Jason Disborough is no stranger to seeing how things connect. Not only is he Aon’s enterprise growth leader for APAC, he’s a keen Lego collector – a master of building a bigger picture from many small pieces. And according to him (and Aon’s research) the global economy has entered a new era of instability defined by what the giant brokerage describes as four “megatrends” reshaping business risk — trade, technology, weather and workforce.
It’s not all bad though – the silver lining is that now is the time for our industry to shine by helping our clients through these threats.
Speaking at the National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) conference on the Gold Coast today, Disborough warned that the insurance sector must adapt quickly as volatility deepens across all four fronts.
“Our world has become increasingly volatile,” he told delegates. “It’s showing up in boardrooms, in balance sheets and profit-and-loss statements, and in the employee experience itself. The challenge for brokers is how to help clients deal with this volatility and uncertainty.”
Disborough said that global uncertainty, as tracked by The Economist’s World Uncertainty Index, has surged to its highest level on record. The index measures how frequently the word “uncertain” appears in country intelligence reports, and its rise underscores how the post-pandemic world has become more unpredictable for investors and risk managers alike.
“Inflation, high interest rates and geopolitical volatility are forcing organisations to rethink globalisation,” Disborough said. “Many are pivoting to regional supply chains, which will have flow-on effects for insurance markets, trade credit, and logistics risk.”
Using coffee prices as an example, he described how rising container shipping costs and supply bottlenecks have made even basic commodities more expensive. “Trade volatility and its impact on goods and services is going to be huge,” he said. “Organisations are having to rethink how they configure supply chains and which markets they can safely serve.”
The second megatrend, technology, is producing both opportunities and exposures that are reshaping risk portfolios. Artificial intelligence, Disborough said, is the fastest-adopted technology in history, already used by hundreds of millions globally.
While AI promises major productivity gains, its adoption has also introduced “a rush to deploy untested solutions” and new forms of vulnerability — from data breaches to model hallucinations.
Read more: The coming reckoning with AI
He cited a case in Asia where a company lost $25 million to a deepfake scam after an employee transferred funds to what appeared to be their CFO. “The person looked like the CFO, sounded like the CFO — but it wasn’t,” Disborough said.
The growing sophistication of cybercrime, coupled with the weaponisation of AI, has pushed social engineering incidents up 53% in the past year. For listed companies, a major cyber attack can wipe an average of 25% off shareholder value within 12 months, he said.
Weather and natural disasters have climbed rapidly up the risk rankings, moving from an operational concern to a financial one. Disborough said Australian executives now rate climate and weather-related risk among their top 10 concerns, compared with a much lower ranking globally.
“Business leaders are realising that climate change is not a distant threat — it’s a current financial reality,” he said. “Severe weather is driving up the cost of doing business, disrupting supply chains and damaging property.”
He noted that many companies are still “slow to make long-term investments” in climate resilience, despite evidence that the protection gap — the divide between insured and total economic losses — continues to widen.
Disborough’s fourth megatrend, workforce, is a reminder that human capital remains both an asset and a vulnerability. Post-pandemic labour shortages and shifting employee expectations have placed pressure on productivity and retention.
“People are an organisation’s most valuable asset and a major source of risk,” he said. “Hiring the right talent and keeping them engaged will be the difference between success and failure.”
Aon’s latest global risk survey, based on almost 3,000 responses from 60 countries, found that Australian firms are more concerned than their global peers about weather risk and workforce shortages, but share the same top priority: cyber resilience.
For brokers, Disborough argued, these shifts represent both a challenge and a commercial opportunity. “Clients are telling us they need better access to data and analytics to make decisions with clarity and confidence,” he said. “That’s where the real value of advisory and risk expertise lies.”
He added that volatility itself may become the new normal — and that brokers who can translate complex megatrends into actionable strategies will be central to how businesses manage the next decade of risk.
