Aviation, consumer goods and the insurance industry itself have the best risk practices, according to the Aon Risk Maturity Index.

The non-profit sector, education and public entities have the worst risk management among 28 sectors and more than 550 respondents questioned by Aon and the Wharton business school.

Aon uses the index to help clients assess risk practices. It says the aviation, oil and gas industries tend to score higher, “perhaps reflecting the unique risk profiles faced by these highly regulated, complex, high loss-severity sectors”.

Public or government entities may score lower because they have different objectives and timelines from commercial organisations, it says.

Companies with the largest revenues tend to have slightly better ratings but Aon says the differences are not large.

“Overall, size [measured by annual revenue] does not appear to play a major role in influencing risk maturity,” it says.