Risk Event

Overview

A risk event is an occurrence or change in circumstances that causes, reveals, or may cause an adverse outcome related to an identified risk.

Risk Event is closely connected to Risk Impact, Risk Likelihood, and Risk Taxonomy. It is not the risk itself: a risk describes uncertainty and potential consequences, while an event is a specific occurrence that can be recorded, investigated, measured, and linked to controls.

Operational implementation should define event thresholds, capture date and discovery time, classify cause and impact, link affected processes and controls, preserve evidence, record recoveries, identify near misses, and feed lessons into risk assessment.

The principal failure modes include under-reporting, duplicate events, inconsistent loss values, missing near misses, delayed discovery, events closed before impact stabilizes, and inability to link events to risk owners.

Useful measures include event frequency, gross and net loss, near misses, time to record, repeat events, recoveries, and control failures associated with events.

Operationally, teams should define event thresholds, capture date and discovery time, classify cause and impact, and link affected processes and controls. Key risks include under-reporting, duplicate events, inconsistent loss values, and missing near misses.

For Risk Event, the assessment should evaluate the use of an adverse outcome related to an identified risk. The assessment record should separate observed evidence supporting the use of an adverse outcome related to an identified risk from assumptions, state the time horizon and existing controls, and identify who owns any remaining exposure. Monitoring should test whether the conditions described in the use of an adverse outcome related to an identified risk have changed enough to require a new rating, treatment, or approval.