The Political Risk Podcast

Mike O’Connor, co-founder and chief commercial officer at Crux Underwriting, joins for a conversation that is at turns insightful, deeply personal, strategic and technology focused. He explores why terrorism can act as a diversifier within a wider political violence portfolio, what that means for optimising capital and reinsurance, and how Crux, as an MGA in the political violence and terrorism in...

David Flandro, head of industry analysis and strategic advisory at Howden Re, discusses a growing reinsurance paradox: global risk is rising, but prices are falling. The episode was recorded as re/insurance executives headed to Monte Carlo for RVS 2026. The conversation explores what geopolitical instability, higher interest rates and the cost of capital mean for the market, whether Middle East lo...

Chris Jarvis, group chief underwriting officer at IGI, discusses the reset taking place in political violence insurance. With geopolitical instability and conflict in the Middle East testing underwriting assumptions, Jarvis explains how IGI is adjusting pricing, line sizes, aggregation and capacity across its global portfolio. The discussion explores whether affordability is creating gaps in polit...

Almost three years on from the October 7 terrorist attacks, Israel has fought across multiple fronts, from Gaza and Lebanon to direct confrontation with Iran. Amiad Cohen, CEO of The Herut Center, argues that Israel has substantially reduced the military threats surrounding it, outperforming pre-war expectations through a strategy he calls “peace through strength”. He discusses whether Israel’s wa...

Sub-Saharan Africa’s government financing landscape has been transformed by credit markets, changing geopolitics, and new sources of capital. This special episode, produced in association with Mosaic Insurance, features Katharine Villers, political risk underwriter and head of commercial finance at Mosaic, and Nick James, director, structured finance at ICBC Standard Bank. They explore how the con...

How can political violence and terrorism insurers turn recent events into better underwriting insights? Recorded live at Lloyd’s during Verisk’s “Insuring Political Violence, SRCC, and Terrorism Forum”, this special episode brings together Alex Baker of Chaucer, Guy Burrows of Inigo and Torbjorn Soltvedt of Verisk Maplecroft. The panel explores the underwriting lessons emerging from recent geopoli...

Strikes, riots and civil commotion (SRCC) have moved from the margins of property and political violence portfolios into sharper focus for insurers and their reinsurers. This special episode with Lockton Re features senior catastrophe modeller George Wragg and consultant Paul Upton, along with Blackthorn head of advisory Jerry Smith. They discuss why the SRCC threat is important, the sociopolitica...

Forecasting phenomenon Dr John Hulsman returns to the podcast. John has made a name for himself as a pre-eminent predictor of geopolitical risk in the multipolar era. He prides himself on his ‘call record’, beating those of his rivals. We discuss Trump’s deal with Iran, the balance of power in the Middle East, political risk forecasting at the halfway point of 2026, the use of war gaming as a tool...

Credit and political risk insurance has become a critical tool for mobilising capital into complex markets, supporting trade, investment and development finance through a period of heightened geopolitical and credit uncertainty. In this episode, Rafael Docavo-Malvezzi, global chief underwriting officer, political risk credit and bond at AXA XL, discusses the credit cycle, underwriting challenges,...

Geopolitical risk is putting global supply chains under renewed pressure, with the Strait of Hormuz crisis adding to existing concerns around trade disruption, tariffs and fragile logistics networks. Alec Russell, managing director, cargo for Arthur J Gallagher International, and Alex Vile, associate consultant, threat intelligence at AnotherDay, a Gallagher company, discuss how organisations are...

War in the Gulf in 2026 is a defining event for political violence. Underwriters face unprecedented claims activity, with individual Iranian missile and drone strikes accounting for hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, together representing more insured financial loss in just a few weeks than several years of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Sandy Warne of Sukoon, Dan Callow of Starr, and Cosmo Warn...

Hotels are increasingly on the frontline of political violence and malicious risk, from terrorism and civil unrest to missile and drone attacks. In this special episode, Jeff Moore, PhD, CEO of Muir Analytics, explains how data-led underwriting and threat intelligence are reshaping how insurers and risk professionals understand and price these exposures. Drawing on case studies from the SecureHote...

