According to Jacob: ``The two main purposes of risk improvement and loss control are to reduce the incidence and size of losses by eliminating unnecessary risks, reducing unavoidable risk and ensuring protection measures, while also ensuring good public relations with clients.''

Interestingly, Jacob divided the benefits of risk improvement and loss control into three parts: for the insured, for insurers and for the wider community. The benefits for the insured include reduction in loss incidences and size; less disruption to the business of the insured, and lower premiums in the long run. According to Jacob, the benefits to insurers include fewer claims which improve overall portfolio results; reduction in the size of the claims, and ability to reduce premiums. The wider community also benefits because risk improvement reduces the loss of valuable resources and brings down the pollution level due to fires and explosions. Meant for businesses and organisations, Jacob's paper contained a dossier on do's and don'ts on risk improvement.

On similar lines, there was a paper on `Loss minimisation and financial planning' by Dwaipayan Bose, spokesperson for Zurich Risk Management Services (India) Pvt Ltd. According to Bose: ``There is a growing awareness that the key objective of risk management and loss minimisation is to create a `no- surprise environment' and ensure `survival' of the organisation should it be faced with a number of postulated loss scenarios.'' He added that as demanding customers are pushing for better solutions in risk management, there's a shift from protection of tangible assets to include the entire basket of risks such as market share, image and reputation of businesses.

In this context, said Bose, Business Continuity Management or BCM is of utmost significance. ``Business survival is about anticipating what disaster can do to your business, not just to your assets and short-term cash flow. Herein lies the need for loss minimisation and financial planning. Together they form the backbone of Business Continuity Management.''

Explained Bose: ``A recent study showed that `Better practice' organisations recognise the commercial potential of BCM and employ a range of techniques to ensure that it is business-focussed. These firms use strategic tools, such as value chain analysis, to explore the linkages between various functions that add value to products or services offered to customers. He said that it's not appropriate to rely alone on insurance. ``Insurance is compensation, not continuity planning,'' he said. Therefore, alternative options are what we need to look at through integration of financial services and insurance. Bose said that with the increasing integration of financial services and insurance, the opportunities are endless and new solutions are constantly emerging.

The various kinds of new options include self-insurance, multi-class covers, financial/ finite insurance, captives, insurance securitisation, derivatives, integrated risk or double trigger cover, and financial guarantees/ credit enhancement. But Bose had a word of caution: ``One must investigate the advantages and disadvantages before venturing into the alternative approaches.''

The benefits of an alternative option could be a wide scope of cover, flexibility, unbundling of services, integration with corporate investment strategy, enhanced emphasis on loss control and performance-linked rewards. The shortcomings include fewer service providers, exposure to dynamic financial environment, evolving tax and regulatory regimes and need for specialised know-how to manage the alternative programmes, according to Bose.

Finally, it's the idea-the idea of a complete solution to a customer -- which is the need of the hour, said Bose. The customer would say: ``These are all my risks, this is what I can afford to lose, please give me a solution.'' And the solutions then will have to be aimed at covering the entire basket of risks -- financial, operational, strategic and reputation risks.