A Message to Risk Managers about Terrorism
Concerns about political unrest and terrorism continue to be high on the agenda for risk managers of multinational businesses. According to the 2017 Allianz Risk Barometer, these fears ranked eighth among the top corporate perils cited by risk consultants, underwriters, senior managers and claims experts. The most commonly cited concerns were acts of terrorism and sabotage (54%). Other concerns include:
- impact on supply chain (42%)
- protectionism or government intervention (31%)
- sanctions (24%)
- and a state crisis (23%) such as Brexit or a breakdown of the eurozone.
Altogether businesses can lose out on more than just revenue if they don’t have a formidable risk management plan. Risk managers need to be prepared in the face of terrorism and have updated security policies with insurance. These policies need to ensure that their businesses can recover from an attack while minimizing costs and damages. As a business disruption can occur at the most unexpected times it is important to include terrorism in an organizations business continuity and crisis management plan. Having an effective business continuity plan and capabilities in place is key to restoring operations if anything goes awry.
The good news for insurance buyers is that terrorism and political violence policies are easily accessible. In the face of this new political climate, risk managers need to take advantage of the opportunity to protect their businesses before an unforeseen incident can occur.
Christof Bentele is the head of global crisis management with Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty.
Read more at Risk Management: Insuring Against Terrorism to further learn about getting insurance for terrorism.
Planning for a terrorist attack
Developing a strong business continuity plan for handling a crisis is not always easy. However, with a template that helps your business reevaluate your plan to include a terrorist attack can make it easier. If you don’t know where to begin or what to prioritize first, we offer tools and templates for businesses of all types and sizes. This business continuity template will also enable you to collect information and evaluate the business environment, identify and reduce risks, analyze business operations, analyze alternatives to respond to disruptions, develop a comprehensive Business Continuity Plan, develop plans to prepare for and respond to hazards-specific events.