Risk Management

HEFEI – October 21, 2026 -- Sungrow's PowerTitan 3.0 battery energy storage system contained a thermal runaway event that reached 1259.8°C without spreading to adjacent containers or a medium-voltage substation, becoming the first stacked-cell BESS with an AC-block design to complete a large-scale fire test under UL 9540A: 2026 and CSA/ANSI C800-2025.

UL Solutions conducted the test. Fire Risk Alliance witnessed it and Jensen Hughes observed it. All three PowerTitan generations, 1.0 through 3.0, passed their large-scale fire tests on the first attempt.

Test layout replicated a utility-scale installation with 28.56 MWh of storage

The setup mirrored a block-level utility-scale layout. It included 28.56 MWh of fully liquid-cooled PowerTitan 3.0 units and a 7.4 MW medium-voltage substation. PowerTitan 3.0 combines stacked high-energy-density cells and the DC/AC power converter unit in a single 20-foot container.

United States – October 18, 2026 -- Coalition says policies it provided paid more than $315 million in cyber claims in 2025. The insurer is urging brokers to counter the belief that cyber insurance does not pay claims, an objection it says can stall coverage decisions.

Zero-indemnity closures reflect early intervention, Coalition argues

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) reported that 26% of cyber claims in 2025 closed with indemnity payments. Verizon reported a recorded pay-out on 55% of 2025 claims. Coalition says critics read claims closed without an indemnity payment as denials, when many reflect incidents contained early.

Belleville – October 16, 2026 -- Payroll and annual revenue are the first figures insurers review when pricing business coverage, according to a HelloNation article featuring Jerry and Luke Yaekel of Yaekel & Associates Insurance Services Inc. The article states that industry classification matters, but carriers weigh many additional factors before setting premiums.

Payroll and revenue set the baseline for exposure

Payroll indicates workforce size and potential workers' compensation exposure, while revenue reflects business activity and operational scale. As both figures rise, risk may shift, which can change quotes.

London – October 15, 2026 -- Control Risks has appointed Chris Holt, a Lloyd's of London insurance broker founder with two decades of crisis and resilience experience, as Global Head of Advisory and Risk Consulting.

Holt will lead an international team on crisis preparation, response and recovery

In the role, Holt will head a global team that helps organizations prepare for, respond to and recover from critical events threatening their people, assets, operations, reputation and corporate value.

Holt brings 20 years of advisory work for multinationals, governments and insurers

Holt has advised multinational organizations, governments and insurers on crisis management, resilience, security and organizational risk. He began his career as a British Army Officer, serving in specialist roles that included overseas operations.

London – October 15, 2026 -- Markel Insurance, the insurance arm of Markel Group Inc. (NYSE: MKL), has appointed Josephine Stroud as Head of Energy Liability and Jenny McFarlane as Senior Underwriter for Marine & Energy Liability in its London Market team.

Markel brings Hull, MECO, Liabilities and Transport & Logistics under one Marine Transportation unit

Both hires follow the creation of Markel's Marine Transportation business within its London Market operations. The unit combines Hull & Hull War, MECO, Marine & Energy Liabilities (M&E), and Transport & Logistics. Markel says the structure gives brokers broader access to underwriting expertise across these portfolios.

Stroud and McFarlane are based in London and report into the Marine & Energy Liability team, part of the Marine Transportation business led by Grant Smith.

Dayton – October 15, 2026 -- Organizations that shred confidential records without a certificate of destruction may be unable to prove compliance during audits or investigations, according to Dayton, Ohio, document shredding expert Rhet Crowe in a HelloNation feature.

Certificates give auditors documented proof that shredding met professional standards

Crowe says shredding alone is not enough. The certificate is formal evidence that confidential documents were securely destroyed, which matters most for financial reports, medical files and legal paperwork. Without it, businesses may struggle to meet documentation requirements or defend their practices under scrutiny.

New York – October 13, 2026 -- KNOWIDEA, the decision intelligence company, has published a research paper co-authored with Georgia Tech and developed with one of the world's largest asset managers, aimed at making AI-generated financial database queries verifiable before they inform decisions.

The paper, titled "VeriPIE: Checkable Query Plans and Evidence-Guided Selection for Text-to-SQL," describes a method that improves the accuracy of AI-written database queries. Each answer comes with evidence that a risk team can validate before acting on it.

Silent query errors return plausible but wrong numbers

Banks, asset managers and corporate finance teams are adopting AI tools that convert plain-English questions into database queries, a task known as text-to-SQL. According to the paper, the main danger is not the query that fails but the one that runs, returns a reasonable number and is wrong.

Chicago – October 13, 2026 -- CME Group's Corn futures traded a record 1,206,376 contracts on Oct. 9, topping the previous daily high of 1,128,597 contracts set on October 13, 2026, by 77,779 contracts.

USDA report above expectations drives the rush to reposition

Traders turned to Corn futures after last week's USDA report to adjust positions and manage price risk. The market had priced in lower yields after a challenging summer, but the report showed ending stocks, yields and production all above expectations, according to John Ricci, CME Group's Global Head of Agricultural Products.

Ricci said CME Group remains focused on "equipping clients to manage their risk in any market environment."

Cary, N.C. – October 13, 2026 -- Chartis Research has named SAS a Category Leader for Operational Risk Analytics, rating the vendor best-in-class or leading in seven capability areas of its integrated governance, resilience and compliance (iGRC) assessment for financial services.

The ranking credits the combination of SAS Governance and Compliance Manager (GCM) and the SAS Viya platform. Chartis cited SAS' analytically consistent, governed coverage across multiple risk domains. The assessment and the update to the RiskTech Quadrant for Operational Risk Analytics appear in the report Integrated Governance, Resilience and Compliance Solutions – Financial Services, 2026: Quadrant Update, published in June 2026.

Chartis rates SAS best-in-class or leading across seven capability areas

Chartis rated the SAS platform on the following criteria:

London and Singapore – October 08, 2026 -- CME Group posted international average daily volume (ADV) of 9 million contracts in the third quarter of 2026, up 22% from a year earlier, as geopolitical volatility drove risk-management demand across global markets.

Energy and agricultural contracts lead international surge

Growth outside the United States was driven largely by Energy products, up 40%, Agricultural products, up 28%, and Equity Index products, up 24%. Julie Winkler, Chief Commercial Officer at CME Group, said geopolitical issues fueled uncertainty and stoked inflation globally during the quarter, pushing customers worldwide toward the exchange to hedge risk.