Risk Consulting, issue 1/2019

Risk Consulting 1/2019

Hot off the press! Read the latest articles from If.

You can also download the magazine pdf (5 MB)

cover page and first opening of risk consulting 1/2019

From the editor: Making complex business simpler

In an increasingly complex and fragmented world where risks, activities, responsibilities, and employees are located all over the globe, services enhancing the ease of doing business are crucial.

Our client and broker platform, If Login, provides an overview of your risks all over the globe. An interactive world map gives a simple and easy overview of expat locations, stored cargo, and all insured sites – globally. With a quick zoom and a click, all the documents and policies in a selected location are shown.

Claim statistics, claim status, correspondence, and actions on all claim cases can be followed in If Login, and specific claims can be followed for updates. All this in a secure environment.

Nothing beats personal contact. A full overview of all If employees working with your business is available in If Login – from your dedicated account executive to the underwriters and your local insurance providers around the world.

We strive to be the partner who creates an overview and simplicity in your insurance-related activities. Our ambition is to manage risks together with you. 

We would like to explore If Login with you. But right now, we thank you for exploring Risk Consulting Magazine. In the magazine, as on if-insurance.com and at our client events, we share knowledge so that corporations can learn from best practices and avoid large losses.

We hope the magazine provides useful insights into a simpler future.

Poul Steffensen
Head of BA Industrial, If

Poul Steffensen, Head of Business Area Industrial
Poul Steffensen, Head of Business Area Industrial

Trees reduce flood risk

Planting trees can lessen flood risk, but a high intensity forest land use, such as grazing, can counteract the positive effect of the trees, a new study suggests. When rainfall exceeds the rate at which water can enter the soil it flows ­rapidly over the land’s surface into streams and rivers.

Trees can help to reduce the risk of surface runoff by increasing the number of large pores in the soil through which water can drain more easily. The study, undertaken by Lancaster University and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and published in the journal Geoderma, investigated the rate that water infiltrated the soil under trees at an experimental agroforestry site in Scotland.

Researchers found that infiltration rates were between ten and a hundred times higher under trees, when the forested area remained relatively undisturbed, compared with adjacent pasture.

river through a forest

Fire protection on the rise worldwide

The global fire protection materials market size is anticipated to grow to around USD 9.9 billion by 2026. This market is anticipated to grow with 8.6 percent during the forecast time period, according to Acumen Research and Consulting. The market is foreseen to develop with the execution of fire safety regulations and strict construction regulations. There are additionally different authority models built up to neglect and guarantee item adequacy. Enhancing frame of mind toward building safety codes, alongside expanding fire danger occurrences, is foreseen to support offers of flame insurance materials around the world.

 Keys and chips are vulnerable hardware

Researchers have developed an algorithm that safeguards hardware from attacks to steal data. In the attacks, hackers detect variations of power and electromagnetic radiation in electronic devices’ hardware and use that variation to steal encrypted information, according to researchers at the University of Wyoming and the University of Cincinnati. Devices such as remote car keys, cable boxes and even credit card chips are all vulnerable to hardware attacks, typically because of their design.

 Attack traffic up by 32 percent

New research from cyber security­ provider F-Secure reports a significant increase in attack traffic last year. But while attacks are increasing, it seems many companies are struggling with incident detection. Attack traffic observed by F-Secure’s network of decoy honeypots in 2018 increased by 32 percent over the previous year. The companys survey found that 22 percent of companies did not detect a single attack in a 12-month period. 20 percent of respondents detected a single attack during that time frame, and 31 percent detected two to five attacks.

High costs in insured losses

2018 was the fourth-costliest year since 1980 in terms of insured losses from natural distasters for the insurance industry, according to Munich Re. The figure for insured losses – 80 billion US dollars – was significantly higher than the 30-year average of 41 billion dollars.