Risk assessment
We all do risk assessments every moment of every day and it depends on the information received on how successful we are at avoiding a hazard. For example, we get out of the bed in the morning and head off across the landing to the bathroom, what could possibly go wrong? as we tread along the soft carpet navigating around the kids and out of nowhere your world falls apart, the pain shooting through your foot brings tears to your eyes.... Lego!!
If you had all the information when leaving your bed, you may have put slippers on and avoided the pain, a risk assessment can be that simple.
Once we’ve made a risk assessment such as crossing the road, we continually reassess the situation and if a car comes, we take appropriate action to avoid the risk of injury, this we do naturally without consciously thinking, I guess it’s called self-preservation.
But when we make a conscious assessment we don’t always reassess when something changes, for example I bought a car which was okay, nothing special to look at, my risk assessment was that the level of insurance purchased, and the car alarm and immobiliser were the correct level of mitigation.
Then one day I decided to clean the car up, I put new wheels on it, polished and made the car something I desired
What I failed to do is realise that I have good taste, no consolation to me when it was stolen that evening!
I didn’t reassess the risk, it would only have taken a small adjustment, a few more pounds spent on upgrading the insurance and a wheel lock would have been enough, instead no car, no compensation!!
Our own risk assessments can be flawed if we don’t have all the information
It’s when we start adding things to our lives that risk assessment becomes complicated, you start adding families, houses, cars, occupations, hobbies etc.
So, at this point we normally find a specialist, someone who knows the risk for your particular subject and can help mitigate against your unknown, insurance brokers etc
In my profession for instance -personal protection
Allenby International provides risk assessments specifically tailored to travel management, personal protection, security surveys and country risk reports to mention a few, which aid in removing the “Lego effect” from your journey
Contact AllenbyInternational@gmail.com for more information