“When you have any cyber-related event, it will absolutely impact the operational aspects of the company and their finances. Companies have to be really prepared for dealing with that”

Jarrod Schlesinger, Allianz Commercial

“When a claim comes in the door, our customers buy a policy. Our promise is that we’re going to fix it, we’re going to pay them, and they’re going to go back in business”

Melissa Hill, Allianz Commercial

“From supply chain exposure, cyber risks, natural catastrophes, climate change – everything ties into the same risk environment. And our clients are exposed at the same time in different facets of these risks”

Konstantinos Papapetridis, Allianz Risk Consulting

In Partnership with

Cyber, AI, geopolitical risk: Allianz Risk Barometer reveals top global threats

In Allianz’s snapshot of the top global business risks, cybercrime is more prolific now than ever

Read on

Melissa Hill

Allianz Commercial

Konstantinos (Kostas) Papapetridis

Allianz Risk Consulting (ARC)

Jarrod Schlesinger

Allianz Commercial

Industry experts

Could a cyberattack hit your business as hard as a natural disaster? Are you ready for today’s fast-changing risks? According to Allianz Risk Barometer, Allianz’s annual snapshot of the top global business risks, cybercrime is more prolific now than ever before. Now in its 15th year, the Allianz Risk Barometer reflects the views of over 3,300 risk professionals from nearly 100 countries and 23 industry sectors. The survey gathered insights from Allianz clients, brokers, industry bodies, and senior risk leaders, including underwriters, executives, and claims specialists – ranking the top 10 most important business risks globally by country and by industry. This year, the key takeaway is not only the severity of these risks but also how interconnected they have become as technology, geopolitics, and regulation increasingly reinforce each other. In a recent roundtable hosted by Insurance Business, Melissa Hill, regional head of claims for North America at Allianz Commercial; Konstantinos Papapetridis, regional manager for North America at Allianz Risk Consulting; and Jarrod Schlesinger, global head of financial lines and cyber at Allianz Commercial came together to talk about the emerging threats set to dominate the insurance landscape in 2026, beginning with why cyber is still the top risk out there.

Allianz Commercial is a leading provider of comprehensive insurance solutions tailored for businesses of all sizes. With a strong global presence, Allianz Commercial offers a wide range of products, including property, liability, marine, and specialty insurance. Known for its financial strength and stability, Allianz Commercial is committed to delivering innovative risk-management solutions and exceptional customer service. The company leverages technology and industry expertise to help businesses navigate complex risks and achieve their strategic goals. Allianz Commercial’s dedicated team of professionals works closely with clients to understand their unique needs and provide customized insurance solutions that ensure long-term success.

Melissa Hill brings 25 years of experience in leading claims operations both domestically and internationally. Previously, she was the strategic claims transformation lead at Sompo, where she modernized claims processes by integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning. Based in Atlanta, Hill will report to Shanil Williams, CEO of Allianz Commercial North America, with matrix reporting to Thomas Sepp, chief claims officer. Her leadership is expected to drive strategic growth and deliver excellent claims services to our clients. Hill is actively involved in industry organizations, serving on the board of the International Association of Claim Professionals (IACP) and advisory boards for RISE, CLM, and MRIA, showcasing her commitment to the industry.

Allianz Commercial

Melissa Hill

Kostas Papapetridis holds a BSc in aerospace engineering, a BSc in physics, and both an MSc and a PhD in environmental engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng) and a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (MIET), as well as a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Canadian Risk Manager (CRM). He joined Allianz in 2018 as an environmental liability expert and progressed to oversee ARC liability operations in North America and Asia by 2023. Allianz Risk Consulting is a key differentiator for Allianz, delivering high-quality risk assessment and loss prevention services to support technical underwriting, loss ratio improvement, growth, and retention. Papapetridis played a key role in the launch of Allianz’s Climate Adaptation & Resilience Services (CAReS) tool in July 2025, a platform designed to assist clients in identifying climate change risks. Before joining Allianz, he served as an engineer officer in the Hellenic Air Force, focusing on F-16 aircraft maintenance, and later worked as an environmental and sustainability expert at the Hellenic General Staff Headquarters and the Ministry of Defense, retiring as a colonel.

