Learn about today's hottest new risk management tools One of the hottest areas of finance today, alternative risk transfer, or ART, refers to the use of various insurance products to manage market, credit, operational, legal, environmental, and other forms of risk. As the capital and insurance markets continue to converge, the number and complexity of new risk-defraying insurance products available to corporations, brokerages, money managers and other financial professionals will continue to grow. Expert Christopher L. Culp uses case studies of recent ART transactions used by risk managers to put the field into perspective for financial professionals and to acquaint them with the various types of risk control products now available. In addition he explores, in-depth, the links between ART, derivatives and bank-arranged risk financing, and he explains the key differences between classic insurance products and financial guarantees, risk financing, bundled layering, and other ART forms.

Every business and decision involves a certain amount of risk. Risk might cause a loss to a company. This does not mean, however, that businesses cannot take risks. As disengagement and risk aversion may result in missed business opportunities, which will lead to slower growth and reduced prosperity of a company. In today's increasingly complex and diverse environment, it is crucial to find the right balance between risk aversion and risk taking. To do this it is essential to understand the complex, out of the whole range of economic, technical, operational, environmental and social risks associated with the company's activities. However, risk management is about much more than merely avoiding or successfully deriving benefit from opportunities. Risk management is the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks. Lastly, risk management helps a company to handle the risks associated with a rapidly changing business environment.

Risk is inherent in business. Without risk, there would be no motivation to conduct business. But a key principle is that organizations should accept risks that they are competent enough to deal with, and “outsource” other risks to those who are more competent to deal with them (such as insurance companies). Enterprise Risk Management (2nd Edition) approaches enterprise risk management from the perspectives of accounting, supply chains, and disaster management, in addition to the core perspective of finance. While the first edition included the perspective of information systems, the second edition views this as part of supply chain management or else focused on technological specifics. It discusses analytical tools available to assess risk, such as balanced scorecards, risk matrices, multiple criteria analysis, simulation, data envelopment analysis, and financial risk measures.

Praise for Structured Finance & Insurance "More and more each year, the modern corporation must decide what risks to keep and what risks to shed to remain competitive and to maximize its value for the capital employed. Culp explains the theory and practice of risk transfer through either balance sheet mechanism such as structured finance, derivative transactions, or insurance. Equity is expensive and risk transfer is expensive. As understanding grows, and, as a result, costs continue to fall, ART will continue to replace equity as the means to cushion knowable risks. This book enhances our understanding of ART." --Myron S. Scholes, Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University "A must-read for everyone offering structured finance as a business, and arguably even more valuable to any one expected to pay for such service." --Norbert Johanning, Managing Director, DaimlerChrysler Financial Services "Culp's latest book provides a comprehensive account of the most important financing and risk management innovations in both insurance and capital markets. And it does so by fitting these innovative solutions and products into a single, unified theory of financial markets that integrates the once largely separate disciplines of insurance and risk management with the current theory and practice of corporate finance." --Don Chew, Editor, Journal of Applied Corporate Finance (a Morgan Stanley publication) "This exciting book is a comprehensive read on alternative insurance solutions available to corporations. It focuses on the real benefits, economical and practical, of alternatives such as captives, rent-a-captive, and mutuals. An excellent introduction to the very complex field of alternative risk transfer (ART)." --Paul Wohrmann, PhD, Head of the Center of Excellence ART and member of theExecutive Management of Global Corporate in Europe, Zurich Financial Services "Structured Finance and Insurance transcends Silos to reach the Enterprise Mountaintop. Culp superbly details integrated, captive, multiple triggers and capital market products, and provides the architectural blueprints for enterprise risk innovation." --Paul Wagner, Director, Risk Management, AGL Resources Inc.

The #1 international bestselling author of The Gray Rhino offers a bold new framework for understanding and re-shaping our relationship with risk and uncertainty to live more productive and successful lives. What drives a sixty-four-year-old woman to hurl herself over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Why do we often create bigger risks than the risks we try to avoid? Why are corporate boards newly worried about risky personal behavior by CEOs? Why are some nations quicker than others to recognize and manage risks like pandemics, technological change, and climate crisis? The answers define each person, organization, and society as distinctively as a fingerprint. Understanding the often-surprising origins of these risk fingerprints can open your eyes, inspire new habits, catalyze innovation and creativity, improve teamwork, and provide a beacon in a world that seems suddenly more uncertain than ever. How you see risk and what you do about it depend on your personality and experiences. How you make these cost-benefit calculations depend on your culture, your values, the people in the room, and even unexpected things like what you’ve eaten recently, the temperature, the music playing, or the fragrance in the air. Being alert to these often-unconscious influences will help you to seize opportunity and avoid danger. You Are What You Risk is a clarion call for an entirely new conversation about our relationship with risk and uncertainty. In this ground-breaking, accessible and eminently timely book, Michele Wucker examines why it’s so important to understand your risk fingerprint and how to make your risk relationship work better in business, life, and the world. Drawing on compelling risk stories around the world and weaving in economics, anthropology, sociology, and psychology research, Wucker bridges the divide between professional and lay risk conversations. She challenges stereotypes about risk attitudes, re-frames how gender and risk are related, and shines new light on generational differences. She shows how the new science of “risk personality” is re-shaping business and finance, how healthy risk ecosystems support economies and societies, and why embracing risk empathy can resolve conflicts. Wucker shares insights, practical tools, and proven strategies that will help you to understand what makes you who you are –and, in turn, to make better choices, both big and small.

