For Insurers
Understanding product-safety and recall risk
Research-based perspectives for insurers assessing companies exposed to product-safety incidents and product recalls, from underwriting and risk selection to recall response and loss mitigation.
Questions for underwriting and risk assessment
How well prepared is a prospective policyholder for a product-safety incident? Which strengths and weaknesses distinguish one company from another? How might its response affect the course and consequences of a recall? These questions can inform decisions about whether to accept a risk, what further information is needed, and how risk differences should feed into pricing considerations.
Risk selection
Structure the review of a prospective insured’s recall governance, escalation routes, traceability, preparedness, and previous recall experience.
Risk differentiation
Identify relevant differences between companies and gaps in the evidence available to underwriting teams when considering acceptance and premium levels.
Recall response capability
Assess plans for stakeholder coordination, communication, remedy delivery, and monitoring once a product-safety issue emerges.
Consumer participation
Consider how communication, remedy burden, and behavioral barriers may affect whether corrective action actually reaches and engages affected consumers.
Consequences and scenarios
Explore how different recall-response choices could affect customer relationships, reputation, business recovery, and the assumptions used in loss scenarios.
Learning and mitigation
Review completed recalls and identify preparedness improvements that can be discussed with insured businesses and risk-management teams.
Research input to insurance decisions
The consulting contribution is an evidence-based assessment of recall management and consumer response. It can inform an insurer’s underwriting framework and its discussion of risk acceptance, terms, and premium differentiation. Policy coverage, actuarial modelling, and final pricing and acceptance decisions remain with the insurer and its relevant specialists.
Research foundation
The book and selected publications cover recall preparedness, communication, consumer participation, reputation, and recovery. They provide a research foundation for these discussions, rather than a ready-made insurance-pricing model.