Insurers need to teach consumers about future risks – CII

The general public requires a much greater understanding of the world’s emerging risks, according to a new report by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII).

In its sixth and final Centenary Future Risk Report, the CII also said insurance professionals constantly need to update their knowledge and expertise to respond to the threats of tomorrow.

One of the conclusions of the report was that consumers should be educated so that their risk perceptions more closely matched those of risk professionals.

The report contained findings from two major international surveys into the risk perceptions of the general public and risk experts. Respondents were asked to rank a list of risks in terms of relative likelihood and relative impact.

The survey results highlight a divergence in how the public and insurance professionals perceive certain risks. For example, CII members from Great Britain perceive terrorism and cyber attack as relatively high-impact, high-likelihood events. But the public fears overpopulation, energy crisis and income inequality.

CII director of policy and public affairs David Thomson said: “Getting risk perception right is an important part of ensuring appropriate action by governments and policymakers to prioritise certain kinds of risks over others at a local, national and international level. Given that public risk perceptions can fundamentally guide policy, these two international surveys are a useful way of shedding light on the views of the general public as well as risk experts from the insurance profession.

“According to the report, the profession – as specialists in the field and actively engaged in assessing risk every day – must help shape the risk perceptions of consumers and provide guidance on which risks are the most urgent.”