Russell Group press release ahead of the 2024 Monte Carlo Rendezvous

Connected Risk came of age in 2024 with Russell Group moving the concept from its (re)insurance market silo into a tangible business user case.

The most recent development, announced in the run-up to this year’s Monte Carlo Rendezvous, is that a corporate member of the Russell Working Group” recently unveiled a five-year Business Resilience Insurance Policy providing its captive with a connected risk outcome-based solution, supported by three of the world’s largest reinsurers.  

Initially, the outcome-based solution is part of a complex structured policy that includes an element of risk financing against a range of major events, with minimal exclusions. There is anticipation that, as the exposures become better understood, with improvements in data and analytics being offered by firms such as Russell, there will be a major industry shift to innovative risk transfer. 

In 2014, Russell launched Connected Risk - a concept that few people understood – in a thought leadership campaign that resulted in an advisory involvement with the Airmic “Roads to Revolution” project in 2017/18, followed by presentations on Connected Risk at the Bank of England and Chatham House.

Then, in 2018, Russell formed its Corporate Working Group, a collection of leading corporates, with a mandate to deliver a connected risk solution. In 2024, this group has 33 corporates involved of which half are FTSE 100 listed companies of various sizes across industries and, encompassing both insurance and risk professionals.

Russell Group Managing Director Suki Basi said: “Innovation has been a buzz word in the industry for years, but the real mark of being a pioneer is to have the transforming skill to enable cycles of innovation to be realised.  We always recognised that increasing global connectivity would lead to a more far-reaching threat-event landscape that would change the shape of risk.

We were there in 1994 for the market for Lloyds Equitas and for our aviation underwriting clients when 9/11 occurred in 2001. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Russell responded to the needs of the casualty market and again in 2015 after the Tianjin disaster when ALPS Marine was first conceived. 

So, in 2022 when the outcome-based approach was introduced to address the complex business interruption needs of connected risk, it was no surprise to us at Russell as are now in our 5th cycle of innovation.  

In response to the feedback from our corporate working group we are now building a new market for connected risk outcome-based solutions. We believe this is the future of global corporate (re)insurance, which is why our mission at this year’s Monte Carlo Rendezvous 2024 is to build capacity for connected risk.”