Integrated Risk Management has become a necessary and extremely beneficial strategy for organizations to effectively and proactively manage risk across the board. A strong IRM strategy will demonstrate the full scope of risk across the business so the organization can make continuous improvements to the risk management program for better organizational performance.

What is Integrated Risk Management?

Unlike a compliance-based risk management approach, IRM is a more proactive and evaluative strategy that looks at risks through a wider lens and considers the business strategy in the decision-making process. A strong IRM practice contributes to an organization’s security and risk tolerance profile and is generally regarded as one of the more effective risk management tactics.

Why is IRM so important in the Insurance Sector?

The insurance industry requires a generous amount of personal information and data to be collected from its policyholders. This sizable amount of sensitive information is extremely attractive to cybercriminals and hackers who might attempt to gain unauthorized access to it in order to commit fraud and a number of other crimes.

But it’s not only the policyholders that need protecting — the insurance company itself is held to an extensive amount of compliance and cybersecurity regulations that need to be upheld at all times — both from governing bodies and institutions like banks. Insurance companies are facing a continually evolving regulatory environment. Being able to effectively manage risk using IRM provides protection to everyone involved — and by making sure that brokers are upholding their compliance regulations, they appear far more credible.

Accepting some risk to the business is inevitable in order to be able to operate, however taking a holistic look at how different threats affect the business can help insurance companies prioritize how they respond to those threats based on the impact they could have to the business to minimize potential financial and reputational damages.

How NewRocket can help

We have over 15 years of experience managing successful programs for Integrated Risk Management and Security Operations. Remaining compliant among changing regulations becomes much more achievable when a proactive strategy against risk is implemented and being able to properly evaluate risks against business outcomes helps to prioritize mitigation and response.

Listen to Co-Founder and CTO of Iceberg Networks, David Pearson, talk about the benefits for insurance companies to adopt continuous monitoring and continuous compliance in their processes. Strong and mature IRM solutions are a win-win for everyone involved.