A Rocky Road An Ocean of Opportunity

For Canadian risk managers, this year’s CRIMS conference is a banner year event with the organization’s North American parent, the Risk & Insurance Management Society (RIMS) having recently elected a Canadian woman, Susan Meltzer, to its presidential helm. Leadership and vision form the bonds of professional development, and with the stage now secured in Canadian hands through Meltzer and incoming CRIMS president Wayne Hickey, the future success of risk management in Canada looks assured.

However, as the profession faces a new century, not all is “peace and harmony in the fair land”. Risk managers are shoring up to a rapidly evolving market of traditional insurance and new alternative risk transfer (ART) mechanisms. Dealing with new risk tools and greater corporate boardroom emphasis on the risk management role, presents new challenges in professional development, observes Hickey. This, he believes, can be best served through organizations such as CRIMS and RIMS in ensuring the future preparedness of the profession. With professional guidance, Canadian risk managers have an ocean of opportunity ahead of them, he says.

On a lighter note, Hickey says risk managers across Canada have been clamouring for CRIMS to be held in St. John’s Newfoundland. Typically a city’s risk managers will lobby the organization for the right to host the convention, but in the case of St. John’s, the reverse happened. “It was not Newfoundland approaching CRIMS but CRIMS continually coming to us,” he remarks proudly of his native province. Although the CRIMS conference is still a month away, early feedback suggests this year’s event will be one of the most successful yet. Hickey is anticipating a big turnout of more than 500 delegates.

With the turn of the century imminent, he says, there are challenges ahead including the inevitable hardening of the traditional insurance market and widening of focus for risk managers to income and balance-sheet related risks.

Conference focuses on alternatives

The conference motto — “insights, innovations and solutions” — is enforced throughout with an agenda focused on alternative risk management tools. Many of the seminars examine bottom line risk taking the risk professional beyond the traditional scope of disaster and catastrophe risk transfer. Business continuity risk financing is another hot issue planned for discussion at the conference. According to Hickey, both topics will take a holistic view of risk as a profit source for business continuity, a trend which he expects will become more of a competitive edge for corporations in the years ahead. “Risk managers can profit the company because if you invest your money in risk financing it’s going to add value when you’re up and running during a disaster. Minimizing risk is one thing, but having a plan in place to replace a loss that you could have will significantly affect your bottom line.”

While disaster recovery is an issue frequently discussed, Hickey maintains it is not as often practiced. “I did a survey some time ago in a room of twenty-five municipalities across Canada and nobody could say that they had a concrete business continuity plan in place.”

The municipal advocate

Chairing CRIMS marks an inevitable step for Hickey who, over the years, has gained considerable experience whilst a member of the organization. After graduating with a Masters of Business Administration at Dalhousie University, Hickey began his career in the offshore oil industry. He transferred back to Newfoundland in 1988 with a foray into the adjusting field. He then entered into an associateship with the Insurance Institute of Canada (IIC), completing his fellowship in 1993 after achieving the Canadian risk manager designation in 1992. By then, he was already employed as a risk manager for the City of St. John’s, having joined the corporation in 1991.

Hickey became involved with CRIMS on joining the employment ranks of St. John’s City. In the process he has become a leader among municipal risk manager members. At the 1992 Ottawa CRIMS, he noticed there were many municipal risk managers in attendance but no specific meeting geared towards this segment of the profession. At 1993’s Halifax CRIMS, he created the first roundtable of City risk managers, the Canadian Municipal Risk Managers Forum. The forum was successful and has become a mainstay of the conference, yielding between 18 and 30 municipal risk managers a year.

Hickey has held many hats in risk professional circles. He was president of the CRIMS’s Newfoundland chapter in 1994/95, he is the incoming chair of the Canadian Risk Management Council. He also sits on the organization’s national education committee. Furthermore, Hickey is on the board of the Institute of Risk Management (IRM).

Important year ahead

1999 has been a seminal year for Canadian risk managers, says Hickey. At the RIMS conference, it was announced RIMS would adopt the Canadian education model in creating the Global Institute of Risk Management (GIRM). The move speaks highly of the involvement by Canadians in the evolution of the profession, he comments. “If you think about the percentage of Canadian companies in RIMS, it is not very high. We don’t have a physically strong presence but we make a lot of noise and RIMS has been very receptive. The executive council of RIMS has said that the model for education is from Canada and they will ensure Canada’s representation.”