Insurers do not provide the products needed by risk managers, Airmic's outgoing chairman Alan Fleming has warned.
Fleming, who was replaced as association chairman by Bass risk manager Philip Thomas, was giving his opening speech at the association's conference last week.
Fleming said recent Airmic surveys had shown that the nature of risk, and the skills and tools needed to identify and manage it, were changing.
“As I speak, new, emerging 21st century risks such as e-commerce, compensation culture and intellectual property or reputational loss are increasingly appearing on the radar screens of Airmic members,” he said.
“A key concern for us is that the market doesn't appear to have fully appreciated this and we don't always have the right choice of products to manage the risks.”
Some risk managers have said this was because, although insurers had a fair idea of the risks involved, they were not always keen to cover them.
In some cases, Fleming said risk managers were looking beyond traditional suppliers to meet their needs, particularly in the hardening insurance market.
He said risk managers from an insurance background tended to focus on risk as a hazard, but needed to refocus to capitalise on the upside of risk.
“We must rally the troops and ally ourselves with other regiments or disciplines which have a role to play in managing risk in order to balance the threats with the opportunities that risk presents,” Fleming said.
