Database

Evidence from: liability exposure scenarios The Arium software uses official trade data to identify links between generators of risk, and via the product supply chain, the injured party. By adding liability insights, the hazard scenario can be tailored to explore the  most likely routes to exposure, i.e. a risk scenario. Sum limits and sum premium can be explicitly calculated from the insurance portfolio. The method is transparent, stress testable, reviewable and auditable. Calculations are analytical in nature. It is just algebra. The tool is ideally suited to the assessment of emerging liability risks. All you need is a scenario based on the state of knowledge. The scenario can be refined as knowledge develops. The Radar service is a great source of data for the development of scenarios. The next thing to do is supply Radar subscribers with pre-made scenarios on a number of emerging liability risks. These will be modified as and when new data emerges. Changes in exposure projections

This week sees global leaders getting together to talk about investment, market and legal mechanisms that may be applied to the political problem called climate change. It is a complex problem, made more complex by the rhetoric of belief vs.denial and self-interest vs.tribalism. Heated exchanges may be giving way to objective rationality. At the recent ABI conference there was a session on climate change, engineered to garner insurance industry support for a 2 degree pledge. Four famous promoters of the pledge took to the stage. Useful oral contributions included: Investment in the Energy Giants may have a limited shelf life, so better consider the resilience of investment income. (I noticed that no timescale was offered). Investments in other major industry players might be better placed if those players could state how much risk they were exposed to if the climate were to change as anticipated. (I wondered that of course the Officers of such firms are only obliged to declare material

Insurers are well on the way to making strategic assessments of IT-related exposures. Most have focused on malicious attack but this leaves out half of the events which could give rise to an insurable loss in traditional insurance products. Many of these losses would be correlated. Potential correlations can be identified through scenario analysis. But first you need a comprehensive picture of your policies and what triggers them. The enclosed methodology provides a systematic approach. cyber evaluation

Our website now includes a link to an insurance assessment tool for nano materials. Those materials which have a significant opportunity to cause nano-related harm are identified if they score above the range 80 to 100. The current advice is that insurers be told of such materials and their actual or intended uses. Initial sense-testing suggests that more than 75% of nano materials would score at below this threshold range (80-100) and thus far  the tool agrees with 18 out of 19 authoritative published assessments. There is a difference of opinion about nano silver. The properties assessed in the tool are: size range, persistence, accessibility, agglomeration, ionic forms and fibre size (where applicable). Responsible manufacturers will have this information as part of their product quality assurance system. Properties such as carcinogenicity, biocidal potential and sensitization are assessed separately as there is no validated nano-specific prediction yet available. As the science dev

Evidence from: http://www.epa.gov/oppt/nano/ March 25, 2015 — As part of the Agency’s effort to ensure a more comprehensive understanding of nanoscale materials in commerce, EPA proposed one-time reporting and recordkeeping requirements under TSCA section 8(a). This proposed rule would require that companies that manufacture certain chemical substances already in commerce as nanoscale materials notify EPA of information including production volume, methods of manufacture and processing, exposure and release information, and available health and safety data… EPA would use information gathered through this reporting rule to determine if any further action under TSCA, including additional information collection, is needed. EPA will accept comments on the proposed rule for 90 days after the date of publication in the Federal Register. Comment The proposal would be more useful if the burden of reporting was risk based. In our view, the great majority of nano materials coul

Evidence from: https://sm.britsafe.org/uncertain-climate-business-risk-resilience Proportionate risk management begins by identifying what you can afford to lose and yet still meet your business objectives. The same is true in the context of climate change. There is no need to get precise predictions about future weather patterns – much can be achieved by looking at the here and now. The article includes several examples of making the appropriate measure of resilience. For example, how many successive days of downtime can you afford, how late can a key delivery be, how far from spec can a new component be. Some of these are obviously affected by weather. A flood can cause shut-down and delayed delivery. Once you have measured your resilience you need to decide how much you should invest, or insure, to reduce that hazard to acceptable levels. High capital infrastructures probably need to be defended, highly mobile businesses don’t need to be defended but do need to know to w