The January/February issue of Risk Management is now online here.

Included are features covering:

• Robots, and how they have begun their invasion of the most benevolent kind 
• Becoming a better risk manager
• The risks ahead for 2012
• A maximum loss value framework

This issue’s columns cover:

• Last call for the soft market
• Improving supply chain resiliency in China and beyond
• ERM within the construction industry
• Notifying the exposed after a data breach
• Is terrorism coverage givin you a false sense of security?
• Many more

If you enjoy what you seen online, you can subscribe to the print edition to enjoy even more content.

Please let us know what you think in the comments below. And stay tuned to the blog for even more coverage in the future. Lastly, you can follow the magazine on Twitter, “like” us on Facebook and join our LinkedIn group.

As a result, the governor of Port Said, Egypt, has resigned while the head of the country’s football association has been fired and the board dissolved.

This catastrophe highlights a long-standing violent link between live sporting events and rabid fans. Here’s a glimpse at some of the most recent examples of violence in sports:

• In October 2004, fans of the Boston Red Sox rioted just outside of Fenway Park after the Red Sox won the American League Championship Series over the New York Yankees. Police used “pepper guns” in some cases and an Emerson College student, Victoria Snelgrove, was killed by a pepper filled paintball-like projectile which hit her in the eye.
• On November 19, 2004, near the end of an NBA game between the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons, a brawl erupted between Pacers players and Pistons supporters.
• On April 12, 2005, the UEFA Champions League quarterfinal between intracity rivals AC Milan and Inter Milan was abandoned after Inter fans threw missiles and flares on to the pitch at the San Siro stadium, with AC Milan goalkeeper Dida hit by a flare.
• In May 2006 during an Australian Football League match between North Melbourne and St Kilda, a North Melbourne fan had a provocative confrontation with coach Dean Laidley, to which Laidley responded with a verbal barrage, inviting the fan to the club rooms to see how badly the players were feeling due to their consistently poor on-field performance. The incident was captured on Australian national television. The fan committed suicide by throwing himself in the path of an oncoming train the next morning.
• On June 6, 2010, the final game of the Greek Basket League finals between ancient rivals Olympiacos and Panathinaikos degenerated into what one commentator called a “night of shame” for Greek basketball. Panathinaikos entered the game, held at Olympiacos’ home of Peace and Friendship Stadium, with a 2–1 lead in the best-of-5 series. The homestanding Reds fans were reportedly incensed at what they considered to be biased officiating in the Greens’ favor in Game 3. The violence began even before tipoff, with police forced to use tear gas on rioting Reds fans; the game started 40 minutes late. In the third quarter, with PAO leading 50–42, the game was halted for about an hour after Olympiacos fans threw various incendiaries at the PAO bench, with one smoke bomb exploding next to the bench. By the time the teams resumed play, all but about 2,000 fans had left. Then, with little over a minute left in the game and PAO ahead 76–69, many of the remaining Reds fans began throwing objects on the court, leading the officials to suspend play and forfeit the game to PAO, giving the Greens the title. The new champions had to be escorted off the floor by riot police. The league organizer, HEBA, fined Olympiacos €111,000 and required them to play their first nine home games of the 2010–11 season behind closed doors and without live TV coverage.
• The next meeting between the two teams, this time hosted by Panathinaikos on January 12, 2011, saw Olympiacos win 65–61, followed by a rain of incendiaries from Greens fans at the Reds.
• The 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot immediately followed the loss of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team to the Boston Bruins in the deciding Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals in June of that year.
• Later in the same month, major violence broke out involving supporters of historic Argentine football club River Plate during and after their promotion/relegation playoff with Belgrano. The first leg on June 22 in Córdoba was delayed for 20 minutes after River Plate hooligans tore through a fence and stormed the field to verbally and physically attack River players. The second leg, on June 26 at El Monumental in Buenos Aires, had what was reported to be the largest security presence for any match in the country’s history, with over 2,200 police called in. However, it was not enough to keep River hooligans, angered at what became the club’s first relegation from the top flight in their history, from rushing the field. Violence quickly spread, with fires set in the stadium, pitched battles between hooligans and police, and looting in nearby areas. At least 35 police and 55 civilians were reported to have been injured.
• On December 21, 2011, a fourth round match in the 2011–12 KNVB Cup between Eredivisie clubs Ajax and AZ at Ajax’s home of Amsterdam Arena was marred by a violent fan incident. In the 36th minute, Ajax held a 1–0 lead when a fan ran on the pitch and launched a karate kick from behind at AZ goalkeeper Esteban Alvarado. The player responded by kicking the fan several times before security arrived. When Alvarado was sent off for retaliating against his attacker, AZ left the pitch, and the match was abandoned. The KNVB rescinded the red card and ordered the match replayed in its entirety behind closed doors on January 19, 2012. Ajax was also fined €10,000 for failing to prevent the fan—who was supposed to be serving a 3-year stadium ban—from entering the pitch, and given a suspended one-match spectator ban (not including the replay). Ajax accepted the penalties, and announced that it had given the fan a 30-year stadium ban and a lifetime ban from the club and its season ticket list.

