Political instability has become one of the biggest risks for businesses in 2025. Ongoing wars, conflicts, terrorism and political unrest, and tariffs and trade wars are bringing uncertainly and risk to multinational business. All of which is creating a more challenging environment for doing business globally. How will growing political tensions and political unrest, as well as supply chain disruption, potential trade wars and increasing reliance on technology affect global programmes?

• How is the global economic and political situation affecting corporate risks?
• Where are the hotspots and major concerns?
• What insurance covers are becoming increasingly important for businesses globally?
• Does the political and economic stability make it harder to run global programmes?
• What impact are changing tariffs having on the insurance market globally and in Asia?

This session will look specifically at Asian risks and the need for global insurance programmes. It will look at how such programmes are best structured and what can be included and how. Should a global programme focus on core property, business interruption, and liability lines, or include risks such as cyber, employee benefits and trade credit.

• Why create a global programme – why not leave it up to local operations to organise locally? What are the core benefits?
• What kind of company is a global programme designed for – multinationals only? What are the costs involved? How does fronting work and when is this needed or not needed?
• How should a global programme with Asian risks be structured? What lines to include and which to leave out?
• Is there adequate capacity in the region to cover the major lines or do you still need to use London or other international centres?
• Could you and should you include Australian risks or Chinese risks in the programme or do these need to be dealt with separately?
• Crucial areas for a successful global programme include premium allocation and the setting of retention levels. What needs to be considered when allocating premium? How much flexibility is there? What tax and regulatory requirements are there? It is vital to avoid conflict with local operations and this requires dialogue and clear communication of benefits.

What are the major claims trends in the core property and liability lines? Which types of claims are causing risk managers and their insurers the biggest headaches and why? What are the expected claims black-spots and in which territories? What factors are driving these trends, both in property and liability? How is new technology and digitalisation improving claims management? And how can claims information be best used to inform risk mitigation and loss prevention efforts and improve risks?

Climate-related risks are on the increase as climate change brings record-breaking temperatures, increased flooding, devastating wildfires and more powerful storms. Total catastrophic losses in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa reached around $91bn last year, up significantly on the previous year of $66bn, according to Munich Re.

Adapting to the new climate “norms” is crucial, and the key is building resilience.

• What is happening in the nat cat re/insurance market?
• Where is the current market in terms of covers, pricing, T&Cs and availability of insurance for extreme weather?
• How is the insurance industry looking to help Asian corporates improve their resilience?
• What is the role of parametric covers and captives in financing climate risks?

Around the world, liability risks are increasing, driven by litigation, regulations and consumer awareness. Social inflation is a huge issue, leading to massive claims and legal expenses. Class actions are a continuing problem in the US, where costs are spiralling and becoming unsustainable, with a worrying trend toward nuclear verdicts, and there are concerns that the issue will begin to spread to Europe and Asia.

• What does this mean for the liability insurance sector in terms of capacity, rates, T&Cs?
• What strategies are there available to corporates to tackle social inflation?
• Will US style nuclear verdicts start to be seen in Asia?
• Which nations in Asia have legislation to allow for collective actions and are they being adopted? With examples of collective actions across the region, to what extent can such actions be insured?
• Which areas are most affected by social inflation?

Many multinationals with global programmes will also have a captive insurer. A captive’s involvement in the setting and funding of retentions can be vital to a multinational programme. A captive is the one of the most cost-efficient ways to fill the gap between the group retention and the local retention levels. In addition, a captive can facilitate the ability to allocate premium to subsidiaries and operating units and thereby improve loss control and risk management.

Captives are growing in importance in Asia and this session will examine the captive potential and its role in a global insurance programme.

• How important is a captive to a global insurance programme?
• Is there a central role to be played, especially around retention levels and co-ordinating the different covers of subsidiaries around the world?
• How can a captive be used in a global programme – as a primary insurer, reinsurer, or excess insurer?
• How does using a captive help achieve consistency, certainty and compliance?
• Why does it make sense to create a captive in Singapore to cover your Asia Pacific risks?

A successful global programme is based on up-to-date information on operations globally, to ensure that cover is appropriate, that risks are suitably covered, and claims are paid in the right place. The collection of information from a multinational’s numerous operations is time-consuming but important. What sort of information is required? How can brokers and insurers help with the gathering of information? And how is this data transferred to insurers to enable decisions about global programmes? How is technology and digitalisation helping with this process? How can Big Data and AI be used to make the whole process more streamlined, efficient and reliable for all partners? What could and should brokers and carriers be doing together to make sure the process is as painless as possible for risk managers?

Latest analysis from the leading brokers shows that risk and insurance managers in Asia are enjoying the same relaxing terms and conditions as elsewhere in the world.

During this session we will investigate the likely direction of the market pricing and capacity in coming renewals and ask what risk managers need to do to secure the best possible outcome working with their broker.