll of Airmic members. It was chosen by 26 percent of those who took part when asked which of 15 aspects of the market most concerned them.

Some 17 percent were most worried by issues related to how and whether claims are paid by insurers, while 14 percent cited the compliance of international insurance programs. The issue of ‘broker conflicts of interest and remuneration models’ was mentioned by just 8 percent.

Once at the top of the list of buyer complaints, it is clearly not the hot topic it once was, but has not entirely disappeared.

An illustration of the gap in the market’s ability to cover much of the corporate risk map relates to reputation. This was identified as a top-five priority by more than half the risk managers, coming second to catastrophe events. Yet only 11 percent of those who felt reputation to be important had bought insurance for it. The reasons for not doing so were overwhelmingly lack of availability (59 percent) and inadequate coverage (37 percent).

“These results show that we have been right to engage with the market about better product innovation,” said Airmic chief executive John Hurrell. “I understand the difficulties that insurers face, but in my view underwriters need to be bolder. There’s a huge gap there for underwriters to fill if they can get it right.”