Risk management strategies beyond insurance

The risk management profession is growing. This is what we want to see coming out of the current financial crisis. I found this article from Business Insurance about France's emerging market for risk management. They conducted a study with Deloitte and found that only 17% of respondents said their job was restricted to managing insurance risk and management. 30% pilot a global approach to risk management within their companies. Half have responsibility for strategic risks and insurable risks. This creates a broad spectrum of risks being monitored, which is the best strategy. Through our daily business examples in class, we have found that the hardest part of risk management is to identify all of your risks. With many people studying all types of risk, they are bound to find more and cover more for the company to reduce costs.

Results were also taken on communication within and throughout the companies. Most risk managers do not report directly to the CEO. Some report to financial departments, some to the top management, and some to the legal department. Only 6% have a specific risk management directorship. My first article posted on January 30 was about communication and improving it to improve risk management strategies. Communication is key to see who is covering what risks, how it can be improved, etc. If communication is lacking, companies go bankrupt.

France has seen the risk management profession growing. The majority of risk managers came from other jobs within the company. A small percentage have fewer years of experience and so are new to the profession. This percentage can be seen as a sign that the field is growing. More people recognize that risk management is necessary.

http://www.businessinsurance.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?post_date=2009-01-30&id=15217