The New Risk Capital Playbook for Today’s Business Leaders

In this Risk Capital Insight episode of On Aon, Ciaran Healy, global captives leader for Aon, is joined by Joe Peiser, Aon’s CEO of Risk Capital, to explore how rapidly shifting risk profiles and capital dynamics are reshaping the way organizations protect their balance sheets.

Ciaran and Joe examine the forces driving unprecedented volatility — including weather, cyber, litigation and geopolitical risk — and discuss why traditional approaches to risk financing are no longer sufficient. The conversation highlights how insurance, alternative capital and captives are becoming more strategic levers, enabling leaders to strengthen resilience, align risk appetite with analytics, and deploy capital with greater confidence and flexibility in a changing global landscape.

Key Takeaways:

1. Insurance capacity is becoming more segmented, with alternative forms of capital such as insurance-linked securities, parametrics and structured insurance playing a growing role.
2. Organizations are increasingly using captives as strategic platforms to access multiple sources of capital, aggregate risk across the enterprise and make more analytics-driven decisions.

1. Effective risk financing now depends on blending insurance, reinsurance and alternative capital in a more deliberate way to better match risk to the balance sheet.

Experts in This Episode:

• Joe Peiser, CEO of Risk Capital, Aon

• Ciaran Healy, Global Captives Leader, Aon

Key Moments:

(4:20) Insurance capacity is fragmented as loss severity rises, with risk transfer increasingly coming from a broader mix of capital sources such as ILS, parametric solutions and structured insurance.

(8:00) A shift from transactional insurance buying to a more strategic risk financing mindset, with analytics positioned as the foundation for better capital allocation decisions.

(14:45) Captives are increasingly being used as tools to deploy capital more strategically, offering flexibility, control and new ways to manage risks that traditional markets may not yet cover.

Soundbites:

Joe Peiser:

“So a reason we created Risk Capital is because we want to make sure we can access that capital in whatever form it comes and in whatever market it comes in, because that's how we're going to generate solutions for our clients.”

Ciaran Healy:

“The captive is moving from a controller of insurance into a controller of capital. And that's a really interesting place to be. And I think it opens up a huge opportunity for risk professionals and all captive owners.”