Few UK firms quantify their disruption risk, Aon finds

UK businesses face converging business interruption, cyber and supply chain risks but are poorly prepared to measure or manage them, according to a new report from Aon. 

The broker’s report, Navigating Business Disruption in the UK: Strategies for a New Risk Reality 2026, drew on UK findings from its 2025 Global Risk Management Survey. It argued that these risks are increasingly compounding one another, deepening financial damage and extending recovery times in ways traditional risk frameworks are not built to handle.

Losses without plans

Many UK organisations have already suffered. The survey found 27.3% had suffered significant financial losses from business interruption, 30.8% from supply chain disruption, and 9.3% from cyber incidents.

Yet formal plans remain rare. Only 21.6% have a formal risk management plan for business interruption, 23.6% for supply chain risk and 24.6% for cyber.

Fewer still have measured their exposure. Only 16% have quantified their exposure to business interruption, 12.4% to supply chain disruption, and 13.1% to cyber.

Aon said that without that quantification, senior leaders struggle to make informed investment decisions, structure the right insurance programmes or plan for the true cost of prolonged disruption. Even where firms do quantify exposures, the results are often based on intuition and broad assumptions rather than structured financial modelling.

“Businesses can use advanced analytics and scenario planning to quantify what’s at stake, while matching limits and structures more closely to realistic loss scenarios and clarifying the breadth of cover and policy,” said Rob Kemp, chief executive of commercial risk, UK, at Aon.

Kemp said businesses could use premium savings in the current market to close protection gaps.

Risks that move together

The findings echo other research this month. Hiscox found half of risk managers at multinational companies struggle to co-ordinate across teams, functions and insurance policies when several risks hit at once, and that cyber is the risk most likely to trigger others.

The past fortnight has shown how disruption spreads. Storms Austen and Boelo left more than 830,000 properties without power. Some businesses lost days of trading without suffering physical damage, a scenario that standard business interruption cover often doesn’t reach.

For brokers, the quantification gap is an opportunity. Clients that have never modelled their business interruption, supply chain or cyber exposure are likely to be carrying limits based on guesswork. That risks underinsurance when a serious loss hits, a problem Insurance Business has explored in its coverage of why underinsurance is an information failure.

Kemp’s point on premium savings is especially relevant now. With UK commercial rates falling, brokers can encourage clients to reinvest some of the savings in better limits, longer indemnity periods, or extensions such as supplier and utilities cover, rather than simply banking a lower premium. Working through realistic loss scenarios with clients before renewal is the most practical place to start.