After a night of dancing, delegates gathered for Day Two of the South Conference. Alix Bedford from Zurich Municipal kicked off the morning with a session on sustainability, emphasising the correlation with risk management.
Sustainability, resilience and risk management are intertwined. If you work in risk, you have transferrable skills to the sustainability agenda.
Sustainability is a subject that has taken centre stage in recent times and we all have a different understanding of what it is and what it means to us, our roles, our communities, and planet.
Sustainability is what you want to or need to sustain personally or organisationally. It’s ensuring outcomes are not impacting assets and communities in the future.
Next, David Scott, formerly from the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead shared an overview of the delivery of Operation London Bridge, the funeral plan for Queen Elizabeth II.
It was the biggest event of our lifetime. The eyes of the world were upon us.
Multi-agency relationships and implementing past learning from previous events into the plan was a key factor to success.
In the afternoon delegates split up into breakout sessions. Ben Maidment and Ben Goodchild from Tri-Borough Insurance Services presented on the art of herding cats i.e. stakeholders. They shared successes, difficulties and winning solutions when dealing with a wide range of stakeholders. Quarterly catch ups, reliable simple data and keeping cameras on in virtual meetings were some of the tactics adopted.
Don’t rest on your laurels, success is contagious. If you find a way of engagement that works for a specific stakeholder, build on it.
Carl Dunckley from RMP provided top tips on developing organisational risk appetite. He stressed the benefits including: a better understanding and management of risk exposures, enhanced informed decision-making, and improved transparency and clarity for stakeholders.
People dislike losses more than they like gains. To evolve for the future mostly requires well managed risk taking.
Adam Bayliss and Matt Dawson from Maven Public Sector presented a session on property values. They stressed the importance of maintaining adequate sums insured across property portfolios and preparing well in advance of market tender exercises.
Don’t wait to be asked by insurers. Instead, seek to optimise the planning and preparation time available to you.
Kate Stimson from Marsh walked delegates through a six-step journey to understand core components of ESG.
Managing ESG risks is a six-step process; these are designed to meet your immediate priorities and lay the right foundations as part of your broader ESG strategy and roadmap.
The recent rapid rise in economic inflation has headline grabbing implications for insurance claims alongside prevailing social inflation trends. Karen Grant and Vicky Strathern from Kennedys explored the key drivers in this area: Brexit, geopolitical factors, COVID-19, fraud, and the cost of living crisis.
Looking to the future, Karen and Vicky said there are reasons to be cheerful.
Overall claims numbers are decreasing. Further legislation will see fixed costs introduced in certain claims areas, such as housing disrepair. Claims inflation cannot last forever.”
Presentations from the South Conference will be available to view on the ALARM website from next week.
