Aon | Professional Services Practice
Polycrisis and Risk: Looking Beyond the Headlines
Release Date: January 2026Current risks are frequently being described as multiple and interrelated, hence the term Polycrisis has emerged. A slightly different perspective suggests that the key observation is that risks are falling across various categories. For example, the risk of business interruption can arise from many sources, and the cyber threat is both a technology and a political risk for professional service firms.
Key Takeaways
- Today’s risks are falling across various categories and may be outside of the control of the day-to-day risk management function. Business continuity and crisis management may be the responses to the resulting perils.
- The Aon 2025 Global Risk Management Survey reports that only 14 percent of respondents measure their exposure to the top 10 risks.
- Today’s conditions may be extraordinary in terms of the potential scale of consequences, and hence an escalated resilience challenge is presented.
Complex Risks
A good recent example of the Polycrisis was the September 2025 disruption at a leading UK auto manufacturer caused by a cyber-attack. Cyber threat, digital risk, supply chain and geopolitical risks all came together. The worst impact was potentially on companies in the just-in-time supply chain, with over 100,000 workers affected. There was a debate around who should reasonably bear the costs. Interestingly from an insurance angle, Contingent Business Interruption cover in cyber polices does not apply to those companies in that side of the supply chain.
It seems apparent that many risks are outside of the control of the day-to-day risk management function, falling potentially into the realm of strategy, or requiring consequence management, such as business continuity and crisis management.
Some New or Emerging Risks
Geopolitical risk includes changes in regulations and laws. There is consistently a degree of uncertainty here, but the current unexpected nature of geopolitical risk goes further as illustrated by the drone presence that temporarily shut down Oslo and Copenhagen airports in autumn 2025. Separate cyber-attacks disrupted the operations of three other major European airports, causing delays and multiple flight cancellations. These events may not have been anticipated, but the inability to travel should be a risk that contingency planning addresses, if only because of the experiences during and post COVID.
AI is cited as a risk and a source of uncertainty. Surveys show it as both a current and emerging risk. The risk potentially manifests itself in different ways, data privacy, IP, technology errors, and fraud. The risk for many organizations is at the beginning their AI journey in the planning, design, implementation, and then the ongoing usage of AI tools. Of course, there are many potential benefits of AI for risk managers. It is extensively being used to protect systems from cyber risks. AI models are also being used by the insurance industry to predict and model risks.
The promise of GenAI includes cost savings and efficiency. However, this comes with data security, erroneous output and IP risks. There are also talent and recruitment aspects. This is an area that insurers are likely to be on enquiry about. There are several insurance issues arising, the fair presentation of risk, the response of policy wordings, and whether losses would be insurable, and if so, whether they fall under professional indemnity or cyber covers.
What Do Risk Surveys Tell Us?
What are the perceptions in the risk community? This is the season for the publication of risk surveys. In a recent report from Travelers, 58% of respondents chose economic uncertainty as their top business concern. The sources and nature of that risk of course vary widely. Other survey highlights are:
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Supply chain and cyber risk were also noted as being of high concern.
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Cyber risks are becoming increasingly severe, sophisticated and often powered by advances in AI, and hostile states such as China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.
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The Aon 2025 Global Risk Management Survey has geopolitical risk rising up the ranking, and cyber as the number one risk.
Surveys reveal risks shaped by systemic complexity, interdependencies and the potential for cascading impacts. These risks are challenging to manage and must be addressed by leadership in strategy and operations management.
The Management Response?
Day to day risks are traditionally easier to identify and manage. Risk controls are embedded in the supply of services to clients. So how can organizations address this new macro risk environment?
The short answer is building resilience. This is multi-dimensional with soft and hard factors required to build a successful model.
Here are some possible steps:
- The headings in risk surveys can be used to facilitate the process of risk identification and awareness and the building of a response with such tools as horizon scanning and scenario planning. The Aon 2025 Global Risk Management Survey reports that only 14 percent of respondents measure their exposure to the top 10 risks.
- The management team can discuss and own the strategic and emerging risks that fall outside of the risk management function. Ideally ownership of individual risks is assigned.
- The Chief Risk Officer role at Board or senior management level can facilitate the ‘big picture’ view of the risk landscape and chart the development of new and emerging risks.
- The UK’s Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors urges organizations to use internal audit teams to assess and strengthen the effectiveness of risk management.
Insurance is a valuable tool in managing many major risks and building financial resilience. The insurance industry can strengthen its role in this regard by ensuring that in these dynamic times there is clarity of coverage in the policy response.
Uncertainty Will Continue
One key observation is that there is a shortage of information and facts to plan around. This condition of uncertainty is however not new. Over a century ago, in 1921, Frank Knight’s book “Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit" distinguished between uncertainty, where probabilities cannot be calculated, and risk, where historical statistics and modelling permitted that assessment.
Although therefore not a completely new challenge, today’s conditions may be extraordinary in terms of the potential scale of consequences, and hence the escalated resilience challenge is presented.
Read more about professional service firms and Enterprise Risk Management.
Contact
The Professional Services Practice at Aon values your feedback. If you have any comments or questions, please contact Keith Tracey.
Keith Tracey
Managing Director
London
About Aon
Aon (NYSE: AON) exists to shape decisions for the better — to protect and enrich the lives of people around the world. Through actionable analytic insight, globally integrated Risk Capital and Human Capital expertise, and locally relevant solutions, our colleagues provide clients in over 120 countries with the clarity and confidence to make better risk and people decisions that help protect and grow their businesses.
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