Am I An Effective Risk Manager At My Company?

How do you rate yourself, or somebody else, for risk management? Do you base it on low numbers of accidents or security incidents? When you go through a year of low loss and fewer accidents, how do you know the cause?

The best way to evaluate yourself as a risk manager is to look at your influence on your company, and then look at yourself as an individual manager.

What three steps did you take in the past year to mitigate risk before it occurred?

• Did you implement any changes, such as training, that could have prevented an incident?
• If you did training, are there records showing when, what, who, and how the training occurred?
• Was testing conducted to ensure knowledge of the training?
• Is the training ongoing and updated?

Do you have a schedule for regular risk assessments of your company?
Top to bottom assessments of your company are critical. Learn about your industry standards for risk, and compare them to your company. You can learn this information from trade magazines, conferences, trade shows, or speaking with your insurance agent.

Do you push your findings and suggestions to higher levels of management?
Many executives don't like to talk about risk management.  After all, when discussing risk management you are talking about saving money, not making money. You are discussing preservation and coverage, not the forward push into markets or income enhancement.

However, it's your job to educate people about the importance of safety, coverage, liability, and caution. This may rub many "hard chargers" the wrong way, but if you fail to warn people about potential liabilities, and an incident occurs, you will be the first one everyone looks at.

The Individual Traits Of A Successful Risk Manager
Here are the several personal characteristics you should have or develop so you can be a better risk manager.

• The ability to see the future implications from changes in a business. For example,  If your company changed the type of vehicles used in your delivery fleet, what does that mean in terms of your liability?
• Are you keeping up to date with your education? When is the last time you attended a professional conference or updated your education?
• Do you have excellent presentation and communication skills? How do you know? Ask a trusted associate to watch and rate you as you do a mock or practice presentation.
• How often do you seek expert advice from people outside your company? When is the last time you conducted a review of your company's protection with your insurance agents?
• How are you at working under pressure? Company executives call upon risk managers during stressful times, and you must be prepared to deal with them.
• How are you at managing your own staff? Does your team move along smoothly or are there more hiccups than you would like?

Culture Insurance is a premier business insurance brokerage serving the San Diego area. We are experts at risk management and have helped many companies with establishing the right balance of protection and risk, while still providing them the freedom for the growth of their business.

If you have any questions about risk management, we encourage you to call us and learn how we can help your company.