Aon corporate division chairman David Martin has warned insurers to provide a wider range of products to corporate clients.
Martin said research showed only 29% of corporations' identified risks were currently covered, but firms would cover 41% if they were able to. It also revealed only 17% of risks affecting products and services were covered – corporations would prefer to cover 35%.
Other statistics showed businesses named fire as their top risk in 1995, but by 2001 were more concerned with intangibles, nominating loss of reputation as their top risk.
Martin said: “For a long time, the ind-ustry has concentrated on loss of assets. It's going to have to change to concern for anything that causes loss of earnings.”
He said corporate clients were dissatisfied with the amount of “wriggle room” in the highly conditional indemnity agreements favoured by insurers. They were also put off by the slow claims process and the fact insurers “spent years in court arguing about whether they were really liable”.
However, he said, insurers were actually drawing away from risk, because they were under pressure from the stockmarket to provide less volatile results.
“Corporates don't associate the industry with certain types of risk. We have to remedy that or we're heading the way of the dinosaurs.”
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