Before you abroad – check your risks

We at Solidbasics International always try to press on would-be expats the need to prepare themselves and become well informed before on travels abroad. One good source of information are reinsurance companies. Normal insurance companies insure their own risks with these companies. This means that the reinsurance companies have to assess a very large range of risks in many different countries, and, especially when compared to the insurance companies themselves, they are very open with this information to the public. After all, if you do not have to file a claim with your insurance company, they do not have to file a claim with the reinsurance company.

Unfortunately, many of this valuable information is comes in the form of large, densely written rapports with a lot of specialized jargon.

However, the Aon Corporation (http://www.aon.com) has started to present their information, compiled from both their own as from other insurance companies’ sources, into easy to use and free to download maps. Cooperation with Oxford Analytica, an internationally renowned scientific consultancy agency, makes sure the maps are of high quality and as accurate as possible. Not only are the usual financial risks taken into account, but also the changes of strikes or riots.

If one desires additional analyses of the map, the Financial Times offers a free overview and analysis at http://www.ft.com/aon, where one can also see the results of the past three years.

While there are of course the usual suspects like North Korea, Venezuela and Zimbabwe, some countries score surprisingly high on the risk list, for example Argentine. On the bright side, some third-world countries have improved their performances, like India, Indonesia and Kenya.

So before you travel abroad, or if you are just curious, visit these sites and know what you might run into.