Aon Risk Solutions, in collaboration with the Risk Advisory Group, has identified 2015 as the most lethal year for terrorist violence since they started collecting empirical data in 2007. With the issuance in April 2016 of the new edition of its Terrorism and Political Violence Map, Aon particularly emphasizes the rapid evolution over the past year of terrorism and political violence present “a much broader spectrum of potential impacts” that may affect businesses.

In particular, the aggregate data revealed that:

• 18 countries saw an increase in terrorist violence while 13 countries saw a decrease.
• Shootings have exceeded bombings for the first time since 2007, with a particular jump in attacks that target private citizens at public gatherings. In 2016, one third (31 percent) of all attacks targeted citizens, most notably those carried out by the Islamic State toward locations in the United States (Boston Marathon), France (public venues in Paris), Turkey (Ankara rail station), and Belgium (Brussels train station).
• As refugees stream from the Middle East, far right activism against refugees coming to Europe is also on the upswing.

The Terrorism and Political Violence Map is released each year to help business leaders to adopt more strategic risk management approaches to protect their investments. The key to identifying these approaches, however, is knowledge of how businesses are exposed to potential danger, particularly in light of the “fluid world” the map suggests, and that they need to be flexible as well as vigorous in anticipating and managing risk, particularly in unstable regions.