Allianz Risk Barometer lists top risks for the region

Cyber incidents (#1 with 41% responses), pandemic outbreak (#2 with 39%) and business interruption (#3 with 38%) have skyrocketed to the top three business risks in Asia Pacific, according to the Allianz Risk Barometer 2021.

These are followed by natural catastrophes (#4 with 27%) rounding out the key issues in the region.

As expected, changes in legislation and regulation (#5 with 22%) also keeps its place amongst the top five Asia Pacific risks in 2021 for the third consecutive year. This was largely due to the several elections and change in leadership that took place across the region in Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia, as well as the broader implications on supply chains as a result of China's trade wars and greater uncertainty brought on by governments introducing tough lockdown measures.

Commenting on the Asia Pacific results, Mr Mark Mitchell, AGCS APAC managing director, said, "Companies and even entire sectors, have suffered large business interruption events as a result of the pandemic of 2020 and it's the largest catastrophic event to hit a modern, globalised and interconnected economy. The pandemic has demonstrated just how vulnerable the world and businesses have become to unpredictable multi-country events and this has forever changed the risk landscape for clients and society more generally.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has not only changed our society, but has also fundamentally changed the way businesses operate, especially the acceleration towards greater digitalisation driven by more companies working remotely. Our hope is that businesses and clients can learn from their experiences in 2020 and make sure they have in place measures which will reduce the impact of similar events in the future."

The top five risks for the region are summarised as follows:

Source: Asia insurance review