According to a new global survey from the International Insurance Society (IIS), in collaboration with the Pacific Insurance Conference (PIC) and Insurance Thought Leadership (ITL), (all affiliates of The Institutes), insurance executives ranked innovation as their highest-priority area of concern. In 2019, cyber security was ranked highest. The implications of COVID-19 were ranked the second-highest area of concern overall, but respondents in the Asia Pacific region ranked them significantly higher than those in other regions did.

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While the health and safety of employees was ranked highest among COVID-19 implications, the second-greatest concern was an unpredictable economy. Most respondents expected negative business impacts from COVID-19, with 71 percent anticipating decreased profit and 61 percent expecting decreased sales.

Although 95 percent of executives indicated that innovation was important or very important to their business’s success, just 35 percent had an active innovation plan in place. However, 65 percent of respondents said they were definitely making technology investments in response to the impacts of COVID-19.

Respondents were asked to rank the following concerns from highest priority to lowest:

  • Innovation
  • Implications of COVID-19
  • Emerging threats
  • Resiliency and sustainability
  • Cyber security
  • Regulation
  • Closing the protection gap

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The Global Concerns Survey provides the IIS with an annual roadmap to deliver content, thought leadership, and education to the global insurance and risk management community. According to IIS President Josh Landau, “The IIS will continue to deliver relevant and timely initiatives to support the accelerating change of pace in the industry. The IIS provides a neutral platform for all stakeholders to collaborate and contribute to move the industry forward in a positive way. The Annual Survey is one of the key components that helps us provide this value, leveraging the collective input of our diverse and expansive network of insurance executives representing IIS, PIC, and ITL.”

In support of this, the IIS launched Executive Insights, a partnership with six of the world’s leading experts in insurance and risk management to deliver targeted, relevant, and timely thought leadership on the most important topics to today’s insurance executives.

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