Allianz Risk Consulting (ARC)

Konstantinos (Kostas) Papapetridis

Jarrod Schlesinger is the global head of financial lines and cyber at Allianz, where he is responsible for driving underwriting, profitability, growth, and operational strategies. Schlesinger took on this role in December 2024 after being the regional head of financial lines for North America since February 2023. He joined Allianz from Chubb where he was chief operating officer, North American financial lines. Prior to this, he served in a variety of senior roles, including executive vice president within financial lines for Chubb for nearly 14 years. Before Chubb, Schlesinger held leadership roles with AIG both in New York and London. Prior to working at AIG, he was an investment banking associate at J.P. Morgan. Before J.P. Morgan, Jarrod was a practising attorney. Schlesinger holds an MBA in finance from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, a JD from the Cardozo School of Law, and a BA in economics from Emory University. He is a member of the board of directors of The Spencer Educational Foundation.

Allianz Commercial

Jarrod Schlesinger

In Partnership with

Fighting for the customer

The customer owned a bank saw a huge boost after the Hayne Royal Commission. One year on and their market share is growing as customer continue to see their value.

Read on

Stewart Saunders

Heritage Bank

Darren McLeod

Beyond Bank

Fernando Lemos

Bank Australia

Industry experts

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Bank Australia

Fernando Lemos

Beyond Bank

Darren McLeod

Heritage Bank

Stewart Saunders

In Partnership with

Fighting for the customer

The customer owned a bank saw a huge boost after the Hayne Royal Commission. One year on and their market share is growing as customer continue to see their value.

Read on

Stewart Saunders

Heritage Bank

Darren McLeod

Beyond Bank

Fernando Lemos

Bank Australia

Industry experts

Beyond Bank

Darren McLeod

Heritage Bank

Stewart Saunders

Bank Australia

Fernando Lemos

Published Mar 23, 2026

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“From a claims perspective, when cyber claims used to come in the door, it was all about a data breach – which was pretty simple,” explained Hill. “You fix it and move on. We didn’t get a lot of ransoms coming in the door. If we did we paid it and everybody was back up and running. “Now, however, they’re a little more complicated. When a claim comes in the door, we’re pretty focused on [immediate action]. Because now we have all these supply chains, we have third-party vendors, things are getting very integrated and connected. You’ve got global infrastructure that’s shut down – [employers] can’t get the business up and running. “They’re trying to figure out, where is it shut down? Which vendor is involved? How do I work through this? Do I have cyber insurance? What does it actually cover? So, we’re working through a lot of that process and there’s a lot of dependency.” For Papapetridis, this is at the crux of what his team does daily – try to really understand the housekeeping of their clients, their contingency plans, and how well they actually identify and manage risks themselves.

Dealing with the domino effect“[It’s also about understanding] how much they have invested, both financial resources and people resources, in actually protecting their business,” he told IB. “This is a big part, because right now it doesn’t matter the size of the business. Everybody uses technology and they’re exposed equally. It might be a small company, but the impact might be disproportionately large.” According to Allianz’s Risk Barometer, cyber, especially ransomware attacks, ranks as the top risk for the fifth time in a row for companies of all sizes, with recent high-profile cyberattacks underlining the continuous threat for businesses of all sizes. As Schlesinger told IB, what this means from an insurance perspective is that separating the operational part from the financial part of cyber is practically impossible at this point.

“When you have any cyber-related event, it will absolutely impact the operational aspects of the company and their finances,” he explained. “Companies have to be really prepared for dealing with that. There are examples of good preparation yielding good results, and no preparation or poor preparation yielding far less positive results.” Hill likens this to the domino effect – customers and clients are ultimately affected downstream. When an attack happens, business will stop – unless, of course, they have the proper coverage in place. “You’ve got multiple players here,” added Hill. “And if there are other carriers involved then we’re all talking. Everybody’s

trying to work together, but we’re also trying to figure out where did this actually happen and what’s the source. It gets more complex the more you dig into it. As a claims professional, you’re working through these problems, but you’re also trying to communicate with your client and keep them updated. Time is of the essence to get these things resolved quickly.” AI is the fastest rising threatAnd while cyber is the biggest concern for businesses going into 2026, it’s followed very closely by AI. According to the Risk Barometer, AI is the biggest riser, jumping from number 10 to number 2 (32 percent). “AI is relatively new,” Schlesinger prefaced. “We’re in the early stages of understanding what AI means for companies, individuals, insurance, and claims. As an industry, we’re still in the fact-finding and question-asking stage. We’re asking questions of our insureds and partners, brokers, and advisors, trying to get as much information as we can. There’s AI that can be used for good and AI that can be used for bad. The potential to save companies money is there, but the downside exists too.” Papapetridis concurs, adding that a lack of clear policy and legal guidance makes navigating AI even more challenging in the US.

