APAC businesses led global rivals in Covid resiliency: Aon
February 5 2021 by Yvonne Lau
Asia-Pacific businesses were far better prepared than their counterparts in other parts of the globe in terms of risk management when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, according to a recent report by Aon.
The broker’s ‘Reprioritising Risk and Resilience for a Post-Covid 19 Future’ report indicates that organisations in the Asia-Pacific region were “more resilient and better able to pursue the opportunities created by the pandemic.”
“The scope and extent of the pandemic was not foreseen by most organizations, suggesting existing risk management frameworks need to adapt to support future decision making,” said Rory Moloney, Aon’s chief executive officer for global risk consulting.
The survey also revealed that 52% of APAC respondents had a pandemic plan in place prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, as a result of learning from previous threats such as SARS as well as the avian and swine flu outbreaks. This percentage was far higher than the global benchmark of 30%. Furthermore, 11% of APAC respondents even reported “significantly higher numbers of businesses thriving” in the survey compared to 6% across all other regions.
Across APAC, 64% of respondents indicated that their company’s risk management response efforts on Covid-19 were “sufficient” to deal with the challenges presented by the pandemic.
Respondents in APAC also showed a higher level of supply chain acceleration, which was attributed to “forced improvements” brought about by the pandemic. The report noted that companies in Asia “have come through the pandemic’s cycles and are able to move forward … demand for the products, materials and commodities they produce was less impacted by Covid-19”.
The report also notes that 88% of respondents across the globe did not file Covid-19 related claims on their policies. This suggests that “organisations don’t believe that insurance is an appropriate strategy and believe themselves to have limited coverage due to the nature of the loss or the limits/exclusions that could impact potential coverage”.
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