Risk Management (December 01, 2009)

INSURERS SLOW TO ESTABLISH CHIEF RISK OFFICER POSITION: OSFI

Canada’s property and casualty industry has been lagging in the establishment of the Chief Risk Officer position and the processes that ac- company it, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) says. OSFI superintendent Julie Dickson made the observation while speaking at OSFI’s first risk management seminar for the property and casualty industry on Nov. 5 in Toronto. “While the property and casualty industry has perhaps been ahead of the other sectors in the management of specific risks, the establishment of the CRO position, and the processes that accompany it, which allow for quicker assessment of risk across an entire organization, have been slower to develop in the p&c industry to date,” she said.

The concept of risk management is not new, and the property and casualty industry has many inherent known risks, she said. These include being highly price competitive, prone to cycles in which, at times, pricing can be too low to cover claims and having some business lines for which pricing and claims payment terms are highly regulated.