Publications

March 16, 2023

Child labor in supply chains. Think about reputation risk management now as a potential differentiator and a competitive advantage.

The U.S. Department of Labor has now launched an investigation and said it will hold not only companies that employ child labor accountable, but the larger, better known companies that have child labor in their supply chains. The new regulatory stakeholders in companies’ supply chains bring with them investors and litigators, who had material financial consequences to activities already being followed by activists.

March 3, 2023

ESG rhetoric pledge regrets. “You may find yourself facing angry investors and determined regulators (with) powers to make things very personal.”

ESG rhetoric pledge regrets. With ESG becoming as important to some companies as EBITDA and marketing departments ramping up the ESG rhetoric, the effective scope of dutiful oversight has expanded…The Delaware court increasingly sees oversight of all things mission-critical as a board duty.

February 20, 2023

Mission critical risk denial can be costly. It is an ongoing reputational crisis…(due to) poor risk management and governance.

Mission critical risk denial can be costly. A holiday flight cancellation fiasco by Southwest Airlines crushed the company’s market capitalization and caused the company to take an $800 million dollar write-down for Q4 and record losses three times greater than analysts had expected. Equity returns 42 days into the crisis show Southwest trailing the Dow Jones U.S. Airlines Index by 18.4%. Had it merely kept pace with that index, Southwest’s market cap would have been more than $3.3 billion higher.

January 24, 2023

Building resilience requires a demonstrably effective, insurance-authenticated system.

Risk Strategy Authentication and Communication.If you oversee an effective reputation risk strategy process, but no one knows it, is it actually effective? This is a vital question boards of directors, senior executives, and risk professionals need to ask themselves in this era of enhanced regulatory enforcement. Building resilience requires a demonstrably effective, insurance-authenticated system.

December 23, 2022

Third party authentication (insurance as a signaling device) deters reputational attacks and mitigates crises.

Eli Lilly defused a tweet-induced reputational crisis. […] In the days since that event took place, Lilly’s stock underperformed the S&P and underperformed some of its pharmaceutical industry peers. Why the lingering effect on Lilly’s stock price? What could it have done differently? What could a company in its position do now? And how could have third party (insurance) authentication played a strategic role?

November 14, 2022

Parametric insurance ESG authentication. How can companies use parametric insurance to prove their ESG bona fides?

Parametric insurance ESG authentication. Parametric insurance, which has long been popular in disaster recovery, is gaining steam as a proxy for proving the effectiveness of ESG programs. Nir Kossovsky and Denise Williamee of insurer Steel City Re explore details of this novel ESG solution. Insurance-based authentication — a regulatory lynchpin — is a recent innovation made possible by parametric insurance solutions.

October 17, 2022

Well-underwritten parametric reputation insurance. Parametric insurance policies have been in use for years by Tokio Marine Kiln for reputation loss.

Well underwritten parametric reputation insurance. Parametric triggers for insurance can be anything quantifiable. In the case of my firm, Steel City Re, we use parametric measures of reputational value in our Tokio Marine Kiln policies. Parametric policies provide for ease of underwriting, facilitate claims adjustment, and enable coverage to insure complex risks including reputation and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors-linked reputation loss.

September 13, 2022

Road to reputation resilience. Combining the marketing, risk and legal forces will put companies in the best position to withstand today’s volatile social climate.

Road to Reputation Resilience. In this era of stakeholder capitalism, corporate engagement on controversial social issues, wars, pandemics, and vague or aspirational environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals driving investor decisions, “reputation management” is incomplete without “reputation risk management” and, increasingly, legal compliance. Marketers cannot do it alone. Click on the image above to read …

September 13, 2022 Read More

September 8, 2022

“’Captives show risk management can be a value centre,’ say representatives from Steel City Re.”

Captive Insurance Can Be a Value Center Captives enable risk professionals to play a tangible and demonstrable role in enhancing corporate profitability. It also allows them to control management and decision-making with respect to claims – a key function that is often overlooked […] Perhaps most importantly, it provides captive managers witha simple, clear, and …

September 8, 2022 Read More