“When we talk with our clients, we try to understand their operational and legal framework. One of the challenges that we have on a global scale is that there is no common AI legal framework. The European Union released the AI Act – but in the US we have a fragmented approach as far as product liability is concerned, because AI in most cases is treated as a product. [That means] as a product when you deliver it, and if it works as it is intended, there could be no liability in place. If you modify it as a user and you want to bring it as close to your needs as possible, then you might be liable if this AI tool causes some kind of third-party damage too.” Hill agreed, going further to say that when a claim comes through the door the questions her team have to ask themselves now are fundamentally changed.

“You almost have to have IT skills,” she told IB. “Just to understand AI and how it works. You have to start probing to [uncover] if AI has been used [in each claim]. Was there a robot involved? Was it a product liability claim? And you’re also looking at the documents. Were these AI generated? Are they real documents? Is this a real photo? There’s a lot of things that are now changing in that landscape – [meaning] what you used to think is just a simple claim now requires deeper digging.” Black swans and supply chain concerns Aside from the AI and cyber concerns, the next biggest concerns to rear their head in the Risk Barometer were geopolitical risks and their impact on supply chains. According to the report, geopolitical turmoil and uncertainty pushed political risks and violence to its highest-ever position at number 7. What’s more, in 2025 alone trade restrictions tripled to affect an estimated US$2.7 trillion of merchandise – or nearly 20 percent of global imports. For businesses, the risk of interruption isn’t theoretical anymore – it’s a highly likely possibility. “This is a very critical area,” explained Papapetridis. “In our Risk Barometer, this is one of the black swans, as we call them, which means there is a risk for supply chain paralysis on a global scale. It’s a risk that we expect to see materialize in the next five years. There are the right geopolitical conditions in place, challenges if you like, that could impact a large number of our clients and cause business interruption in their supply chain.”

As he told IB, the way Allianz assesses this risk is by focusing on the level of preparedness of each one of their clients – assessing what plans they have in place, how they understand the geopolitical environment globally, how they expect this to affect their corporations, and how they’ve prepared any risk-mitigation measures. “Geopolitical risk, and its impact on our clients, is intense,” explained Schlesinger. “Any time there’s anything that creates any sort of uncertainty or volatility, especially on the financial line side, that creates a lot of problems for our clients. From my perspective, when I talk to our insureds, the ones who are best prepared are staying informed. You can’t pretend the world isn’t happening around you – you need to be part of that. You need to stay informed of that. You need to stand on the forefront of what the political and

geopolitical issues are, how they’re going to impact you and how you can mitigate it.” The main concern for Hill here is ensuring that their customers always have the correct coverage in place preventively rather than curatively. “When a claim comes in the door, our customers buy a policy,” she told IB. “Our promise is that we’re going to fix it, we’re going to pay them, and they’re going to go back in business.” At Allianz, their global reach is embedded in their vendor-partner relationships. As Hill explained, they spend a lot of time vetting this to ensure that they’re fully diversified. “We have a lot of people that can come to the rescue – forensic accountings, loss-adjusting firms,” she added. “We try to make sure we don’t tap ourselves out – we learned that in some of the catastrophic events. We also make sure that we use our other Allianz partners, such as Allianz Trade, as they have data on supply chains. We use that data to help us make sure that we have the right partners to respond when we need to respond – and we get creative. Sometimes we have to get very creative and provide different materials – we might have to pay a little more, but that’s okay because we want to get our customers back in business.”