Modern perils are colliding with modern assets, as drones and data centres reshape the risk landscape in real time. Blackthorn senior broker Thea Grootenhuis and head of advisory Jerry Smith explore how UAV-enabled attacks, critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, and a volatile geopolitical and malicious risk environment are converging. Drawing on live conflict dynamics in the Gulf, alongside les...

A special episode exploring the rise of active assailant risk and the growing demand for data-driven underwriting in a rapidly evolving threat landscape. Joshua Watson, senior underwriter, war and terrorism, North America, at Markel International, joins Gamze Tekin, senior product owner at Concirrus, to examine how this peril has moved to the forefront of crisis management and political violence i...

War, political violence and terrorism demand close coordination between underwriting and claims teams – particularly when geopolitical crises escalate quickly. In this special episode, Sarah Howell, head of first party claims, and Jennie Beard, underwriting manager, war and terrorism, Liberty Specialty Markets, discuss how collaboration works in practice, drawing on experience managing global a po...

The rapidly evolving Middle East crisis forms the start of this conversation with James Esdaile, executive chairman of BPL, examining the immediate implications for insurance markets since the US and Israel began military operations against Iran on Saturday. The interview that follows explores the evolution of credit and political risk insurance (CPRI) and standalone political risk insurance (PRI)...

Political violence entered 2026 in an increasingly complex risk environment and a highly competitive insurance market. Cosmo Warner, director, war, terrorism and political violence at Price Forbes, reflects on recent renewals and what they reveal about the state of the market. The conversation explores how London’s specialty market is balancing soft pricing with emerging loss activity and shifting...

Canongate AI is a new political risk and political violence intelligence solution that converts millions of geopolitical inputs into structured intelligence for underwriters. Already deployed by specialty insurers, the platform provides underwriters and analysts with a clear, structured view of the geopolitical landscape, distilled by AI, from what would otherwise be an overwhelming flow of raw in...

Matthew Brooke is a senior war and terrorism underwriter at Markel. In this episode he explores how political violence underwriting is evolving within an increasingly uncertain geopolitical environment globally. The conversation begins with Matthew’s role, background and Markel’s political violence portfolio, before moving into how insurers are balancing portfolio management, market competition an...

A special episode of the Political Risk Podcast, produced in association with Lockton Re, to examine how the re/insurance market should rethink terrorism risk in an age of volatility. The conversation is built around the report “Beyond the Blast: Capital Management of Tomorrow’s Terror Threats”, published by Lockton Re in collaboration with Blackthorn. It features three of the report’s authors: Pa...

John Teichert is a recently retired US Air Force brigadier general and former test pilot for the F-22 stealth fighter. A graduate of MIT and Stanford, John flew combat missions in the F-15E, call-sign “Dragon”, and test piloted the F-22 Raptor. He later commanded Joint Base Andrews and Edwards Air Force Base. He went on to serve as the senior US Defense Official in Iraq and finished his military c...

Join two special guests for a conversation about the future of political violence and terrorism underwriting. Billy Ayres is head of crisis management at The Fidelis Partnership, and Simon Fagg is global head of pre-sales solutions at AdvantageGo. We discuss how PVT underwriters blend expertise with analytics, what underwriters really want from their data and tech providers, insurer fears about st...

This special edition of the Political Risk Podcast features Verisk Maplecroft’s Political Risk Outlook report. Anna Gilmour, Head of Global Risk Insight, joins Hugo Brennan, Director of Research, EMEA, to discuss the research, offering a forward-looking assessment of the forces reshaping geopolitics, global markets and insurance portfolios. The special episode explores why political risk has becom...

Robert Hunter, former US ambassador to NATO and chief White House official for Europe and the Middle East joins Mosaic Insurance’s international CUO Charlie Mackay to explore why a firm grasp of history is essential to understanding today’s geopolitical uncertainty. From US foreign-policy unpredictability to the return of great-power rivalry and the role of China, Robert explains how complacency o...

Pamela Thomson-Hall, head of international at Willis, offers crisis management advice, supporting clients through geopolitical shocks and leading an international broking business. From Russia–Ukraine lessons to horizon scanning, scenario analysis and a guidebook for CEOs, she explains why preparation, agility, clear communication and cultural sensitivity are essential when crises suddenly unfold....