Advancing Cyber Risk Management – From Security to Resilience: In an increasingly digital economy, cyber threats and vulnerabilities evolve fast. But despite growing anxieties around cyber, traditional security strategies and investments continue to lag. For organizations focused on balancing their growth plans and cyber security priorities both challenges and opportunities remain.
Global Technological Threats: Technology plays a profound role in shaping the global risks landscape in the near and longer term. Concerns about data fraud and cyberattacks were prominent again in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Perception Survey, with 82 percent of respondents expecting cyberattacks in the form of theft of data or money and 80 percent expecting it in the form of disruptions of operations or infrastructure to increase in 2019. Similarly, “data fraud or theft” and “cyberattacks” ranked as the fourth and fifth risks, respectively, in terms of likelihood over the next decade.
U.S. Terrorism Risk Backstop Up for Renewal in 2020: The federal backstop created by the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) and reauthorized as TRIPRA – along with similar public-private mechanisms that exist in other countries – remains crucial to the continued stability and health of the property terrorism insurance market.
Funding Longevity Risks in Captives: Global life insurance and reinsurance companies continue to look for innovative solutions to the longevity risks in their portfolios – life insurance, annuities and long-term disability programs. Further, pension fund trustees are looking for financially efficient methods of managing the longevity exposure in their pension portfolios. With greater life expectancies in much of the world, fear of pandemics, and financial market challenges, these companies are increasingly interested in forming long-term insurers, particularly in Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Guernsey.
Affirmative versus Silent Cyber: An Overview: While the current debate over “affirmative” versus “non-affirmative” coverage has been ongoing for a few years, WannaCry and Petya/NotPetya cyberattacks helped make the issue of “silent cyber” more critical. These two 2017 cyberattacks effectively shifted the conversation from data breach, notification costs and third-party liability to first-party liability insuring agreements due to the extent and expanse of the systematic, large-scale damages they triggered.
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Seasonal North Atlantic Hurricane Outlook: Seasonal outlooks generally call for a near-normal hurricane season, relative to the 1981-2010 average. The 2019 season comes after an active 2018 season with 15 named storms, including significant impacts from Hurricanes Florence and Michael. While the traditional hurricane season begins June 1 in the North Atlantic Basin, Subtropical Storm Andrea made a brief appearance roughly two weeks before the start of the season. We have seen early beginnings to a hurricane season before, and 2019 is the fifth consecutive year with a named storm before June 1.