‘It starts with board oversight’It’s that core component, preventing business interruption and moving quickly, that really sits at the heart of Allianz’s customer promise. And it starts with helping businesses build up their own internal resilience too. “It starts with board oversight,” revealed Schlesinger. “A company needs to have intense board oversight over business interruption and how they’re going to deal with it, what that means, what it looks like, what it will cost, how to build redundancies, and how you can make yourself more resilient. “It’s really important that you’re consistently investing in that resiliency. It’s not [a case of] ‘I did it today and now I'm good’ – it’s ‘I did it today and I’m going to do it tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that.’ It’s a constant need to stay on top of that resiliency to build upon it and make it stronger each and every day.” For Hill, from a claims perspective, a lot of companies now employ risk managers – according to her, it’s not unusual for a

business to have entire teams dedicated solely to these issues. And it’s not just huge, multinational organizations – it’s SMEs too. “It’s critical that these risk managers put risk management programs together,” she told IB. “They’ve got to understand the entire business – what’s going on from a business continuity plan – they’ve got to have risk management tools, they’ve got to have data flowing in, they’ve got to understand the emerging risks. “As a part of claims, we collect a lot of data. We’re trying to put all that data together and push it back out. We also have claims business relationship managers that work with our accounts to do stewardship meetings. And we’re doing [all of this] in conjunction with our risk consultants – [meaning] they get the whole view of their actual programs and what their risks might look like.” It’s important to remember that these risks don’t exist in a solitary vacuum – they’re interconnected, pushing and feeding off one another. For clients, this reality means that they need to take a holistic overview of the entire landscape and, most importantly, ensure that their coverage actually covers everything. ‘Have a plan – be ready to execute on the plan’“From supply chain exposure, cyber risks, natural catastrophes, climate change – everything ties into the same risk environment,” explained Papapetridis. “And our clients are exposed at the same time in different facets of these risks. When we talk with our clients, we try to understand how they mitigate this exposure – how deep they can understand this interconnectedness. “At the same time, because we have the expertise at Allianz and our consultants have seen a lot of different kinds of business, we have the ability to talk with our clients and give them some recommendations on how they can best prepare for the risks that they’ve been experiencing. On top of this, we do a lot of work on emerging risks – risks that they haven't materialized yet, but we see, as technology moves forward, that they will create some significant exposures.” And all these changes have a direct impact on the nature of claims and how they’re handled. According to Hill, nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the evolution of paper files to digital tools. However, while technology should be used to leverage and streamline the claims process, it’s really no substitute for the human touch. “[Nowadays], customers want to handle a claim on an iPhone – they want it very simple and they want it fast,” she told IB. “Allianz is a global company; we’re thinking about how we can make the customer experience the best possible and still make sure we follow regulation – because we do have regulators that are watching us.” For Schlesinger, it’s about evolving and adapting to this new reality in claims – and finding a way to respond both effectively and rapidly. Because that’s the customer expectation moving forward. “There’s so many new risks we’re going to have to deal with – there’s so much in terms of claims and how they’re going to be handled. From my perspective, it’s about understanding how people can best prepare for what’s going to happen in the future. Firstly, you need to constantly assess what your business looks like. Then you need to prepare for mitigation. [From there], you need to prepare, prepare, prepare. Have a plan – be ready to execute on the plan.”

Cyber incidents Artificial intelligence Business interruption Changes in legislation and regulation Natural catastrophes Climate change Political risks and violence Macroeconomic developments Fire, explosion Market developments

Source: Allianz

Top 10 global threats for businesses in 2026

Source: Allianz

The 15th Allianz Risk Barometer incorporates 3,338 respondents from 97 countries across 23 industry sectors

Allianz Risk Barometer methodology

Kostas Papapetridis holds a BSc in aerospace engineering, a BSc in physics, and both an MSc and a PhD in environmental engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng) and a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (MIET), as well as a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Canadian Risk Manager (CRM). He joined Allianz in 2018 as an environmental liability expert and progressed to oversee ARC Liability operations in North America and Asia by 2023. Allianz Risk Consulting is a key differentiator for Allianz, delivering high-quality risk assessment and loss-prevention services to support technical underwriting, loss ratio improvement, growth, and retention. Papapetridis played a key role in the launch of Allianz’s Climate Adaptation & Resilience Services (CAReS) tool in July 2025, a platform designed to assist clients in identifying climate change risks. Before joining Allianz, he served as an engineer officer in the Hellenic Air Force, focusing on F-16 aircraft maintenance, and later worked as an environmental and sustainability expert at the Hellenic General Staff Headquarters and the Ministry of Defense, retiring as a colonel.