The 2021 Willis Towers Watson Annual D&O Liability Survey highlighted the continued impact that COVID-19 had on the board director perceptions of the risks facing both themselves and their companies. The highest rated risks were noted as ‘Cyber-attack’ and ‘Data Loss,’ which have been in the top two, although changing order, for the last three surveys. ‘Regulatory/compliance’ and ‘Environmental/Health & Safety’ areas also featured strongly, and all four risk themes seem set to define the risk landscape in the coming year. But what might be the new emerging risks?
In advance of the 2022 Survey Willis Towers Watson (‘WTW’) and NEDA hosted an on-line Webinar to consider how boards are grappling with the evolving risk landscape as they plan and look forward to 2022 and beyond.
In particular, more attention has been given to the obligations and liabilities of directors as they seek to ensure that their companies both survive and thrive, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be front of mind. Boards, and NEDs in particular, need to use the lessons learnt during 2020 and 2021 to plot their course in 2022 – how different will the approach to managing risk need to be?
The online webinar session was led by Graham Durgan, Chair at NEDA, and considered the views and insight from:
- Angus Duncan, Executive Director FINEX, Directors & Officers at WTW,
- Neale Stevenson, Financial Institutions Focus Group Leader at Beazley plc,
- Tom Ielapi, Underwriter Inigo Insurance and
- Susan Hooper, Founding director at Chapter Zero and a portfolio NED with roles at Uber, Moonpig and Affinity Water, who provided a sense-check on how boards are preparing for the future.
You can access a recording of the whole event by following this
link.