NEW YORK–The challenge for global insurance clients today is to understand the risks they face and turn them into a competitive advantage, a top brokerage executive told an industry meeting.

Brian M. Storms, Marsh Inc.'s chairman and chief executive, gave that advice yesterday in speaking to the Association of Professional Insurance Women meeting here.

Mr. Storms said in the world of risk today threats appear to be growing daily and involve “volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous” areas ranging from the economic to environmental to geopolitical concerns.

However, in a recent report released by Marsh on the subject, researchers found that there is a fundamental disconnect between recognizing risk and finding answers to mitigate the risks.

“The mechanisms for managing risk are strangely inadequate,” he noted, adding, “Inaction in the face of global risk is not an option.”

While understanding these risks can “sometimes seem overwhelming,” clients today need to anticipate risks they have never seen before, said Mr. Storms.

A lot of the new risk elements stem from globalization and the interrelation of companies' supply chains. Corporate clients are working to “be ruthlessly efficient,” he said, with just-in-time supply chains. This new business philosophy can be easily disrupted by a terror attack or pandemic, for example, he observed.

Clients, he said, need to actively work through these issues and determine how best to protect themselves.

“It is clear that there is a tremendous amount of work, but it is [also] clear that companies that think this way, and act this way, are in a strong competitive position in the world,” Mr. Storms said.

What is most important, he stressed, is to understand what are uninsurable risks and develop creative solutions for those risks. He warned against “the risk du jour,” saying, “You cannot effectively run a company by getting caught up in every event. You just can't plan for every event.”

Planning for risk, according to Mr. Storms, needs to focus on the worst and most disruptive case. This task, he said, can no longer be left simply to risk managers and other midlevel executives, but needs to be taken up by corporate chief executives and the board of directors.

The more stakeholders involved in the evaluation of risk, he continued, the greater the ability of a corporation to overcome risk in time of crisis, giving it a “strong competitive position.”

To shape solutions, he said, carriers and brokers need to act quickly and come up with creative answers to the burgeoning array of risks. It is a subject, he said, that the insurance industry is constantly working on.

“All of us are talking,” he remarked.

Special Reports /

Risk Can Become A Competitive Advantage

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