Major insurance companies are still dragging the chain over organising better controls over risk measurement and capital management, says Ernst & Young’s New York actuarial arm. Its survey of the top 100 global insurers, released last week, found 65% of them are less than halfway through implementing holistic risk and capital management frameworks. The most significant remaining challenges to getting things moving correctly are identified as automation/streamlining (73%), resources (63%), data limitations (40%), and cultural acceptance/buy-in (43%).

What are the benefits of good risk measurement and management processes? More than 40% of the insurers cited awareness of risk across the organisation. Other benefits: discipline in the product development/pricing process (l9%); decisions that would not have been made otherwise (16%), and understanding aggregate risk exposure across the company (8%).