Conclusions

Cathy Hampson and Gustavo Ortega

INTRODUCTION

In this book, we have examined the role of insurance during the tumultuous years of the financial crisis, including the involvement of insurance companies in that turmoil. We have looked at the use of banking industry experiences and the usefulness or otherwise of those insights to the insurance world. The conclusion was that operational risk management is just as pertinent to insurance companies and, although banking was projected ahead of insurance, through Basel II requirements, insurance is catching up quickly in the regulatory agenda for operational risk. Solvency II and Dodd–Frank, among other regulations, have ensured that the insurance industry is now keeping pace with the banks on risk.

We have taken an in-depth look at insurance, its products, its services and its operations. The need for governance and a risk- and-control framework was apparent, and how it is embedded within insurance companies was explored. Central to that framework are the need to report losses, the potential value by reporting near-misses and the use of external loss data via enterprises such as loss-data consortia. Other framework elements such as risk-and-control self-assessments