The 2013 Lloyd's Risk Index

The Lloyd’s Risk Index 2013 is based on a global survey of over 500 C-suite and board level executives conducted by Ipsos for Lloyd’s during April and May 2013. The survey findings shown the shifting priorities senior business leaders face around the globe. These include:

• High taxation is identified as the biggest risk faced by business leaders after prolonged public and political exposure and debate. It has soared up the Risk Index ranking from 13th to 1st place in the last two years.
• Cyber security now sits squarely towards the top of the agenda for boards around the world with cyber risk moving from 12th to 3rd place in the index. Business leaders have woken up to the importance of cyber security following a series of high profile incidents since 2011.
• Loss of customers has slipped to 2nd place, down from the number one risk two years ago as businesses struggle with the continued effects of economic turbulence.

Technical Note

The Lloyd’s Risk Index 2013 is based on a global survey of 588 C-suite and board level executives conducted by Ipsos for Lloyd’s during April and May 2013. The survey asked respondents about their attitudes to 50 risks across five categories:

• Business and strategic risk
• Economic, regulatory and market risk
• Political, crime and security risk
• Environmental and health risk
• Natural hazard risk

Respondents were asked to rate both the overall risk category and a number of specific risks within each of the overall categories for both their corporate risk priorities and for the degree of their business preparedness to manage those risks. A score was calculated for each, with zero being the lowest level of priority or preparedness and ten being the highest. 77% of respondents represented smaller businesses with an annual turnover of US$499 million or less, and 23% were from larger companies with annual turnover of US$500 million or more. Survey respondents were distributed across Asia-Pacific (31%), Europe (28%), North America (26%), Latin America (10%) and South Africa (5%).