{"id":10095,"date":"2025-07-22T07:48:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T07:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/?p=10095"},"modified":"2025-07-22T07:48:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T07:48:42","slug":"is-traditional-terrorism-cover-still-relevant-for-pvt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/content\/is-traditional-terrorism-cover-still-relevant-for-pvt\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanbury: \u2018PVT market must reassess relevance of traditional terrorism cover\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Charlie Hanbury, CEO of Samphire Risk, reflects on the evolving political violence and terrorism (PVT) insurance market and where judgment still outpaces data.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The past half-decade has seen the PVT insurance market develop rapidly, with major claims events and geopolitical shocks \u2013 including civil unrest in Chile, the invasion of Ukraine, and ongoing instability in the Middle East \u2013 helping shape the line\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for Charlie Hanbury, the Chief Executive of Samphire Risk, a London market managing general agent focused on malicious risks, from kidnap and ransom to terrorism, this is still very much a market in flux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe increasing maturity of the market is probably best encapsulated in the broad exposure to \u2013 and understanding of \u2013 the various coverages,\u201d Hanbury said, \u201cand that PV solutions are now a commonly accepted part of the risk management discussion for clients.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He sees the market\u2019s relevance confirmed by a backdrop of constant instability yet warns that product development still lags behind where it needs to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe events you mention and the news we see almost every day provide the background \u2018hum\u2019 of why they have been and remain very relevant insurance purchases,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut compared to the property and casualty markets writ-large, there is a long way to go in terms of testing the products via claims; the approach to understanding pricing adequacy; and frankly, too, whether elements of the PV library of cover \u2013 pure terrorism insurance, in particular \u2013 are actually fit for purpose for the modern risk environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hanbury argues that recent trends in political violence have become more personal and less property-driven \u2013 a challenge for an insurance sector more attuned to underwriting damage than people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is an environment that has seen a clear trend of low sophistication but high impact attacks on people and not property,\u201d he said. \u201cIs the PV market reacting quick enough to these risks and does it really understand a more human and potentially liability-driven exposure over the usual physical damage or business interruption focus?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowledge over models<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With less historical precedent, or data, to rely on, underwriting PVT still leans heavily on specialist insights<\/a>, rather than actuarial science and modelling tools. Hanbury believes that is unlikely to change in the short to medium term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cData and analytics tend to have most relevance where historical information is plentiful, particularly in terms of attrition and severe losses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe PV market has faced challenges in terms of losses, particularly in recent years, but it is hard to argue that the data of the past is significant enough to give clues to the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, he sees success in the market depending more on the instincts and curiosity of underwriters than on algorithms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCuriosity, knowledge and expert judgement are so valuable in this space because it is those who are most informed about localised, regional and international geopolitical issues, or security threats, that stand the best chance of not exposing their balance sheets to exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hanbury cited Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 as a clear example of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe invasion of Ukraine by Russia was not foreseen by \u2018data\u2019, or indeed by many experts,\u201d he said, \u201cbut those that were educated enough on the region and the history may well have made a judgement call to stay away \u2013 at the expense of those who did not have this expert opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charlie Hanbury, CEO of Samphire Risk, reflects on the evolving political violence and terrorism (PVT) insurance market and where judgment still outpaces data. The past half-decade has seen the PVT insurance market develop rapidly, with major claims events and geopolitical shocks \u2013 including civil unrest in Chile, the invasion of Ukraine, and ongoing instability in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,26],"tags":[10,14],"line-of-business":[30,31],"class_list":["post-10095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-latest-insights","tag-exposure","tag-underwriting-workbench","line-of-business-political-risk","line-of-business-terrorism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10095"},{"taxonomy":"line-of-business","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.advantagego.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/line-of-business?post=10095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}