It’s clear that event management companies within the sports industry need more robust risk management methods.

“We’ve spent over 12 years building our reputation, brand, and trust with our customers. It’s painful to see us take so many steps back due to a single incident.”

I’m sure it’s also painful for Hsieh to scan the headlines about his company that have surfaced in the last few days. The following are just a few:

• Even Big Companies Cannot Protect Their Data — a blog piece from the New York Times, which states that more often than not, companies are resorting to telling their customers that it is up to them to protect their data stored on the company’s servers. The piece notes that even though the company claimed to have a security breach response plan in place, Hsieh provided no explanation about why the data was vulnerable.

• Zappos Still Closed To Non-U.S. Visitors Four Days After Revealing Security Breach — that’s right, Forbes noted yesterday that the site has “taken precautions to keep another possible threat away from its networks: Canadians.” Interesting. Though it seems that international orders are now being accepted, those four days of U.S.-only service will undoubtedly prove costly.

• Zappos Data Breach Response: Good Idea or Panic Mode? — PC World ran an online article Tuesday that highlighted both sides of opinion spectrum. While some analysts praised Zappos for their response to the incident, others, including John D’Arcy, professor of information technology at the University of Notre Dame, called the overall response plan “not a good idea.”

•  Zappos, Amazon Sued Over Customer Data Breach — It was inevitable. Days after the breach, it was announced that Zappos, and parent company Amazon, are being sued by a Texas woman alleging that “she and millions of other customers were harmed by the release of personal account information.” Attorneys for the plaintiff are seeking class-action status. Stay tuned.

Wyoming’s decades-long oil and gas boom has drawn thousands of people to the state for high-paying — but dangerous — jobs.

It was the alarmingly high rate of fatal on-the-job accidents that prompted former Governor Dave Freudenthal to put together the Workplace Safety Task Force consisting of members from the major industries in Wyoming as well as several state agencies. The task force hired Dr. Timothy Ryan, an occupation epidemiologist, to look into the problem and provide possible solutions.

In analyzing 17 years of occupation fatality data (1992-2008), Dr. Ryan found that:

The common theme throughout is the lack of a “culture of safety” in Wyoming. The following is a summation of what the employees described as their typical work environment:

• There is a breakdown in communication between the upper management, supervisors, and employees regarding safety.
• “Often the safety training that we receive is not enforced on the work site.”
• Employees are told to “get the job done” and safety protocol and rules are not enforced, resulting in injuries and fatalities.
• On any one job site, there can be a wide range in the safety standards.

In what can only be termed “shocking,” the report claims that based on the total number of fatalities, Wyoming averaged a fatality “every 10 days of the last 10 years.”

As the statistics indicate, the state of Wyoming is in dire need of solution to this problem. Dr. Ryan suggested the following:

1. Organize and develop continuity of ongoing efforts.
2. Develop data monitoring system for the collection and timely analysis of occupational data. Promote
3. OSHA courtesy inspections.
4. Support efforts by industry to develop, monitor and enforce safety standards and practices.

The implementation of these suggestions will hopefully take Wyoming off the list of “most dangerous states to work.”

Last year I wrote about a rise in workplace suicide at Foxconn, where 920,000 people live and work. In 2010, 11 employees had chosen death over working at electronics parts manufacturer, most of them jumping from the top of the highrise dormitories that house the workers. As the story goes:

This is not the first time the company’s worker conditions have come under scrutiny. In June 2006, the London Daily Mail published a story detailing the harsh conditions for the 30,000 employees at Foxconn’s Longhua iPod factory. Seeing a possible major reputation disaster looming, Apple dispatched several executives to investigate conditions at the plant. They issued a report detailing numerous violations of Apple’s supplier code of conduct.

Apple came under fire after these reports and reportedly made changes regarding the labor rules for the departments of Foxconn responsible for manufacturing Apple products. And now conditions at Foxconn are putting one of Apple’s biggest competitors in the spotlight.

Yesterday, dozens of Microsoft Xbox workers climed to the roof of one of the many dormitories on the Foxconn “campus” where they threatened to jump in a dispute over job transfers.

The dispute was set off after contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group announced it would close the assembly line for Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 models at its plant in the central city of Wuhan and transfer the workers to other jobs, workers and Foxconn said Thursday.

