Insurance company risk managers need to stand up and be counted in the wake of the global financial crisis, according to global reinsurer Swiss Re.

In a new report called Establishing a proactive risk management culture, Swiss Re says risk managers “cannot exercise their proper function by being mere documenters of events and decisions made”.

“On the contrary, they need to speak up in advance and acknowledge the elephant in the room – the unspoken issue that other participants, out of respect for authority, are choosing to ignore.”

Swiss Re says risk management depends on good governance, modelling and disclosure, but unpredictable events in the lead-up to the global downturn show that an over-reliance on modelling “is no match for the sound judgement of strong risk managers”.

Incoming Solvency II regulation on December 31 2012 is expected to underpin the adoption of sound risk management principles, the report says.