Fitch’s analysis of the Brazilian market sums it up neatly.

Its outlook for the Brazilian insurance market suggests that the huge growth in premiums seen in the first half of this year simply cannot be maintained as even Brazil begins to slow down.

But there is no reason why that market could not report a continued 15% growth in premiums to match its five year average. Opportunity still abounds for the brave.

But the statement from Fitch on Russia also sums up the risks that such opportunities are always attached to.

Capital outflows from Russia appear to have risen sharply in the fourth quarter, which reflects the poor business climate and political uncertainty currently in Russia sparked by rising concern among the population that Mr Putin may have finally overstepped the mark and rigged the recent elections.

Compare this with the dominant news I witnessed while in South Africa recently for the Institute of Risk Management South Africa annual conference as the lower house there unwisely adopted the State Information Bill and deepened concerns about political risk, and the trend becomes clear.

Where there is opportunity for rapid growth as in Brazil, Russia, Asia, Africa and the Middle East there inevitably arises risk that is difficult to manage and certainly very different to risks that CRE readers are used to managing at home.

But there is no running away from these ‘new’ risks because any serious European company that wants and needs to grow will have to look beyond Europe over the coming years as our local recession kicks in if it has not already done so.

Ferma’s spot poll of 153 European risk managers about the threat of supply chain risk and the inadequacy of insurance for the risk following recent events in Japan and Thailand should come as no surprise to anyone.

The risks of operating in an increasingly global and interconnected economy are obvious and the risk management community needs to re-double efforts with the insurance and reinsurance sector to seek answers and fast.

For this reason we at CRE are rapidly expanding our horizons in 2012 to help meet our readers’ fast changing needs.

We remain firmly rooted in our European base and exist to serve the information needs of Europe’s risk and insurance managers.

But at the same time we are also expanding our coverage of both the types of risks that need to be identified,measured, managed and transferred and their geographical location, not least those related to supply chain.

Thus on February 15 we are holding a highly focused Risk Frontiers seminar on emerging risks at the Grange City Hotel in London along with Airmic and sponsored by Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty.

At this event we will hear from Michael Heise, Allianz Group’s Chief Economist, about the economic outlook for Europe, Professor Alan Punter and Phil Ellis of Willis about reputational risk, Michael Bruch of AGCS on energy supply and blackout and cyber expert Paul Dwyer about new technology and cyber risk.

All CRE readers are welcome to what will be a fascinating and challenging day in London but please register sooner rather than later as spaces are (genuinely!) filling up fast.

Our main event of the year will be the Malta International Risk & Insurance Congress at the Hilton in Valetta on May 24 and 25 at which we will also be tackling the big emerging risks and challenges for European and international risk and insurance managers.

For this event we will focus on supply chain and business continuity and not least what the heck to do about securing valid and sufficient business interruption coverage in this tricky market, as stressed by the latest Ferma survey this week.

We will invite the leading insurers, reinsurers and brokers to the event to explain their position on critical areas such as global CBI coverage and hope to make some real progress there and back up Ferma’s effort to find solutions.

We will also have a panel of experts to discuss the real implications of Solvency II for captives and how this critical risk management vehicle can be used more effectively in future to manage European and global risks.

And we will also challenge the market to continue and substantially further recent progress made by Airmic, Ferma and others on global programmes.

The momentum on this effort must be maintained in 2012 as global programmes that actually work will be more important than ever as European and international risk managers seek to manage their cross border exposures more effectively.

Spaces will also be limited for this event so please do again register as soon as possible at our website to help with our planning and make sure it is the best event for CRE readers possible.

The management and transfer of risk in Europe and worldwide will be our main focus in the pages of the monthly newspaper, weekly electronic newsletter and daily papers at leading events such as AMRAE, Airmic and DVS next year through news, analysis and opinion from leading market figures.

We will also continue our popular strategy of digging deeper into the topics that really matter with more in-depth surveys and management reports next year and these will reflect the more global theme.

We will again use our highly successful flagship annual Risk Frontiers survey of Europe’s leading risk managers to identify the key topics of interest to our readers next year and very much focus on solutions not just questions, particularly to the supply chain problem.

We will challenge the brokers to explain what they are doing for their customers in this and other key areas by repeating our Risk Distribution survey of Europe’s leading brokers, launched this year at the DVS.

And we will publish our first survey of the leading risk carriers—Risk Transfer—in the spring based upon their annual results and interviews with the leaders of the top insurers and reinsurers.

We will repeat our annual management report on Global Programmes and expand this report to include in-depth analysis of the main insurance rules in the key regions and changes that have recently occurred and are in the works.

On top of these activities we at CRE will intensify our coverage of the key emerging markets of interest to our readers namely Brazil and the wider Latin American markets, Southern Africa, the Middle East and North Africa and of course Australasia and Asia.

In the first quarter alone the CRE team will travel to South Africa and the Middle East to investigate the key insurance and risk management trends in these key growth regions.

We are rapidly building up our reporting team and are working closely with local risk management associations to make sure we write about the right topics and are building a local readership to add to our fast growing readership in Europe.

As ever we rely on your feedback to make sure that we are covering the topics that you want and need us to cover so please continue sending your ideas and comments.

In the meantime have a great Christmas and New Year.

All the best.

Adrian Ladbury

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