Welcome to the second half of the BIE 100, our groundbreaking guide to Europe�fs leading risk and insurance managers, their philosophy, views and news.

In the first half of this project we compiled the first-ever guide to risk and insurance managers in Europe's top 100 listed companies measured by gross revenues.

We identified the key managers, researched basic details about them and compiled profiles on how they identify their risks, how they manage them and how and why they transfer them.

This provided readers with the first comprehensive guide to risk and insurance management leaders in Europe and it was very well received.

For the second part of the project we decided to find out what this group think about key risk and insurance issues.

We asked them about four key areas. These were:

• The state of the insurance market including demand, supply and price of open market coverage plus self insurance and captive use;
• The level of service delivered by insurers and brokers under key headings and how it compares with 12 months ago;
• The key insurance and business risks faced by the organisations; and,
• The hot issue of broker remuneration and specifically whether brokers should be prevented from taking payment from both insurers and their customers at the same time.

The aim of this exercise was to find out what risk and insurance managers think, what they want and how they feel about their core suppliers.

We carried out the Risk Manager Survey 2008 through interviews instead of simply sending out questionnaires.

We decided that, rather than asking people to simply tick boxes, we wanted to go deeper and use our editorial skills to draw out real analysis, not just numbers, and thereby add real value to this project for our readers throughout Europe.

I would like once again to thank all those busy risk and insurance managers who agreed to be interviewed and provided us with this invaluable market intelligence.

Those who participated felt there was real benefit to the exercise and hopefully the rest of our readers will concur. I would also like to thank XL Insurance for its support.

I hope that you enjoy reading this survey as much as we enjoyed compiling it and please do not hesitate to contact me with any suggestions on how we can improve or expand it for next year.

Editor-Business Insurance Europe

ALadbury@BIEurope.com