Half of South Korean organizations report financial losses tied to increasing competition, but only 17.4% have a formal plan or review in place for the risk – one of the widest gaps between loss experience and risk-transfer readiness recorded in the country’s risk profile, according to Korea-specific findings from Aon plc’s 2025 Global Risk Management Survey. A similar pattern shows up across several of Korea’s top risks, from workplace safety to cyber exposure, pointing to areas where insurance demand may lag behind actual loss activity.

Competition risk: a market still under-planning for its top exposure

Increasing competition ranks as Korea’s top risk overall, a sharp divergence from its fifth-place ranking globally and fourth-place ranking across Asia-Pacific, according to Aon’s survey, which gathered responses from 2,941 decision-makers across 63 countries between April and June 2025. The 50% loss rate reported by Korean respondents compares with 44.1% across Asia-Pacific and 42.8% globally.

Terence Williams, head of Commercial Risk for Aon in APAC, said the finding reflects conditions specific to the domestic market. “Korea’s risk profile shows how structural market pressures are translating into tangible business impact. Competition, regulation, and financial volatility are converging, increasing the need for more connected risk strategies that link resilience with capital and growth decisions,” he said.

Two regulatory developments are likely contributing to insurance demand in adjacent lines. Liability insurance is projected to account for 13.5% of South Korea’s general insurance market in 2025, with premiums forecast to grow at a 6.0% compound annual rate through 2029, according to GlobalData. One driver is South Korea’s Act on the Protection of Virtual Asset Users, which mandates liability coverage for virtual asset service providers.

The second is an amendment to the Personal Information Protection Act expanding which organizations must carry data breach insurance – a point that bears directly on the cyber findings below. With a 50% loss rate against only 17.4% formal planning, the gap itself is the clearest signal in the data: demand for liability coverage and structured risk-assessment services tied to competitive exposure looks under-met relative to how often Korean firms are already absorbing losses from it.

Workplace safety: enforcement risk is already showing up in claims data

Workplace injury also ranks among Korea’s top risks, a finding that aligns with government data rather than survey perception alone. According to Korea JoongAng Daily, South Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor reported that work-related fatalities subject to formal investigation reached 457 in the first three quarters of 2025, up 3.2% from 443 a year earlier – the first year-on-year increase since the ministry began publishing the figure in 2022. The ministry attributed the rise largely to smaller workplaces, which face expanded liability under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act since January 2024.

Aon’s survey found 64.3% of Korean organizations have a formal safety plan and 57.1% are reviewing insurance or risk-transfer options for this exposure – among the highest preparedness levels recorded for any risk category in the country. With fatality rates rising under the expanded law rather than falling, demand for liability and safety-related coverage in the small-business segment may continue building rather than level off.

Catastrophe and liquidity risk: two separate pressures on property lines

Weather and natural disaster risk ranks sixth among Korea’s current risks, and cash flow and liquidity risk returned to the top 10 for the first time since 2019, according to Aon's survey. Aon’s 2025 Global Risk Management Survey reported 2025 wildfire losses in South Korea at approximately $1 billion and flood losses at no less than $740 million, citing Aon’s Climate and Catastrophe Insight report as the original source of those figures.

A separate, more routine source of loss may also be shaping property-line demand. South Korea’s National Fire Information System recorded more than 30,000 fire incidents through October 2024, with KRW589.9 billion ($456 million) in damages, a factor expected to support continued growth in property and catastrophe insurance demand. Taken together, the two data points suggest underwriters may need to weigh routine fire frequency alongside the less frequent but higher-severity wildfire and flood events of 2025 when assessing Korean property exposure. Liquidity risk preparedness, meanwhile, was the highest of any category measured at 78.6%, though the survey found this concentrated in financial planning rather than risk assessment or continuity planning.

Cyber risk: two surveys disagree on where it ranks

Aon’s survey placed cyberattacks and data breaches at number 10 among Korea’s current risks – its first appearance in the top 10. The Allianz Risk Barometer 2026, published January 14, 2026, found cyber ranks among Korea’s top three risks instead, consistent with cyber’s position as Asia-Pacific’s top risk overall. Allianz also found that while large Asian companies show growing appetite for cyber risk transfer, regional coverage levels remain below those in the Americas or Europe, with many large organizations self-insured.

One possible factor behind the gap is Korea’s expanded data breach insurance mandate under the Personal Information Protection Act, noted earlier in this article: organizations already required to carry coverage may rate the risk differently than companies surveyed under Allianz’s broader corporate sample. This connection is not stated directly in either survey, so it should be treated as a hypothesis rather than a confirmed finding. Either way, the divergence is a point brokers benchmarking client risk registers against multiple sources may want to track, particularly as both firms prepare their next survey cycles.

Kevin Kim, CEO of Korea for Aon, said the survey findings point to a broader need for stronger internal risk management capability. “The survey highlights a clear opportunity for Korean organizations to strengthen enterprise risk management and analytics capabilities. By building stronger internal data, processes, and expertise, businesses can move from reacting to risk toward making more confident, forward-looking decisions that support growth and capital efficiency,” he said.