Srdjan Todorovic is head of political violence and hostile environment solutions at Allianz Commercial. In this episode we talk through the Allianz Risk Barometer 2025. Geopolitics is a recurring theme throughout the report, and our conversation focuses on three of its top ten ranked risks, including business interruption, cyber risk, and political risk and political violence. We discuss the hot topic of state-sponsored sabotage operations, representing a serious risk management challenge for commercial clients, while provoking questions for underwriters across several lines of business. Lastly, here’s the link to the Allianz Risk Barometer. https://commercial.allianz.com/news-and-insights/reports/allianz-risk-barometer.html

The insurance industry and the private sector are on the frontline of hybrid warfare, already a big news story in 2025. Elisabeth Braw is a journalist and author focused on responses to ‘Gray-zone’ aggression, including sabotage operations, cyber-attacks and damaging subsea cables. She is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative, and a senior associate fellow at the European Leadership Network. She is the author of “Goodbye Globalization: The Return of a Divided World” and “The Defender’s Dilemma: Identifying and Deterring Gray-Zone Aggression”. Her next book, “The Undersea War”, is due out in 2026. Elisabeth is also a columnist for Foreign Policy and Politico Europe, plus a podcaster for WTW’s “Geopolcast”.

Southeast Asia is at the forefront of Asia Pacific geopolitics, with the US and China vying for influence. Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia recently became BRICS ‘partner countries’. The Philippines has tilted towards the US since Bongbong Marcos took office, and regularly clashes with China to defend its maritime borders. Meanwhile, several ASEAN countries are developing a biometric cross-border ‘Schengen’ visa, but focused on tax, immigration and security concerns. This episodes features Aidan Mooney, senior intelligence analyst, and Adrian Poole-Robb, managing director for Asia Business Development, KCS Group Asia.