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Financial Institutions

Financial institutions face a broad range of risks. Marsh’s financial institutions specialists can help identify your risks and design solutions that can reshape your future risk landscape.

Financial institutions face a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive environment amid wider global economic uncertainty. As technology continues to replace traditional delivery of financial services and products, the threats of data breaches and cyberattacks are creating challenges for financial institutions. Ongoing regulatory changes and rising compliance costs have added to the complexity.

With over 1,100 specialists globally, our in-depth understanding of the financial institutions industry allows us to support, understand, and measure your evolving business landscape, then minimise your exposures with solutions for traditional and emerging risks.

Our Financial Institutions Practice offers a wide range of innovative risk management and transfer solutions, from cyber and privacy liability through to more traditional risks such as directors and officers liability, professional indemnity, crime, property, casualty, and employers liability.

Our holistic approach is driven by extensive industry experience and unique insight, helping you to identify potential losses and determine how best to reduce your risks.

Related insights

FAQ's

A financial institution is a regulated intermediary between consumers and the capital or debt markets. Generally, they are responsible for the supply of money through the transfer of funds from investors to companies in the form of loans, deposits, and investments (including stocks and bonds).

Financial institutions offer financial advice and/or services and include banks, non-bank financial institutions, insurance companies, and investment funds.

Credit insurance can reduce one of the biggest risks for financial institutions, which is the failure of obligors fail to meet their contractual obligations. Known as credit risk, this includes consumers defaulting on loans or a bank failing to maintain regulatory liquidity levels.

Cyber risk is an increasing exposure for financial institutions, as the industry continues to be transformed by technology and given the sensitivity of the data held and the transactions executed. With specific cyber coverage and appropriate risk management plans in place, you can better understand, measure, and manage the threats posed by cyber breaches and business interruption.

Because financial institutions are often highly regulated, legal and compliance risks are also prevalent. This requires having appropriate financial and professional liability policies in place to protect boards, directors, and the business itself from mistakes and fraud committed by employees, bad employment practices, or sanctions for regulatory violations. 

Financial institutions face numerous emerging risks today — pandemics, climate change, emerging and enterprise technology, geopolitical, and regulatory risk. Financial institutions must work proactively to identify and mitigate these risks with a focus on resiliency. By doing so, they can also differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Marsh’s more than 1,100 the financial institutions specialists worldwide, backed by advanced data analytics tools, can support your efforts to understand the impact of these risks on your organisation, make informed decisions about how to manage them, and optimise your total cost of risk.

There are four generally accepted major categories of financial institutions. These include:

Banks

  • Retail banks
  • Commercial banks
  • Savings and loans associations
  • Investment banks

Insurance Companies

  • Accident and health companies
  • Property and casualty companies

Asset Managers

  • Investment advisors
  • Hedge funds
  • Venture capital firms
  • Private Equity
  • Family offices

Fintech

  • Payment providers 
  • Infrastructure and platforms 
  • Digital banking and personal finance
  • Non-bank lending 
  • Digital assets
  • Insurtech

Depending on the type of financial institution you represent, there are a number of possible specialty insurance products you could benefit from. These might include: property insurance; employment practices liability; errors and omissions liability; kidnap, ransom, and extortion liability; fidelity coverage and fiduciary liability; directors and officers liability; and cyber insurance. In addition, many financial institutions can benefit from the use of alternative risk financing vehicles such as captive solutions.

Our specialists can help you determine which coverages would be best for your organisation based on an assessment of your risk profile, helping you reduce liabilities and improve your resiliency and operational performance.

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Richard Garside

Head of Financial and Professional Services, Pacific

  • Australia

Marsh Pty Ltd (ABN 86 004 651 512, AFSL 238983) (“Marsh”) arrange this insurance and is not the insurer. The Discretionary Trust Arrangement is issued by the Trustee, JLT Group Services Pty Ltd (ABN 26 004 485 214, AFSL 417964) (“JGS”). JGS is part of the Marsh group of companies. Any advice in relation to the Discretionary Trust Arrangement is provided by JLT Risk Solutions Pty Ltd (ABN 69 009 098 864, AFSL 226827) which is a related entity of Marsh. The cover provided by the Discretionary Trust Arrangement is subject to the Trustee’s discretion and/or the relevant policy terms, conditions and exclusions. This website contains general information, does not take into account your individual objectives, financial situation or needs and may not suit your personal circumstances. For full details of the terms, conditions and limitations of the covers and before making any decision about whether to acquire a product, refer to the specific policy wordings and/or Product Disclosure Statements available from JLT Risk Solutions on request. Full information can be found in the JLT Risk Solutions Financial Services Guide.”