Connected risk comes of age

Russell Group’s Suki Basi on the continued drive to develop solutions for connected risk.

Russell Group is undergoing a strategic transformation to provide its (re)insurance clients and corporate working group with forward-looking datasets that build a holistic view of risk.

Russell’s connected exposure analysis now encompasses the aviation, marine, energy and casualty classes. Russell continues to develop solutions for connected risk, which it defines as the systemic impact on commercial organisations from cumulative events and resulting uncertainties. Russell is building its connected risk proposition of deeper insights and analytics at a time of rapid transformation and uncertainty. As Russell approaches its 30th anniversary, we look forward to helping clients to reimagine the next generation’s connected exposures, starting with aviation.

Aviation

The aviation market has traditionally been one of the most open and transparent (re)insurance classes, due mainly to the exposure profile of the industry. The class is generally more open to collaboration with deeper detailed data than many other lines of business.

However, our clients tell us there is a clear need for higher quality, granular data, but more important is the requirement for an improved frictionless exchange of data between the different nodes in the (re)insurance network and wider aviation ecosystem.

This is where Russell can help, as we are an unbiased third party. This makes us uniquely placed to aid the flow of granular, clean, digital data throughout the entire (re)insurance value chain and drive new initiatives to the practitioners who need it to make informed business decisions.

Marine

With regular port disruptions and commodity shortages, it can be difficult for marine (re)insurers and their clients to get a handle on their potential exposures to their portfolio. Our marine clients are particularly concerned with their potential aggregated and clash portfolio exposures from trade event scenarios.

This is why the latest developments in our ALPS Marine solution are focused on providing our clients with their aggregated/clash portfolio exposures across a range of areas including selected commodity type, industry sectors, transit route/airport/port, country and flag.

Energy

We have also made strong strides in our ALPS Energy solution to continue to ensure that our clients can validate their current assets against standard asset, coverage and reference lists.

Casualty

Last but not least, Lloyd’s Realistic Disaster Scenarios (RDS) stress test both individual syndicates and the market for material catastrophe risks but there is still a black hole of information with regards to the casualty class, which Russell is helping to plug with its Casualty RDS.

Since the start of the pandemic, Russell has doubled in size, grown its client base to 28 and corporate working group to 30 members. The pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have demonstrated connected risk exists and driven the need for more forward-looking and connected solutions. Russell is linking corporates and insurers together through imagined outcomes, for which it then creates the data and analytics to enable the outcome to be transactable.

Suki Basi is managing director of Russell Group