Workers reached by telephone said Foxconn initially offered severance pay for those who wanted to leave rather than be transferred, but then reneged, angering the workers; Foxconn, in a statement, disputed that account, saying only transfers were offered, not severance.

Though Foxconn has apparently resolved the issues peacefully, 45 employees have resigned.

This is just another one for the infamous Foxconn record, a place that, for years, has received negative press for its harsh working conditions and low pay for employees. But as anyone in business knows, that negative press trickles down to its clients: Apple, Microsoft and Hewlett Packard. For these tech giants, its a reputational nightmare that will continue to make headlines unless more is done – and soon.

The importance of such posts is to not only inform readers of relevant issues, but to also initiate a dialogue between industry peers, further adding to our knowledge of the topic at hand. So with that in mind, I encourage you to add comments or questions to this unique post.

Here is a rundown of the the first five myths:

1. Large Discount Networks Are the Key to Success in Workers’ Compensation Managed Care
2. The Employer’s Role Ends Once the Workers’ Comp Claim Is Paid
3. Workers’ Compensation Claims Improve With Age
4. Technology Will Cure All of Our Ills
5. Because FECA Is So Different From State Workers’ Compensation Systems, Private Sector Case Management Best Practices Won’t Work

For the entire list, click here. Enjoy reading and (hopefully) commenting.

Check out the latest roundup of risk management posts, complete with some very interesting risky business start-up ideas.

In a 173-page proposal that tied to the Dodd-Frank regulatory law passed last year, the Fed also proposed the first formal limits on the amount of credit exposure that a bank holding company can have to any major borrower be it another bank or corporation.

The goal is to prevent one bank from being susceptible to failure because of a relationship with another large institution. The lack of a cash cushion in the 2008 financial crisis caused many firms to try to rapidly unwind transactions that had troubled institutions on the other side of them, worsening a partner’s troubles and accelerating the market’s crash.

One of the more important parts of the 173-page proposal is a provision that requires large banks to have a “stand-alone risk committee of the board” that works alongside the chief risk officer to handle company-wide risk management — a big step for in the right direction for the discipline.

What types of reality shows spur the most insurance claims?
LM: Many times it’s more of the “walk and talk” shows as opposed to those with stunts that spur the most claims. Audience members are often hurt while being moved in and out of the auditorium. With stunt-laden productions, producers and networks are extremely cautious, and often will hire outside loss control professionals to ensure safety protocol is at its best. Every precaution is taken to make sure the stunts are dangerous looking, but not TOO dangerous to perform. As walk-and-talk programming seems so simple, sometimes safety hazards are overlooked.

Are any stunts or activities uninsurable?
LM: The quick answer is no, with the exception of intentional acts; the right broker can find a quote for anything a producer wants to do. Usually it comes down to pricing, and how much they have in the budget for insurance. The right broker doesn’t hear the word “no” from insurers. They find a way to get coverage.

How are contestants insured? Or are they?
LM: There are many ways that producers look at mitigating their risks when it comes to contestant injuries. Many times, it will depend on requirements from the networks, and how much they are allocated for insurance. But most, if not all, production companies have participants/contestants sign liability releases, which hold them harmless in the event of injury to the participant while they are filming the show. Production companies have a general liability policy, which would protect them from bodily injury claims, in the event a contestant decided to file a suit. There are other ways that production companies can provide coverage, including accident medical policies and short-term disability. These might be an option for production companies who wish to offer some type of coverage for the participants if they are hurt, while helping to keep their GL policies claims free.

What keeps show producers and risk experts up at night?
LM: Concerns that they might not be able to film the production the way they want to. And, if insurance is the reason that things are held up, that is a huge problem. As an experienced broker, you get to the point where you can almost proactively imagine what the production companies may want to do on a certain show, and you can go to the marketplace and request quotes for various options to present to the producer. That way, they have some options up front, and can create a budget that will allow them to do the shoot they want to, since they’ve been able to plan for it.

What is the biggest mistake producers can make when choosing their insurance programs?
LM: Picking a broker who has little experience and is unable to get the producers the coverage and pricing they need to get their production made.

What should producers be aware of in their agreements with the networks?
LM: The networks all require indemnification from the producers. Sometimes the networks will require the producers to also use the networks’ own insurance program. At the point an uncovered or under-covered claim happens, it could leave a producer bare of coverage, but still forced to indemnify the network. A producer should always carry their own insurance as well, to protect themselves at all times.

• Tips on how to protect yourself from identity theft from the folks at Boomer & Echo
• Gaming-centered financial risk management (with broader implications) from TMG
• Why business owners should include themselves in workers comp coverage from AllBusiness.com
• Laptop ergonomics from Workers Comp Insider

The entire roundup of posts can be viewed here. Stay tuned for the next Cavalcade of Risk.