What is Resilience Arena?

Resilience Arena is a crisis simulation, scoring and assurance platform from Resilience Guard. It places leadership and crisis teams inside a realistic, escalating scenario, scores every decision against recognised resilience and security standards, and turns the result into structured, audit-ready evidence, all within a single governed environment.

How is it different from crisis training or a learning system?

Training and learning systems record that people attended and completed content. Resilience Arena measures how leaders actually decide under pressure, scores those decisions against standards, and produces a defensible record of capability that improves over time. It exercises judgement rather than logging attendance.

How is it different from a governance, risk and compliance platform?

Governance and compliance platforms hold registers, controls and policies, but they do not put a crisis in front of the people who would have to manage one. Resilience Arena adds the exercising and the scored, evidenced outcome that those platforms lack, and it can sit alongside an existing governance toolchain rather than replacing it.

Is a Resilience Arena score a compliance certification?

No. Scores are indicative maturity and exposure estimates derived from exercise performance. They support an organisation's evidence base and regulatory readiness, but they are not certifications or legal advice, and the acceptance of any output as evidence remains at the discretion of the relevant authority or auditor.

Which standards and regulations does it support?

Exercises and scores are mapped to ISO 22301, ISO 27001, the NIS2 Directive, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and a governance maturity benchmark, so that ordinary use supports readiness across the regimes that matter to regulated and critical organisations.

Where is our data held, and is it confidential?

Resilience Arena offers European data residency, with a Swiss-residency option, or a fully on-premise installation inside your own boundary. Access is role-based, every material action is recorded in an immutable audit log, and each client environment is strictly isolated from every other. Confidentiality is treated as a first principle, consistent with Resilience Guard's practice.

Can we use our own scenarios and keep ownership of our content?

Yes. The scenario and playbook library is client-owned and editable on demand, so exercises reflect your real risk landscape, sector and language of operation. Your content remains yours.

Who needs a licence, and is it suitable for the board?

Resilience Arena is licensed by named user for the senior cohort that matters in a crisis: the resilience and crisis team, the executive committee and board, and the cross-functional crisis roles. A simplified board mode lets executives take part and read clear results without training, while read-only auditor access is provided for assurance functions.

Can it run on our own infrastructure?

Yes. The platform is available as a hosted service operated by Resilience Guard, or as an on-premise installation on infrastructure you control, for organisations whose policy or regulator requires it.

How do we get started?

Most organisations begin with a confidential walkthrough tailored to their context, followed by a scoped pilot with a real group that establishes a baseline and produces board-ready evidence within a short timeframe. Resilience Guard's advisory team responds within 24 hours.

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Insurance Operational Resilience Case Study | Resilience Guard

Home › Insights › Case studies › Banking and financial services

Case study · Banking and financial services

Operational resilience and continuity assurance for a multinational insurer

Claims continuity, catastrophe surge readiness and crisis governance for an organisation that must function precisely when disruption peaks.

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Practitioner led since 2014 Led by John Zeppos, Founder and Group Managing Director DRI Accredited training provider Three BCI Global Awards 16+ EU Horizon research projects Trusted to train 3 of the Big Four

SectorInsurance and financial services

FootprintEurope and international regions

FrameworksISO 22301, DORA context

FocusClaims continuity and crisis governance

Business context: insurance resilience is market resilience

Insurers must remain functional precisely when disruption is at its peak. The environment was shaped by:

Large scale catastrophe events and systemic claims surges.
Cyber enabled interruption of customer service platforms.
Regulatory escalation under operational resilience expectations.
Dependency on outsourced ICT and third party service providers.
Increasing assurance requirements under frameworks related to DORA.

How can the insurer maintain uninterrupted operational capability during extreme disruption, while strengthening audit and supervisory resilience confidence?

The situation

The organisation operated across multiple regions with differing maturity across business functions:

Inconsistent recovery objectives across claims environments.
Limited resilience governance for outsourced ICT services.
Fragmented crisis escalation during high volume disruption.
No unified operational resilience measurement across regions.
Growing regulatory scrutiny of systemic service continuity.

How the engagement was built

The engagement architecture: governance above, sector-specific pillars, an ISO 22301 evidence base beneath.

01Claims critical service prioritisation and surge continuity

With executive leadership we identified the services that must remain stable: claims intake and processing, catastrophe surge capability, policyholder communication and support, underwriting continuity.

02Outsourcing and ICT continuity assurance

Structured oversight of outsourced ICT and third party services, with evidence readiness and escalation governance aligned to operational resilience expectations.

03Crisis governance for catastrophe scale disruption

A unified crisis escalation structure across regions, designed for the simultaneous operational, market and reputational pressures of catastrophe events.

04Executive exercising and supervisory confidence

Leadership exercises on cyber and mass claims scenarios, producing the measurable evidence supervisors and auditors expect.

What programmes of this maturity deliver

Consistent with the firm's experience across the sector, high maturity programmes of this kind typically achieve:

Typical ranges across comparable high maturity programmes, not a single client claim.

Stronger catastrophe surge continuity.
Improved regulatory and audit confidence.
Enhanced crisis escalation coordination across regions.

Frequently asked questions: Insurance resilience

How does ISO 22301 apply to insurance organisations?

It ensures claims critical services, customer support and catastrophe continuity priorities are measurable and auditable across operations.

Why is outsourcing resilience essential for insurers?

Insurance continuity increasingly depends on outsourced ICT and third party services. Effective resilience requires structured oversight, evidence readiness and escalation governance aligned with operational resilience expectations.

What does DORA mean for insurers?

DORA sets requirements across ICT risk management, incident reporting, resilience testing and oversight of critical ICT providers for financial entities, with evidence expected, not assurances.

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