Cybercrime is estimated to have cost the global economy just under USD 1 trillion in 2020, indicating an increase of more than 50% since 2018. With the average cyber insurance claim rising from USD 145,000 in 2019 to USD 359,000 in 2020, there is a growing necessity for better cyber information sources, standardised databases, mandatory reporting and public awareness. This research analyses the extant academic and industry literature on cybersecurity and cyber risk management with a particular focus on data availability. From a preliminary search resulting in 5219 cyber peer-reviewed studies, the application of the systematic methodology resulted in 79 unique datasets. We posit that the lack of available data on cyber risk poses a serious problem for stakeholders seeking to tackle this issue. In particular, we identify a lacuna in open databases that undermine collective endeavours to better manage this set of risks. The resulting data evaluation and categorisation will support cybersecurity researchers and the insurance industry in their efforts to comprehend, metricise and manage cyber risks.

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) models allow for a more transparent and understandable relationship between humans and machines. The insurance industry represents a fundamental opportunity to demonstrate the potential of XAI, with the industry’s vast stores of sensitive data on policyholders and centrality in societal progress and innovation. This paper analyses current Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in insurance industry practices and insurance research to assess their degree of explainability. Using search terms representative of (X)AI applications in insurance, 419 original research articles were screened from IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, Scopus, Web of Science and Business Source Complete and EconLit. The resulting 103 articles (between the years 2000–2021) representing the current state-of-the-art of XAI in insurance literature are analysed and classified, highlighting the prevalence of XAI methods at the various stages of the insurance value chain. The study finds that XAI methods are particularly prevalent in claims management, underwriting and actuarial pricing practices. Simplification methods, called knowledge distillation and rule extraction, are identified as the primary XAI technique used within the insurance value chain. This is important as the combination of large models to create a smaller, more manageable model with distinct association rules aids in building XAI models which are regularly understandable. XAI is an important evolution of AI to ensure trust, transparency and moral values are embedded within the system’s ecosystem. The assessment of these XAI foci in the context of the insurance industry proves a worthwhile exploration into the unique advantages of XAI, highlighting to industry professionals, regulators and XAI developers where particular focus should be directed in the further development of XAI. This is the first study to analyse XAI’s current applications within the insurance industry, while simultaneously contributing to the interdisciplinary understanding of applied XAI. Advancing the literature on adequate XAI definitions, the authors propose an adapted definition of XAI informed by the systematic review of XAI literature in insurance.

In this study, a Bayesian Network (BN) was developed for the prediction of the hazard potential and biological effects with the focus on metal- and metal-oxide nanomaterials to support human health risk assessment. The developed BN captures the (inter) relationships between the exposure route, the nanomaterials physicochemical properties and the ultimate biological effects in a holistic manner and was based on international expert consultation and the scientific literature (e.g., in vitro/in vivo data). The BN was validated with independent data extracted from published studies and the accuracy of the prediction of the nanomaterials hazard potential was 72% and for the biological effect 71%, respectively. The application of the BN is shown with scenario studies for TiO₂, SiO₂, Ag, CeO₂, ZnO nanomaterials. It is demonstrated that the BN may be used by different stakeholders at several stages in the risk assessment to predict certain properties of a nanomaterials of which little information is available or to prioritize nanomaterials for further screening.

The closure of borders and traditional commerce due to the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a lasting financial impact. We determine whether the growth in COVID-19 affected index prices by examining equity markets in five regional epicentres, along with a ‘global’ index. We also investigate the impact of COVID-19 after controlling for investor sentiment, credit risk, liquidity risk, safe-haven asset demand and the price of oil. Despite controlling for these traditional market drivers, the daily totals of COVID-19 cases nevertheless explained index price changes in Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. Similar results were not observed in China, the origin of the virus, nor in the ‘global’ index (MSCI World). Our results suggest that early interventions (China) and the spatiotemporal nature of pandemic epicentres (World) should be considered by governments, regulators and relevant stakeholders in the event of future COVID-19 ‘waves’ or further extreme societal disruptions.