Munich Re on Strategic Risk - ORSA food for thought

A thought-provoker from Munich Re for anyone in the business of Emerging Risk/'Top Down' risk review activity with this release called "Strategic Risk to Risk Strategy", which leans on the findings of the World Economic Forum's 2012 Risk Report to observe how the risks highlighted may compromise existing insurer strategies, as well as materialise into the thoughts of underwriters once sufficient data exists.

With coverage of "strategic risk" featuring in everyone's ORSA thoughts, as well as obligations around scenario analysis and reverse stress testing, there are some benchmarks in here that are worthy of consideration for practitioners. In particular;

Strategic Risk definition
Risk of making wrong business decisions, implementing decisions poorly, or being unable to adapt to changes in the operating environment


Subcategories of Strategic Risk

• Ineffective M&A
• Incorrect interpretation of external activity in a given market
• Decision making based on poor pricing/profitability assumptions
• Legal misinterpretation

Specific points

• In their opinion an insurer's risk strategy "goes beyond covering the risk capital requirement for a portfolio for the forthcoming financial year on the basis of valid models" to actually questioning and enhancing a company's business. I think most practitioners would agree that any documented risk strategy would look further forward than one-year! 
• That shortcomings around the evaluation of Strategic Risk "...are not so much of a question of the [informational] resources available", which are plentiful, nor are they especially time-pressured.
• They also include a definition of Reverse Stress Testing as scenarios which "endanger a company's business model as a whole" - interesting purely in the absence of an EU-driven definition to-date, as it tallies along with UK equivalent definitions.

An edited list of Strategic Risk scenarios is included (p3) which you may want to line up against your own activity in this field, and follow on by exploring which of these are within and outside of an insurer's sphere of influence. You might also benefit from the diagram on p6 on the main stakeholders in an insurance company which may influence your selection of strategic risk scenarios depending on your structure and business model. 

Economist Intelligence Unit - Getting new perspective on strategic risk

This out last week from the Economist Intelligence Unit, always a great spot for benchmarking, and at a verty opportune time for anyone working on ORSA or enhancing the visibility of strategic risk in general. Sample size is almost 500, around a month old, and all respondents have responsibility for risk management in their respective firms. The research is also supplemented by interviews with a few big cheeses.

Again, it;s a quality publication, so doesn't need much sifting through, but the salient points for me include;

• Lot of agreement that Risk should challenge management's view of the future (two-thirds)
• Almost three-quarters agree that flexibility is more important that ability to plan for the long-term (indeed a third of respondents don't even plan for events a decade or more into the future)
• "By extending their risk models further into the future, companies must be aware that the data being used to populate them are increasingly unreliable" - interesting in the context of ORSA (i.e where does one stop projecting)
• Main barriers to considering longer term risks are executive management's focus on immediate risks (41% of respondents), and the nature of the business making such work redundant (36%)
• Almost 60% have their Risk functions actually participating in the formulation of strategy
• The risk planning horizon doesn't appear to be aligned with the strategic planning horizon (risk planning being much shorter) - obviously changes with ORSA for insurers, but not sure what the resolution is for other organisations.
• 60% have one of the most important objectives of the risk management function being the identification of new and emerging risks - may actually be the cause of some of the mismatch mentioned above. Despite that, only 40% feel they are doing a better than average job of anticipating and measuring such risks
• Main areas for enhancing risk management practices have been to make risk management more forward looking (50%), and allocating more board and senior management time to long-term risk analysis.
• 40% have their CEOs as being responsible for exploring long-term impact of risk on strategy - very high, considering that boards/committees were alternative responses
• 44% think a bigger commitment to ERM will help align risk and business strategy, while 33% thought that the Risk function presenting themselves more as business enablers would do the same thing.
• Only a third of Risk functions report to the board quarterly - seems very low
• 30% have no plans to use horizon scanning - beyond mad!
• Only around half of respondents have or plan to have a CRO

Business Innovation and Skills department – “Strategic Report” – anything to borrow for SFCR/ORSA/RSR?

This came out in the week from the Business Innovation and Skills department in the UK - the recommendations clearly impact on the presentation of materials for listed entities, with a "Strategic Report" replacing the various patches of random guff that normally turn up in statutory releases to the market (boiler-plate and pretty offensive in its lack of stakeholder appreciation).

I'm thinking along the lines of Pillar 2&3 in the context of this, particularly if there are some economies of scale which can be generated by sharing information between the Strategic Report and ORSA/RSR/SFCR for insurers - one for your project plans maybe?