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Insights, strategies, and stories from the world of risk management.
Laura Hatton's phone rang on New Year's Day 2024. Fire at the plant. Ninety-nine thousand square feet. Still burning. How does a massive industrial fire become 'not that bad'?
That Certificate of Insurance you're holding? It's informational. It's a snapshot in time. It's not a contract. And treating it like one could cost you millions.
For decades, the insurance industry operated on a simple principle: the bigger your premium, the better your service. Technology is changing that equation.
You prequalify a contractor. Financials look solid. Six months in, they're struggling to pay subs. The answer? Their financial situation changed. You just didn't notice.
AI has turned every employee into a kind of internal entrepreneur. 90% of enterprises have someone using AI. Only 35% have AI governance policies.
Craig Tappel's mentor gave him advice that changed everything: 'Never let insurance get in the way of doing business.' Companies winning today have rewritten the risk-reward equation.
The most counterintuitive insight: companies with the most advanced technology stacks are fighting hardest to keep humans in the loop. AI can scan for language. Humans scan for meaning.
What once took 44 days for vendor risk assessment now takes less than a week. In some cases, it's down to a click of a button. That's not just efficiency—that's transformation.
The average age of risk managers is approaching 50. When these veterans retire, they'll take irreplaceable insight into how risks actually manifest.
New employees are 35% to 40% more likely to have a workplace injury. Diana Rich's solution? Green hard hats. Cost per hard hat? Maybe $20. The signal it sends? Priceless.
We're managing risk like it's 1995. Traditional risk management is designed for the convenience of the risk manager, not the reality of the risk.
Your general contractor is fully insured. Then their subcontractor's employee gets injured, and suddenly you're named in a lawsuit. Welcome to the contractor ecosystem problem.
Right now we've got more than 800 bills in various U.S. states that talk about AI. While 90% of enterprises have someone using AI, only 35% have actual AI governance policies.
For decades, risk managers became the Department of No. Organizations thriving today have flipped the script: 'How do we take the right risks better than our competitors?'
The most sophisticated risk management system is only as good as the people using it. Culture operates in spaces between the rules, in split-second decisions when no one is watching.
When I started talking to risk managers about how they tracked contractor insurance, I heard the same story: someone maintained a massive spreadsheet. Certificates came via email, fax, and mail.
The handshake that sealed a million-dollar deal. The 'my word is my bond' ethos that built America's infrastructure. They're all dead. Society is a lot more litigious now.
70%. That's the percentage of actual risk costs that don't show up in your loss runs. That $50,000 workers' comp claim just became a $500,000 problem.
Here's a dirty little secret: almost nobody in risk management planned to be here. Walk into any RIMS event and ask how they ended up here. Nine times out of ten: 'I fell into it.'