The Political Risk Podcast

Jelle Ouwehand, head of war, terrorism and political violence at Arch Insurance International, features in this episode. Political violence has a close and complex relationship with social media. The speed at which news travels, and the democratising power of social media, are meeting with forces of political populism and polarisation. Together with increased proliferation of fake news, misinformation and disinformation, all these factors mean social media are fanning the flames of social disorder, with inevitable fallout for underwriting PV and SRCC risks.

Jérôme Haegeli, Swiss Re’s chief economist, discusses its latest Sigma study. Global growth is slowing at a time of large macroeconomic regime shifts; extreme policy uncertainty is set to persist with the highest US goods tariffs since the Great Depression, the reinsurer’s report warns. This ep relates headline geopolitics to outcomes for insurance premium and claims trends – positive and negative – across lines of business, from marine cargo to motor, and property catastrophe reinsurance business. You can read the Swiss Re Sigma study “World insurance in 2025: a riskier, more fragmented world order”, here. https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/sigma-research.html

Verisk Maplecroft’s new Strikes, Riots, and Civil Commotion (SRCC) model for the United States is the market’s first probabilistic SRCC catastrophe model. Since 2017, SRCC has led to $10bn of insured losses, compared to $1bn for terrorism. Civil unrest in the US recently hit the headlines in Los Angeles. In 2020, SRCC topped $3bn in industry-wide insured losses. A one in 100-year event, in Verisk Maplecroft’s catalogue, would be more than twice as severe. Two guests feature for this special episode in association with Verisk Maplecroft: Sam Haynes, Head of Data and Analytics; and Torbjorn Soltvedt, Associate Director, Global Risk Insight, Verisk Maplecroft.

The 90-day pause on President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs is due to expire on 9 July. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are among the targets. When a blanket tariff rate of 10% expires, Thai goods will be targeted with a 36% tariff, Indonesian goods at 32%, for instance. Two senior diplomats feature in this ep. Sir Richard Gozney is a retired senior British diplomat, ex-governor of Bermuda, and former ambassador to Nigeria and Indonesia. Sek Wannamethee is a retired senior Thai diplomat, former ambassador for Thailand to Belgium and Luxembourg, and head of the Thai mission to the European Union. His recent article on this topic, published by The Ambassador Partnership, can be found here. https://www.ambassadorllp.com/ap-insights/asean-navigating-through-trumps-tariffs

For the latest episode, two guests feature from SCOR Business Solutions: Kayley Stewart is head of crisis management; and Babak Tavassolie is head analyst of political and credit risk. It’s a wide-ranging conversation, encompassing two geopolitically interrelated but separate specialty insurance lines of business that are at the very core of this pod – political risk and political violence. We discuss the political risks present within previously ‘vanilla’ credit insurance, affecting some buyer motivations and underwriting assumptions; the maturing specialty market for standalone terrorism and political violence, for such emerging threats as sabotage and civil unrest; as well as macro geopolitical risk trends to monitor for 2025 and beyond.

The City of London Corporation hosted a Chief Risk Officers Summit at the Guildhall on 21 May, including a panel discussion: “Responding to challenges in an ever-changing geopolitical landscape”. Panellists included: Andrew McDougall, Head of Geopolitical Risk, Barclays; Savannah Thompson, Head of Political Risk & Underwriting Development, The Fidelis Partnership; Esperanza Cerdan, Chief Risk Officer, IFM Investors; Jennifer Geary, Chief Risk Officer, Non-Exec & Author, The C-Suite Framework; with host David Benyon asking the questions. Bayes Business School in partnership with the City of London published a report to promote the importance of the CRO role: “Optimising Growth: The Evolving Role of the Chief Risk Officer”. Here’s the link to that paper.https://www.citystgeorges.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/866715/Bayes-Lord-Mayors-CRO-Report-WEB_Final.pdf

A special episode, in association with Liberty Specialty Markets, focused on European political violence (PV) risks. Politically motivated sabotage is a huge topic across Europe, amid heightened concerns about hybrid-war and grey-zone threats amid a potentially volatile political backdrop. Strikes Riots and Civil Commotion (SRCC) are the front-and-centre PV risk, particularly given recent civil unrest events within territories of Overseas France. The episode features two leaders of LSM’s European PV business: Björn Reusswig, Regional Line of Business Manager, Terrorism & Contingency, Europe; and François Barriol, France Manager, Deputy Head, Terrorism, Political Violence & Contingency, Europe.

As we hit the first 100 days mark of US President Donald Trump’s second term, no other single word sums up the preoccupation of business leaders around the world better than tariffs. This conversation assesses the impact of the US’s tariffs, particularly on Canada, Mexico and China, and asks how risk professionals and their organisations are responding to the fast-moving shifts in global trade. My guests are Hoe-Yeong Loke, head of research at Airmic, and Alexander Frost, chief markets officer at Airmic.

Does Donald Trump have a master plan? The White House has sewn chaos in recent days, triggering stock market volatility with on-then-partially-off punitive tariffs globally, speaking softly with Russia, chastising Ukraine, talking openly about annexing neighbouring Greenland and Canada, and sparking an escalating trade war with China. Firas Modad, founder and principal of Modad Geopolitics, a consultancy advising insurance firms and corporate clients, thinks he knows what Trump’s tumultuous strategy is all about.

Zhou Bo, a retired senior colonel in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, joins Mosaic’s global political risk leader Finn McGuirk, for the latest special episode in association with Mosaic Insurance. Colonel Zhou Bo is a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University, a distinguished fellow of the Global Governance Institution, and a regular PLA speaker at the Munich Security Conference and the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue. The title of his new book, published in March 2025, is perhaps the biggest question of the age, and the subject of this fascinating discussion between these two geopolitical risk experts.