Technology, AI and cyber dominate risk managers’ worries: Airmic survey

Technology, AI and cyber represent the biggest theme for risk managers in 2025, according to the results of the Airmic Survey 2025, unveiled yesterday at the Airmic annual conference in Liverpool this week.

This theme was followed by geopolitics, emerging risks, natural catastrophes and weather risks and risk financing and the use of captives.

“Recent cyber attacks on retailers in the UK have showed how important it is to have dynamic risk management which defends the organisation from the risk, rather than place an emphasis on the after-effects and response,” the Airmic report stated. 

The survey also confirmed that the growing cyber threat, driven by criminals and state actors becoming more sophisticated, has come against a backdrop of organisations struggling with increasing costs due to disruptions to complex global supply chains, geopolitics, regulation and volatility. “Artificial intelligence (AI) provides an opportunity to reduce costs, but it also creates several risks that need to be managed,” the report said.

It also noted that, for respondents operating businesses that depend largely on technology, their sense is that their organisation’s use of technology has been evolving at a more rapid rate than the insurance and risk industry can currently deal with. “This is leading them to seek new alternative risk transfer mechanisms, as will be discussed later in this section,” the report said.

Geopolitics force change

On the theme of geopolitics and geoeconomics, the survey suggested geopolitical risk can force wholesale changes to global businesses. It can create uncertainty for organisations, which may require them to pursue a different strategy. Geopolitics also directly affects economies which could increase costs for businesses and leave less disposable income for consumers. 

One survey respondent distilled the problem around geopolitics today as there being “too much tension and too little trust” between and within states.

Commenting on respondents’ worries on catastrophe and climate risks, the survey cited estimates that hurricanes, storms, floods and other natural disasters may cause $145 billion in insured losses in 2025. This would be nearly 6% up from 2024, already one of the costliest years on record.

“At the same time, global leadership on climate action is in real danger of faltering as world leaders are shunning the annual COP summits,” the report noted.

Emerging risks a worry

The report defined an emerging risk is one with “specific characteristics generated from change,” and “one that is not fully understood.” It can refer to risks that were “thought to be 

understood, but which are pushed to new extremes or into new contexts, where the limits of past understanding are exceeded”, the report stated. 

The report also noted that eEnergy costs – now a major factor when managing the business when they used to be “barely noticed” – was a risk cited by several survey respondents. Make UK, the industry body, has warned the UK needs to cut its industrial energy bills – the highest among major advanced economies – if aspirations for its manufacturing sector are to succeed. 

The report also noted that various sectors, especially those that are highly regulated, are facing a barrage of further regulation – which, for one survey respondent, would mean the cost of compliance risks diverting funds away from their core purpose and business. 

“Our survey respondents take the view that it is important for organisations to remain open and ready to explore opportunities, neutralise threats, while they seek to identify, understand and mitigate or even eliminate existing and emerging risks where possible,” the report noted.

Risk financing and captives

In terms of the final theme of risk financing and captives, the report noted that some respondents felt that their organisation’s use of technology had been evolving more quickly than for the wider insurance and risk industry, with the outcome that available solutions are lagging behind business needs.

“This has spawned concerns as to whether insurance is fit as a risk management tool for their organisations. For others, such concerns surface after they have refreshed their enterprise risk management frameworks, which has led them on a process of rethinking how they absorb the materialisation of risks, and whether their current insurance portfolio is still the best fit for their needs.”

Earlier this year, Airmic’s report on its inaugural survey on captives – called ‘Captives are integral to strategy’ – highlighted how captives are now a mainstream part of an agile, intelligent and resilient risk financing strategy regardless of insurance market conditions. “The use of captives for the incubation of emerging risks, blended catastrophe covers and sustainability projects is directly aligning the use of captives to the strategies of organisations in an increasingly connected, complex and fast-moving world,” the report said.

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