The Political Risk Podcast

As Ukraine endures and rebuilds, insurers are playing a quiet but crucial role in keeping goods moving and businesses operating. Jamie Cleary, head of crisis management at MS Amlin, speaks about the creation of the Ukraine Reinsurance Guarantee Facility (URGF), a landmark partnership between the EBRD, donor governments, and the private insurance market. He explains how the URGF provides war risk c...

How can political risk insurance unlock trillions in investment for sustainable development? William Limb, head of political risk solutions at Liberty Specialty Markets (LSM) discusses a landmark UNCTAD report, “De-risking Investment for Sustainable Development Goals: The Role of Political Risk Insurance”. The conversation explores how political risk cover can bridge the $4trn annual funding gap h...

Kidnap and ransom (K&R) is one of the most specialised – and least understood – corners of the insurance world. In this special episode, in association with Gallagher Specialty, Eddie Kurshumlija, director of crisis management at Gallagher Specialty, and Adam Carrier, head of consulting at AnotherDay, a Gallagher company, explore how K&R policies work in practice, from what’s typically inc...

Bruce Carman, CEO of Hive Underwriters, returns for a wide-ranging conversation. You can’t get broader than space, where we start, which is Hive’s latest launch. We trace the London MGA's development from aviation war into multi-class specialty agency. We also discuss consequences of June's High Court ruling that losses incurred by aircraft lessors of planes seized by Russia after its inva...

Trade wars and geopolitics are reshaping global supply chains, counterparty risk, and credit and political risk insurance (CPRI). In this episode, Eran Charit, senior broker at Lockton Re, shares his perspective on how a pipeline of new CPRI entrants and fresh capacity are softening conditions in the primary market, while treaty reinsurance remains more fragile to systemic shocks, due to the short...

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, misinforma...

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...

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...

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-gover...

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 dis...

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...

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...

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...

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 cons...

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...

Political violence and terrorism risks to renewable energy projects are the focus of the latest special episode in association with Gallagher Specialty. Two guests feature in this timely conversation: Harry Walker, director, structured credit and political risks at Gallagher Specialty; and Adam Carrier, head of consulting, at AnotherDay, a Gallagher company.

Hamish Greenwood is head of crisis management at McGill and Partners. In January the broker launched a new war risk reinsurance facility for commercial property in Ukraine. A good example of market innovation and collaboration, it uses FortuneGuard’s AI-powered tech, fuelled by three years of Ukrainian government air defence data, and partners local capacity from Ukrainian insurer ARX with several...

Verisk Maplecroft’s Political Risk Outlook draws on a unique portfolio of country risk data, alongside analysis from its team of experts, to strip back the complexity of some of the key global issues driving the risk environment for international business. This special episode features Jimena Blanco, Chief Analyst at Maplecroft, and Hugo Brennan, Maplecroft’s Research Director for Europe, the Midd...

Charles Hecker spent forty years travelling and working in the Soviet Union and Russia as a political risk consultant and journalist. He is the author of ‘Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia’. We discuss this acclaimed new book and draw lessons from the highs and lows of doing business in post-Soviet Russia, from communism to capitalism, and to the exodus of three years ago. Ther...

Srdjan Todorovic is head of political violence and hostile environment solutions at Allianz Commercial. In this episode we talk through the Allianz Risk Barometer 2025. Geopolitics is a recurring theme throughout the report, and our conversation focuses on three of its top ten ranked risks, including business interruption, cyber risk, and political risk and political violence. We discuss the hot t...

The insurance industry and the private sector are on the frontline of hybrid warfare, already a big news story in 2025. Elisabeth Braw is a journalist and author focused on responses to ‘Gray-zone’ aggression, including sabotage operations, cyber-attacks and damaging subsea cables. She is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative, and a senior associate fellow a...

Southeast Asia is at the forefront of Asia Pacific geopolitics, with the US and China vying for influence. Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia recently became BRICS ‘partner countries’. The Philippines has tilted towards the US since Bongbong Marcos took office, and regularly clashes with China to defend its maritime borders. Meanwhile, several ASEAN countries are developing a biometric cros...

A special episode, in association with Mosaic, focused on the integrity of borders amid a volatile new ‘age of secession’. Mark Wheeler is co-CEO and co-founder of next-gen specialty insurer Mosaic Insurance. Dr Timothy Less is a senior advisor for geopolitics at Cambridge University’s Centre for Risk Studies, and previously worked in the British Diplomatic Service. The thawing out of frozen confl...

Infrastructure is on the frontline of so-called ‘grey zone’ tactics used by government-sponsored actors, including cyber-attacks that can be aimed at disruption, theft and corporate espionage, meaning businesses should be vigilant and resilient against the threats. Which is where AnotherDay comes in, as a Gallagher company and specialist crisis and risk management consultancy. Sneha Nichols‑Dawda...

Marvin Barth is creator of Thematic Markets, providing independent research and analytics on the global political economy. An economics PhD, he has worked as an economist, strategist and portfolio manager at big banks and asset managers, and across the policy spectrum, including the Federal Reserve, US Treasury and the Bank for International Settlements. Our conversation focuses on the political a...