Before COVID-19, few organizations would have considered prioritizing the remote risk of a pandemic over more common events. However, as the past year has demonstrated, dismissing such scenarios entirely is no longer a viable strategy.

Each year, I provide the absence and disability management trends I see shaping the workplace for the coming year.

Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide, in partnership with experts from the Brookings Institution and AXIS Capital Holdings Limited, has released a report exploring how climate change may affect hurricane risk in the US by 2050. The report specifically focuses on financial losses to residential and commercial properties.

Most Canadian P&C insurance industry professionals would like to see more hybrid, flexible working arrangements once the health threat of the global COVID-19 pandemic has subsided.

AXIS Capital has confirmed in a letter to the Gwich’in Steering Committee – an organization formed by Alaska’s Gwich’in Indian Nation to preserve the environment – that it will not provide insurance coverage or investment support to projects related to exploration, drilling, or the production of oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

AXIS Capital is the third international insurance firm, after AXA and Swiss Re, to make such a commitment, and the first North American firm to commit to not supporting oil and gas exploitation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

“We believe climate-related risks are among the most serious issues facing the world today,” Conrad Brooks, general counsel and corporate secretary for AXIS Capital, wrote in the letter. “We also recognize the importance of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the [Gwich’in] and your families, as well as our planet.”

Allianz has revealed concrete interim targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its investment portfolio of policyholder funds. This is the first time the global insurer has done so, and it is in support of its stated goal of climate neutrality by 2050.

It goes without saying that 2020 presented some unique challenges for all of us in the risk-control field. COVID-19 drove the narrative for much of the year. To top it off, the insurance industry experienced a brutal year in terms of natural disasters.

When Laura Langone, head of insurance operations at Airbnb, Inc., accepted the presidency of RIMS, the risk management society, for the 2020 term, she didn’t anticipate that the post would be primarily virtual or that she would be representing the society through one of the most challenging years ever for risk and insurance professionals.

It is hard to believe, even for insurance industry professionals, that first notice of loss (FNL) is the beginning of the P&C insurance claim management process. But that is too myopic a perspective.

A workplace injury or illness can be daunting. Life becomes uncertain. Questions arise about having enough money or retaining the same physical abilities after recovery. The mental anguish can make the entire situation worse.

In the world of risk management, we are often like the captain of the Titanic trying to spot menacing icebergs even as we move forward, full speed ahead.
COVID-19 was an iceberg. The visible portion appeared to be a minor risk. Hidden below the surface lay an ominous catastrophe in the making.

If you live in the western United States, the 2020 wildfire season has probably felt even more intense than the previous record-breaking seasons of 2017 or 2018. The sheer scale of the events this year has broken new records.

The insurance industry should not be surprised by the fact there was a global health pandemic, a senior P&C industry exec says, adding that COVID-19 is not likely to change industry fundamentals significantly, since nothing new was brought to the table as a result of it.

Do you remember back in April when the price of a barrel of crude oil went negative for the first time in history? That shocking event was just another chapter in the downward trend in the value of fossil fuel assets the world over.

Cybersecurity threats related to insider actions are now more common than threats from external actors, according to a report by cybersecurity vendor Netwrix.