The Political Risk Podcast

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 insurance.The discussion explores what makes active assailant risk distinct, from its frequency characteristics to its human and financial impact. Active assailant is a peril on the rise, with protection gaps facing corporate buyers, near-daily incidents taking place, and changing US state regulation on workplace violence.Conversation turns to the underwriting challenges for a peril that is far removed from physical damage focus of most PV perils. Additional challenges include managing aggregation and portfolio exposure, and the limits of traditional data when assessing fast-moving, unpredictable threats.The final section focuses on closing the data gap, from real-time risk visibility to AI-enabled underwriting tools designed to support better decision-making in complex scenarios. With attacks increasing, particularly in the US, this episode unpacks why active assailant risk is becoming one of the most pressing and technically challenging areas in specialty insurance today.

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 portfolio and responding to major loss events. The conversation explores lessons learned from the Russia-Ukraine war, how insurers are adapting processes, the use of open-source intelligence for loss adjusting, and the creation of a Lloyd’s Market Association claims coordination group.

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), different products typically for different buyers with different motivations. Esdaile reflects on his nearly three decades in the market, from joining BPL as a graduate trainee and rising to the top of the dedicated CPRI/PRI insurance broker. Along the way, the conversation touches on geopolitical drivers, expropriation risk, resource nationalism, and Venezuela as another political risk crisis case study to watch.

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 client expectations. We examine demand dynamics within multinational portfolios, why London remains the pre-eminent hub for PV, and where competitive pressures could begin to erode that position. Recent claims activity is assessed, including how underwriters are reacting to soft pricing and the flow of information when losses occur. Discussion turns to multinational client strategy: how to avoid gaps and duplication between terrorism, political violence and property programmes; and how buyers can use current conditions to strengthen resilience before the cycle inevitably turns.

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 information.Tim Hurst, Canongate AI’s co-founder and chief technology officer, is joined by James Newport, executive director of forecasting advisory the Swift Centre, for this special episode, to explain how Canongate ingests millions of documents from government sources, corporates, trade unions, NGOs and others, turning these signals into territory and peril specific insights, making sense of a volatile world.

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 and risk selection across war, terrorism, sabotage, and civil unrest perils. With social unrest emerging as a persistent challenge for many regions, the discussion also examines how war risk perceptions are shifting, including why some threats now feel closer to home for insureds and underwriters alike. The episode closes by assessing geopolitical uncertainty, buyer behaviours, and the stickiness of political violence demand across some different countries and perils. Enjoy!

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: Paul Upton, chairman of specialty, Lockton Re; Niki Whitley, director of advisory, Blackthorn; and George Wragg, senior catastrophe modeller, Lockton Re.They explore the concerns presented by the report – from the drivers of change in the threat environment, to the need for agile thinking and better data, scenarios and risk modelling – contributing to challenges for terrorism reinsurance to remain relevant and provide capital efficiency. Here’s a link to the report we’re discussing.https://global.lockton.com/re/en/news-insights/beyond-the-blast-new-report-from-lockton-re-and-blackthorn-considers-capital

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 career overseeing international partnerships for the USAF. We explore test piloting as the ultimate risk management role, lessons from real-world geopolitics, and leadership under extreme pressure, including reflections on friendships with legendary test pilots Chuck Yeager and Eric “Winkle” Brown.A high-speed start to 2026.

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 strikes, riots and civil commotion (SRCC) becoming a frequency peril, and the evolution of terrorism risk towards active-assailant coverage. Two recent white papers published by AdvantageGo in collaboration with this podcast explore the same themes. These are: “Political Violence: Underwriting in an Age of Insecurity” ; and “More Art Than Science: PVT’s Use of Data-Analysis and Modelling Techniques”.

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 become structural rather than cyclical, with instability now embedded across developed and emerging markets. Anna outlines the headline findings from Verisk Maplecroft’s extensive risk data and expert analysis, explaining why businesses and insurers must now proactively plan around persistent uncertainty rather than treating shocks as one-off events.Hugo talks us through the report’s conflict chapter, detailing the sharp expansion of conflict-affected territories since 2021, from high-profile wars to under-reported flashpoints in Nigeria, Pakistan and Colombia. He also examines the rise of hybrid warfare activity across Europe as a key trend for political violence underwriters.Conversation turns to mounting government instability and the sharp rise in civil unrest risk across Europe, before Anna assesses the geopolitical and commercial implications of the new tariff environment, shifting supply chains and the uneven resilience of key emerging markets.To conclude, Anna and Hugo guide listeners through the report’s three core scenarios for the world to 2030 – Drift, Fracture, Adaptation – and highlight some signposts that could reveal which path the world is taking. A direct link to Verisk Maplecroft’s Political Risk Outlook report is included below.https://www.maplecroft.com/resources/outlooks/political-risk-outlook/