C-Suite Panel: Take Care of the Business As If You Don’t Have Insurance

By StrategicRISK Asia

Aon Thailand CEO Andrew Bentley, David Johnson, Regional Senior Vice President, Regional Manager – Asia Operations, FM Global and Brian Delaney, Corporate Chief Financial Officer – Minor International PCL joined PARIMA board member, Steve Tunstall to offer delegates a view of risk management from c-suite perspectives
Risk management is still in it’s infancy in Thailand, according to c-suite panellists at today’s PARIMA conference, but there is hope on the horizon they agree
Aon Thailand CEO Andrew Bentley, David Johnson, Regional Senior Vice President, Regional Manager – Asia Operations, FM Global and Brian Delaney, Corporate Chief Financial Officer – Minor International PCL joins PARIMA board member, Steve Tunstall to offer delegates a view of risk management from c-suite perspectives
Thailand ripe for change
Bentley said risk management still in its infancy Unfortunately, only a minority the risk/insurance managers report to the board but risk management is changing in Thailand It is be.coming more qualitiative with a more sophisticated approach to the procurement of insurance
Bentley said chief risk officers are still not actively participating in board discussions on risk; something he would like to see change as soon as possible to improve .communication between the board and the business
Delaney said “It is about .communication You need to speak c-suite language Risk managers have a specific skill set but they need to work on developing the soft skill set to better help them connect with the board Risk managers need to understand business strategy and pain points of a business Do a deep dive in to how the business has succeeded or failed in the past and use that information to better shape and further improve its risk management”
Any risk management plan should be viewed as an investment for the business, according to Delaney

“Take control of the risk management of your .company Don’t leaved it to insurers or other third parties Look at the measures you are employing to manage your own .company risk and approach risk holistically,”added Johnson
Tunstall said “seemingly endless new capacity” for the insurance market is .combining with other market factors to keep insurance premiums at very low levels, putting businesses at risk of a financial shock when the market conditions harden in future
Learning from the past
Using the floods as an example, Johnson said: ”Take care of yourselves as if you don’t have insurance” and learn from what has happened in the past and use it to better chart the course of your business’ future, said Johnson
”It wasn’t until after the 2011 floods that world realised how critical Thailand was to the global supply chain and why it needs to be better protected,” he added
“2011 wasn’t the first time it flooded, of course It has been flooding for hundreds of thousands of years But the good thing is, once those happen, businesses and government begin to get on top of the issue once again with new innovations and ideas Unfortunately Mother Nature has a way of over.coming each of these barriers but we must keep trying, said Johnson
The risk of .complacency is highest as the years continue to move on from each event and this is something risk manages need to stay on top of
The majority of flood damage is able to be mitigated by businesses he said, but businesses need to make risk management their focus in order for this to work effectively
Q&A session
What are you missing from the industry What can risk managers do better
Brian Delaney, Corporate Chief Financial Officer – Minor International PCL said:

  • The key is to avoid a risk event and what do we need to do to achieve this
  • At a board level, we are keen for ideas
  • We want to understand what the best are doingBenchmarking is important to us What are our .competitors doing in terms of risk and how do we .compare –  Delaney

Aon Thailand CEO Andrew Bentley said:

  • Things aren’t as good as they should be, but they are improving
  • This is a buyers market The market is very .competitive The savings that are being made, are reinvested in future mitigation”
  • Everyone is taking advantage of the .competitive marketplace This is an opportunity to invest some or all of savings into better loss mitigation
  • We won’t always have a soft market

Source: http://www.strategicrisk-asiapacific.com/c-suite-panel-take-care-of-the-business-as-if-you-dont-have-insurance/1427202article