Dutch risk manager survey

Risk managers and insurers in the Netherlands shared their opinions on current risk issues and the role of risk management in the financial crisis.

Around 200 attendees at the Nederlandse Associatie van Risk en Insurance Managers (NARIM) annual conference, including around 75 risk managers (NARIM members), responded to a survey about the financial crisis, regulation and risk management. The delegates were asked to respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a number of motions.

The delegates were asked: ‘When receiving tenders, insurance managers look more at the price than at the contents/cover.’ Over 80% of the risk managers disagreed with this. In a notable result, which revealed a significant lack of understanding in the market, over half of the brokers (approx. 50%), insurers (approx. 70%) and claims experts (approx. 60%) agreed with this statement. The result suggests that the sellers of insurance should remember that low cost policies are not always what risk managers are looking for.

“Participants were optimistic that the credit crisis would not prevent a quick recovery.

Participants were more or less evenly split over the next assertion, which said that 'the lack of different supervision rules for captives and other insurers will result in a decrease in the number of Dutch captives'. Hardly anyone agreed, however, that the introduction of Solvency II would avoid another credit crunch.

With the exception of some claims experts (approx. 40%) and a few risk managers (approx. 20%), the participants were optimistic that the credit crisis would not prevent a quick recovery. But very few people (under 20% in each job category) agreed that under a single European supervisory system the credit crisis would have been limited.

On the question of market pricing and coverage the results were more mixed. The motion was: ‘The market will not harden until a world wide catastrophe occurs.’

“Hardly anyone agreed that the introduction of Solvency II would avoid another credit crunch.

Brokers were split down the middle, half of them agreed and half of them disagreed. Insurers and risk managers were slightly more disapproving of this statement. Just less than 60% disagreed with it, whilst the vast majority (over 80%) of the claims experts disagreed.

The next assertion put before the NARIM congress was: ‘The value of the judgement of the rating agencies is over rated.’ Here the results spoke for themselves. More or less everyone agreed.

Most NARIM members (60%) agreed that ‘risk management paragraphs in annual reports do not say anything about operational risk management’. The other professions were all also largely in agreement with this.

On a positive note, most people (around 75% overall) agreed that ‘the economic crisis/credit crunch would lead to better risk management’.