As part of the ongoing Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA) Forum being held in Maastricht, Netherlands, FERMA is hosting a series of panel sessions focusing on three sides of the insurance purchasing relationship: risk manager, broker, and carrier. On Monday, September 30, leading risk managers from throughout Europe kicked the series off by giving their perspective on the current status of the industry and expectations going forward. Panelists included Tjerk van Dijk, director of insurance at Stork and Fokker; Annemarie Schouw, risk and insurance manager at Tata Steel Ijmuiden; Chris McGloin, vice president of risk management and insurance for Invensys; and Andrew-Richard Bradley, head of group risk services for Nestle Group.

This year’s theme for the FERMA Forum is “living and working in a riskier world,” so it came as no surprise that this year’s risk manager panel was focused on the insurance industry’s ability to adapt and innovate to keep up with new and evolving risks such as cybersecurity. “[Insurers’] innovation isn’t taking a quantum leap to where the new risks that the customers are facing are at,” said McGloin. “They’re trying to refine existing products that cover existing solutions and trying to improve those without sitting back and saying ‘what is it the client really wants around cyber or supply chain.’” Not all the blame was passed on to the carriers, however. Bradley gave an example of innovations that had been developed by a large insurer to address supply chain risks; however, clients were slow to purchase the products due to either the client’s lack of understanding or brokers’ inability to effectively sell the product. “Sometimes we’re a little unfair to insurers,” he added.

Issues surrounding contract certainty and clarity of policies were other areas that the panelists felt could be improved. When asked if the complexity of policy language affects the claims process, Schouw responded that there are exclusions put into policies “that can be explained in different ways.” McGloin added that it is often difficult to get insurers to change language to reflect established intent. “Sometimes an insurer will interpret the wording one day one way and the following day another way,” he said. “And that doesn’t bring the contract certainty or cover certainty that buyers need.”

The discussion wasn’t all negative. When asked to provide an overall score for the industry from one to 10, the panelists gave generally high marks. Brokers and insurers will have their opportunity to respond and to discuss other industry concerns in panels to be held on October 1.