A step-by-step guidebook for understanding—and implementing—integrated financial risk measurement and management The Fundamentals of Risk Measurement introduces the state-of-the-art tools and practices necessary for planning, executing, and maintaining risk management in today’s volatile financial environment. This comprehensive book provides description and analysis of topics including: Economic capital Risk adjusted return on capital (RAROC) Shareholder Value Added (SVA) Value at Risk (VaR) Asset/liability management (ALM) Credit risk for a single facility Credit risk for portfolios Operating risk Inter-risk diversification The Basel Committee Capital Accords The banking world is driven by risk. The Fundamentals of Risk Measurement shows you how to quantify that risk, outlining an integrated framework for risk measurement and management that is straightforward, practical for implementation, and based on the realities of today’s tumultuous global marketplace. “Banks make money in one of two ways: providing services to customers and taking risks. In this book, we address the business of making money by taking risk....”—From the Introduction In The Fundamentals of Risk Measurement, financial industry veteran Chris Marrison examines what banks must do to succeed in the business of making money by taking risk. Encompassing the three primary areas of banking risk—market, credit, and operational—and doing so in a uniquely intuitive, step-by-step format, Marrison provides hands-on details on the primary tools for financial risk measurement and management, including: Plain-English evaluation of specific risk measurement tools and techniques Use of Value at Risk (VaR) for assessment of market risk for trading operations Asset/liability management (ALM) techniques, transfer pricing, and managing market and liquidity risk The many available methods for analyzing portfolios of credit risks Using RAROC to compare the risk-adjusted profitability of businesses and price transactions In addition, woven throughout The Fundamentals of Risk Measurement are principles underlying the regulatory capital requirements of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, and what banks must do to understand and implement them. The requirements are defined, implications of the New Capital Accord are presented, and the major steps that a bank must take to implement the New Accord are discussed. The resulting thumbnail sketch of the Basel Committee, and specifically the New Capital Accord, is valuable as both a ready reference and a foundation for further study of this important initiative. Risk is unavoidable in the financial industry. It can, however, be measured and managed to provide the greatest risk-adjusted return, and limit the negative impacts of risk to a bank’s shareholders as well as potential borrowers and lenders. The Fundamentals of Risk Management provides risk managers with an approach to risk-taking that is both informed and prudent, one that shows operations managers how to control risk exposures as it allows decision-making executives to direct resources to opportunities that are expected to create maximum return with minimum risk. The result is today’s most complete introduction to the business of risk, and a valuable reference for anyone from the floor trader to the officer in charge of overseeing the entire risk management operation.

State of the art risk management techniques and practices—supplemented with interactive analytics All too often risk management books focus on risk measurement details without taking a broader view. Quantitative Risk Management delivers a synthesis of common sense management together with the cutting-edge tools of modern theory. This book presents a road map for tactical and strategic decision making designed to control risk and capitalize on opportunities. Most provocatively it challenges the conventional wisdom that "risk management" is or ever should be delegated to a separate department. Good managers have always known that managing risk is central to a financial firm and must be the responsibility of anyone who contributes to the profit of the firm. A guide to risk management for financial firms and managers in the post-crisis world, Quantitative Risk Management updates the techniques and tools used to measure and monitor risk. These are often mathematical and specialized, but the ideas are simple. The book starts with how we think about risk and uncertainty, then turns to a practical explanation of how risk is measured in today's complex financial markets. Covers everything from risk measures, probability, and regulatory issues to portfolio risk analytics and reporting Includes interactive graphs and computer code for portfolio risk and analytics Explains why tactical and strategic decisions must be made at every level of the firm and portfolio Providing the models, tools, and techniques firms need to build the best risk management practices, Quantitative Risk Management is an essential volume from an experienced manager and quantitative analyst.