Comcover Information Bulletin
Benchmarking Program 2012 – Key Findings
Issue 41 – September 2012
This Information Bulletin provides an overview of the results from the 2012 Comcover Risk
Management Benchmarking Survey (survey).
Overall Results - Summary
A key priority for the 2012 program was to ensure comparability with the 2010 and 2011
surveys, to enable Comcover to benchmark and measure Fund Members’ risk capabilities on a
consistent basis. As a result, the 2012 survey has provided greater insights into the year on year
changes to Fund Members’ frameworks and systems to manage risk.
This year 138 agencies (83% of the Comcover Fund) participated in the survey. The results
from the 2012 survey indicate that Fund Members have largely been successful in improving
risk management capability. This has been achieved by building upon and embedding existing
governance frameworks and processes to achieve a greater focus on risk. The average score
achieved in 2012 by participating Fund Members was 6.59, reflecting an improvement of 3.6%
across the Fund from the 2011 survey results.
The increase in overall scores across the Fund has been driven by improvements across most of
the ten elements of the survey, the exception being Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery.
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This year, Fund Members set an overall average target score of 7.33. This score corresponds to a
target maturity state of “Structured” and represents a desired shift within agencies to develop a
higher level of maturity in their risk frameworks and systems. It represents a further
improvement upon the current average maturity level achieved in the 2012 survey of
“Top Down”.
A snapshot of key strengths and weaknesses identified across the Fund is provided below.
Results Snapshot: Key Strengths and Weaknesses
Key Strengths across the Fund
Key Weaknesses across the Fund
 Fund Members have actively worked
towards improving the structures and
foundations that are essential for having an
effective risk management framework.
These fundamentals are now beginning to
mature. For example, Fund Members have
either drafted or finalised their formal risk
policy and are increasingly using risk
assessments to achieve better policy and
program outcomes.
 Capabilities in business continuity and
disaster recovery have dropped since the
2011 survey. This element experienced a
slight decline in the overall average score
achieved (from 5.90 in 2011 to 5.86 in
2012). Of greater concern, a number of
Fund Members stated that they have limited
confidence in their ability to respond to a
major event due to the absence of testing
against their business continuity
frameworks.
 Senior leaders are more actively engaged
in the development of their agency’s risk
management capabilities and are
communicating the importance of risk
management across their organisations.
Survey results indicate that the importance
of risk management is being clearly
demonstrated across the Fund by senior
leaders, who are providing positive support
to their agencies’ risk management
frameworks. Strength in this area is
demonstrated by a 74% response rate to
this component of the survey.
 It is evident that a key focus for Fund
Members is now around clearly defining
and communicating risk accountability and
responsibility roles within their
organisations.
 As observed across the last three years of
the survey, results indicate that Fund
Members require additional support
defining their agency’s risk appetite. In
particular, Fund Members are finding
challenges in articulating their risk appetite
and tolerance levels; how these can be
translated into an operational context; and
the expectations for the use of risk appetite
in strategic and operational settings.
 The pace at which Fund Members
progress their risk management capabilities
is being impeded by a lack of momentum in
the use of strategic risk management plans
for resource allocation and prioritisation.
This is further weakened by Fund Members
not allocating the appropriate level of
resources to manage risk at both the
operational and strategic level.
Key Actions Arising for Comcover
Notwithstanding some notable positive trends in risk management capability, Comcover has set
itself the task of working with Fund Members to make more meaningful improvements in this
area.
As a first step, Comcover has identified the area of Business Continuity capability improvement
as its priority. The ability of agencies to effectively respond to a major event is compromised
when the testing and measurement of Business Continuity frameworks does not occur.
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To further develop capability levels across the Fund, Comcover will work with a small group of
Fund Members to improve their Business Continuity frameworks and processes. This work will
be used to inform the development of tools and templates that other Fund Members can adopt to
improve the overall Business Continuity capability of the Fund.
Comcover will also identify Fund Members with mature frameworks and actively profile these
Fund Members through the Communities of Practice networks.
In order to ensure the most successful outcomes, Comcover encourages your participation and
support as it implements the proposed capability improvement initiatives.
Benchmarking Premium Discounts
All Fund Members who participated in the 2012 Benchmarking Program (program) were
eligible to receive a discount of up to 10% on their 2012/13 Comcover insurance premium.
In addition to advice provided at Comcover’s Benchmarking Information sessions held in
January and February, Comcover’s ‘Benchmarking Information Kit’ advised Fund Members that
the premium discount methodology applied for the 2012 program would be based on
participation in the program, as well as progress towards the target maturity state for each
element.
The 2012 methodology comprised factors including a Fund Member’s actual performance across
each survey element; its performance within its segmentation peer group; as well as its overall
performance against target maturity states.
As the current program is a three-year program, the incentive discount methodology applied to
the 2012 survey more greatly rewarded agencies that progressed towards achieving their target
maturity. This accorded with Comcover’s incentivising strategy, which aims to recognise Fund
Members’ improvement in risk management over time.
Comcover has listened to the feedback provided by some Fund Members on the discount
methodology. Using this feedback, plus input from the Comcover Advisory Council and other
stakeholders we are developing a more integrated approach for pricing signals and incentive
strategies across all of Comcover’s insurance and risk programs. Comcover will be issuing
separate communications to its Fund Members over the coming months to provide further
information on its plans in this area going forward.
Further Information
For further information on the Comcover Risk Management Benchmarking Program, please
contact Comcover Member Services on 1800 651 540 or Comcover@comcover.com.au.
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