Southampton, Bermuda

With the top concern for risk managers being the impact of the economic slowdown on their organizations, corporate buyers should expect very tight scrutiny of any dollars budgeted for insurance, loss control and support services, one consultant warned.

“They must look at whether a solution is driven by compliance, or if it will bring additional revenue or return on investment, whether it's from safety, or loss prevention services to risk management,” said Christopher Iovino, managing director for risk consulting, risk control and claims with Aon Global in New York, addressing a seminar at the Bermuda Captive Conference.

Mr. Iovino cited the results of Aon's “2009 Global Risk Management Survey,” which found the economic slowdown topping the list of the most challenging risks cited by risk managers. The economy registered as the eighth-biggest concern last year, he noted.

The survey also found more pressure on risk managers to deliver results with fewer resources, and that risk managers are finding it difficult to remain committed to established, effective risk management strategies, which affects all other risks cited.

Tough choices will need to be made as budgets are prepared and revised to reflect the impact of the recession, he said, suggesting that risk managers might have to pick between spending their limited risk management budget on a new IT system or to reduce legacy claims–but not both.

He said risk managers are turning over every stone to save money, suggesting that one way is to examine recommendations made by insurers based on engineering. “Although it's not necessarily top of mind, sometimes when risk managers see the lists and recommendations, they intuitively feel, 'I need to do this because the insurance company is telling me to do so.'”

However, with a little more education and awareness, Mr. Iovino said, “they can stop the bus for a minute and truly analyze the size of the risk and how it impacts their program in the market going forward.” Risk managers then can determine whether the same result can be achieved for less capital expenditure, he explained.

While this concept may seem simple, he said risk managers often accept insurer recommendations, when “whether it's a half-million or million-dollar sprinkler system improvement, sometimes there are options.”

In another area, he said, “we can really show the benefit of better data, better analysis.” He said clarifying and strengthening an organization's loss control from a business interruption perspective “will impact how the market views their risk and how many risk transfer, risk finance issues they have to consider.”

The fact that risk managers are taking fresh looks at their risks and expenditures is “a good thing,” he said, “because if we're impacting one element of the total cost-of-risk equation, I think the risk manager can sell that a lot easier than some other things, like strategic thinking in three-year plans.”

With the way the economy is struggling, he added, “I don't know if they can get their hands around 90 days in advance, let alone three years in advance.”

The issue buyers are dealing with is: “When's the next quarter, and how am I being evaluated?” he said, noting that in today's world, risk managers need to “be more than just transactional and more than just an insurance manager.”

What's needed is “the true risk manager,” he suggested, adding that “we're seeing some organizations gravitate to the chief risk officer [position].”

Looking back just five- or 10 years, he observed, risk managers did not concern themselves with enterprise-wide issues such as supply chain exposures to the extent they do now. “If you're a smart risk manager, you'll be looking at the whole gamut of risks and not put yourself into that silo,” he noted.

He added that in this difficult economy, decisions shouldn't be based just on whether “it's a good thing to do.” For example, he noted, “if I run an ergonomics safety program that's going to impact 40 percent of my workers' comp losses, what is it going to get me back? As a consultant, we have to answer that question.”

And while an initiative may be the right thing to do for employees, he said, by itself “that's not going to get the check cut to fund a large, elaborate program–especially now.”

Special Reports /

Risk Managers Feeling The Squeeze As Economy Puts Pressure On Budgets

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