During January and February 2021 we commissioned research company Opinion Matters to survey the opinions of over 1,000 business leaders and insurance buyers of businesses based in the UK and US with international operations. With a minimum of 40 respondents per country per industry sector, respondents represented businesses operating in:
- Healthcare & life sciences
- Manufacturing
- Retail, wholesale, food & beverage
- Real estate and construction
- Hospitality, entertainment and leisure (including gaming)
- Financial institutions & professional services
- Energy and utilities (including mining)
- Public sector & education
- Tech, media & telecoms
- Marine & warehousing
Survey participants were asked about their views on insurers and insurance, as well as on four categories of risk:
- Technology – including the threat of disruption, failure to keep pace with changing technology, cyber risk and intellectual property risk.
- Business – including supply chain instability, business interruption, boardroom risk, crime, reputational and employer risk.
- Political & economic – including strikes and civil disruption, changes in legislation and regulation (including ESG), economic uncertainty and war & terror.
- Environmental – including climate change and associated catastrophic risks, environmental damage, pandemic risk, food insecurity and energy transition risk.
Of the firms surveyed in both the US and the UK there was an equal split of respondents across company sizes of: $250,000 - $1 million, $1,000,001 - $10 million, $10,000,001 - $100 million, $100,000,001 - $1 billion, more than $1 billion.
Our panel of contributors
Footnotes:
1 Percentage of companies in the US and UK ranking environmental risks as their top risk category.
2 IFRS - International Sustainability Standards Board | Financial Times (ft.com)
3 Global-trends-in-climate-change-litigation_2021-snapshot.pdf (lse.ac.uk)
5 Climate NGOs in Germany threaten legal action against VW, Daimler, BMW | The Independent
6 Indigenous Amazonians sue retailer Casino over rainforest destruction | Reuters
7 A new type of litigation risk?, Zaneta Sedilekova (clydeco.com)
9 IPCC report points to more intense hurricanes in future: KCC (insuranceinsider.com)
10 Amazonian groups sue French supermarket chain over deforestation - BBC News
12 ClimateWise | Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership