Collective resilience in a fragmented world

AXA’s Future Risks Report 2025 addresses the threats and opportunities shaping the future, through the eyes of both insurance experts and the public. The report shows clearly how successive crises are reshaping societies, economies and institutions. Two numbers sum up the picture: 95 percent of experts say crises have increased in recent years; and 89 percent of respondents believe the insurance industry has a key role in protecting against future risks.

These two numbers actually point to a tension: as crises rise, the solution is largely expected from insurance. That’s both an opportunity and a heavy responsibility for the industry. Because if an actor trusted this much fails to meet the expectation, what it loses is not just market share but social legitimacy.

Four critical findings

The findings the report highlights describe our age well:

• Climate change remains the biggest risk, but its throne is shaking. Though at the top for five years, it’s now closely followed by geopolitical instability, cybersecurity and social tensions. This makes a holistic risk approach necessary in the age of polycrisis.
• Risks are manageable, and insurers are on the front line. 86 percent of experts say risks can be partly prevented with strong measures. Though trust in public authorities has weakened, 72 percent of the public believes in insurers’ importance in creating resilience.
• Technological risks are rising at an unprecedented pace. Cybersecurity, AI and big data are now at the top; 54 percent of experts think the ethical risks around technology are emerging fast.
• There is hope in a fragmented world. While 59 percent of respondents say societies have lost their shared values, 72 percent believe democracy must be protected in all circumstances.

AXA’s new Risk Radar tool makes this data interactive, letting experts and the public compare risk perceptions on a regional basis. So the report isn’t just a snapshot, it’s a map you can work on.

The meaning of polycrisis is exactly this interlocking. A disaster made more frequent by climate can trigger migration; migration can feed social tension and geopolitical instability; and that deepens economic shocks. Risks no longer sit in separate boxes, they form a chain that ignites one another. The report’s emphasis on a holistic approach comes from here.

The speed at which technological risks rise is striking too. Cybersecurity, AI and big data produce not only new opportunities but new fragilities. That more than half of experts think the ethical risks around technology are emerging fast shows that the speed of digitalization is itself a risk factor. So progress and fragility are two faces of the same coin.

My reading

What this picture tells me is this: it’s no longer possible to handle risks one by one. Climate, geopolitics, technology and social tension feed one another; when one is triggered, the others move too. So risk management must also be holistic, not piecemeal. Managing a single risk perfectly while ignoring the others provides no protection in today’s world.

The second takeaway is more hopeful: that the public’s trust in insurers stays high while trust in public authorities weakens places a great responsibility on the industry. Insurers are not only managers of risk; they’re actors that build societies’ resilient, adaptive and sustainable future. Deserving this trust is the industry’s real test in the coming period.

The responsibility from this is large. With trust in the public sphere falling while trust in the insurer stays high, the industry gains not a privilege but a burden. This trust can be protected only when the insurer truly behaves as an actor that produces resilience, is present in the moment of crisis, and tries to reduce risk in advance. Otherwise, what erodes fastest is trust itself.

The most striking part of the report is that it reads risk through the eyes not only of experts but of the public. Because resilience is not only a technical capacity but a collective reflex. A society stays resilient to crises to the extent that it can protect its shared values and trust its institutions. And insurance takes on a meaningful role to the extent that it can build the financial infrastructure of this reflex.

The real lesson I draw from this report is that optimism and realism can stand together. Crises are rising, yes; but the large majority of experts say these risks can be partly managed with strong measures. So the future is neither wholly dark nor automatically bright; it depends on the measures taken. And the role of insurance becomes clear exactly here: not to manage fear, but to build resilience.

Through Turkey’s window

On an earthquake belt, in a geopolitically active geography and in a fast digitalization process, Turkey already lives the polycrisis picture the report describes on a daily basis. So holistic resilience isn’t an academic concept for us but a direct need. Institutions that can read risks not separately but as an interconnected whole will make a difference both commercially and socially.