AIM study materials
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AIM flashcards

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33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Leadership vs. management
Management reduces complexity through planning, organizing, and controlling; leadership produces change by setting direction, aligning people, and motivating them.
Legitimate power
Influence derived from a formal position or title in the organizational hierarchy, accepted by subordinates as the right to direct their work.
Referent power
Influence based on followers' identification with, respect for, or liking of the leader, independent of formal authority or rewards.
Expert power
Influence that comes from specialized knowledge, skill, or experience that others need and cannot easily replace.
Coercive power
Influence based on the ability to impose penalties, sanctions, or undesirable assignments; effective short term but tends to reduce commitment.
Situational leadership
A contingency model in which the leader adjusts direction and support to follower readiness, moving from telling to selling, participating, and delegating.
Span of control
The number of subordinates reporting to one manager; wider spans suit routine standardized work, narrower spans suit complex or high-risk work.
Risk management process
A repeating cycle of identifying exposures, measuring frequency and severity, selecting treatment methods, implementing them, and monitoring results.
Total cost of risk
The sum of insurance premiums, retained losses, deductibles, risk control expenses, and administrative costs of the risk management program.
Expected loss formula
Expected loss equals claim frequency (claims per exposure unit) multiplied by average claim severity; used to compare retention against transfer.
Risk map
A grid plotting exposures by likelihood and impact; high-likelihood high-impact items require immediate treatment while low-low items are monitored.
Risk control vs. risk financing
Risk control reduces frequency or severity of losses; risk financing funds losses after they occur through retention or transfer.
Retention decision rule
Retain exposures when expected losses plus administrative cost are lower than the risk charge and loading embedded in transfer pricing.
Accountability principle
Authority to decide must accompany assigned responsibility; mismatches create role ambiguity, delay, and diffusion of ownership.
Exposure unit
The denominator used to measure loss frequency, such as payroll per thousand dollars, vehicle-years, or square footage of insured property.
Delegation
Transferring specific tasks and the authority to complete them while the manager retains ultimate accountability for outcomes.
Enterprise risk management
An integrated approach that identifies, assesses, and manages risks across all organizational silos in relation to overall strategy and objectives.
Three lines model
First line owns and manages risk, second line provides oversight and compliance, third line internal audit gives independent assurance to the board.
Risk appetite vs. tolerance
Risk appetite is the amount of risk the organization accepts pursuing objectives; tolerance is the acceptable variation around that appetite.
Black swan event
A rare, high-impact event considered improbable beforehand but explained as predictable after the fact; undermines reliance on historical averages.
Fat-tailed distribution
A probability distribution in which extreme outcomes occur far more often than a normal distribution predicts, making averages and standard deviations misleading.
VUCA
An acronym for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, used to describe environments requiring flexible, information-seeking, and experimental leadership.
Scenario planning
A method of testing strategy against several plausible futures rather than one forecast, reducing overconfidence in single-point projections.
Kotter's eight steps
A change sequence starting with urgency and a guiding coalition and ending with anchoring changes in culture; skipping early steps undermines later ones.
Psychological safety
A climate in which people believe they can raise concerns and report errors without punishment, improving early disclosure of emerging risks.
Systemic risk
Risk of disruption spreading across an entire system or market, so that correlated exposures defeat diversification across traditional insurance lines.
ISO 31000 process
A risk management framework covering scope and context, identification, analysis, evaluation, treatment, and ongoing communication and monitoring.
Risk culture
The shared values and behaviors that determine how members of an organization identify, discuss, and act on risk in daily decisions.
Stress testing
Applying severe but plausible adverse scenarios to a portfolio or plan to reveal vulnerabilities that normal-range assumptions would conceal.
Agile leadership
A leadership style using short iterative cycles, empowered teams, and rapid feedback to respond to fast-changing risk conditions.
Climate risk
Physical and transition risks from changing climate, including extreme weather losses and losses from the shift to a low-carbon economy.
Cyber risk aggregation
The tendency of cyber incidents to affect many insureds simultaneously through shared technology, creating correlated losses that challenge diversification.
Risk owner
The named individual accountable for managing a specific risk and its treatment plan, ensuring clear ownership rather than diffuse responsibility.